Bump—bang—bumpty, bang! Down the stairs suddenly rolled the drum, making a fearful racket on the steps as it bounded from side to side. Down the stairs it rolled, across the narrow strip of hall, past Harriet, now on her knees scrubbing the green and white tiles, under the ladder of the awning man, down the steps, and right out into the street! After it scrambled Sunny Boy, as fast as his tan sandals would take him. He was just in time to see his drum roll to the middle of the street and stop in the center of the heavy traffic. A big furniture van, drawn by three horses, was headed right for it.
“It’ll be smashed! Oh, oh!” Sunny Boy wailed, hopping up and down on the curb, but remembering even in his excitement that he had promised not to go off the pavement when alone. “They’ll ride right over my drum!”
“I guess not!” cried a tall man, and darted out from behind Sunny. He rushed to where the drum lay and snatched it up, almost from under the horses’ feet.
The colored man driving the furniture van grinned.
“Most busted dat drum for sure!” he shouted. “If this off horse, Billy, ever put his foot through it, good-by drum!”
“And there you are!” The tall man gave Sunny Boy back his drum with a flourish. “Just as good as new, except for a little hole that I’m willing to bet a cookie your mother can mend for you. Isn’t she waving for you to come in? I thought so. You run along now, and see if she doesn’t mend it.”
Mother was on the front steps watching for him. Sunny thanked the tall man, who said that it was nothing, nothing at all: he’d never rescued a drum before, but he was glad to have the experience, and that things always turned out well for small boys who stayed on the sidewalks and didn’t dash out into the streets to get run over. Then Sunny climbed up the steps and held out his drum for Mother to see.
“The man said you could mend it,” he said wistfully. “Can you, Mother? ’Cause when things break, I miss ’em.”
Mrs. Horton managed to hug her son, drum and all, though there really wasn’t much space where they stood. She was under the awning man’s ladder, and he was shaking and moving the large awning about. Inside the door stood Harriet and her brush and bucket.
“So, ’twas the drum!” smiled Harriet. “I couldn’t see what it was went rolling by me like lightning, and Sunny Boy tearing after it. All I heard was a noise like thunder.”