“We’re going to find it long before Daddy comes,” said Grandpa stoutly. “Right after dinner we’re going over to the woods. Sunny can remember about where he thinks the kite fell. Cheer up, Olive—we’re sorry we didn’t remember about ‘hands off’ when other people’s property is about, but every one forgets once in a while. And I was careless—I’m as great a sinner as Sunny. And now forgive us both before we’re quite drowned in our tears.”
Mother and Sunny Boy had another little cry all to themselves upstairs and he told her that never, never would he touch anything that did not belong to him again without first asking. Then they both bathed their faces in clear cold water and felt better. No one mentioned bonds at dinner, and there was strawberry short-cake which Sunny Boy declared was as good as his favorite chocolate ice cream. And right after dinner he and Grandpa went out to hunt for the lost kite.
CHAPTER X
GOING FISHING
But though Grandpa and Sunny Boy hunted and hunted and hunted, till it seemed as though they must have covered every inch of the big woods; though they searched the tangled thickets where the briery blackberry bushes grew along the edge of the brook; though they looked up at the trees till their necks ached, hoping perhaps to find the kite caught in the branches; still they had to come home without the precious Liberty Bonds.
“Never mind,” said Grandpa, as they made their way toward home over a little pathway of stones tumbled together in the brook to make a bridge, “Never mind, Sunny. If we can’t find them, we can’t, and there is no use in feeling bad about it any longer. You didn’t mean to lose the bonds, we all know that, so we’ll just stop crying over spilled milk and cheer up and be happy again.”
But it was a very unhappy little boy who went to bed early that night—for the long tramp had tired him—and for several days after the loss of the kite Sunny Boy kept rather closely to the house.
He liked to be in the kitchen with Araminta or on the side porch with Grandma and Mother. Jimmie and Bruce tried to coax him to go with them, but he said politely that he didn’t feel like it.