Sunny Boy had a plan of his own, and he was determined to carry it through. This was nothing less than to go and hunt for Grandpa’s lost Liberty Bonds.
“For I know that kite fell down right by the old walnut tree,” said Sunny Boy to himself for the twentieth time. “I saw it go down—swish! I’ll bet Grandpa didn’t look under the right tree.”
Without much trouble he coaxed a big piece of gingerbread from Araminta—who was very curious to learn where he was going—which he crowded into his pocket. Expecting to be gone a long time, he took an apple from the basket on the dining-room table and two bananas. Bruce, lying on the back door mat, decided to go with him, but Bruce was beginning to get the least little bit fat and old, and when he had followed Sunny as far as the brook pasture and saw that he had no intention of stopping to rest under the trees, that wise collie dog turned and went back to the house.
“Hey, there! Where are you going this hot day?” Jimmie, setting out tomato plants in a side field, shouted to him.
Sunny Boy waved his hand and plodded on. He was a silent child when he had his mind fixed on a certain thing, and he was intent on finding those bonds this morning.
The sun was hot, and when he reached the pretty brook the water looked so clear and cool that Sunny was tempted to go wading. Only he had promised his mother not to go in the water unless some one was with him, and then, too, wading would delay the hunt for the bonds. He walked along the bank until he came to the uneven line of stones piled together to make a crossing.
“I spect it wabbles,” said Sunny Boy aloud, putting one foot on a stone, which certainly did “teeter.”
He started to cross slowly, and in the middle of the stream his right foot slipped—splash!—into the icy cold water.
“My land sakes!” gasped poor Sunny Boy, who was certainly acquiring a number of new words, much to his mother’s worry. “I guess that water’s as cold as—as our icebox at home.”
With one wet foot and one dry foot he finished his journey and landed safely on the other side of the brook. He was hungry by then, and so sat down to eat the gingerbread under a large tree whose roots had grown far out over the water.