Sunny went on, and soon he was sure that he was coming to the place where he had seen his kite fall. To be sure, the inside of the woods looked very different from the outside, and Sunny began to understand why he and Grandfather had not found the bonds as easily as they had hoped to. Still, he felt he was “getting warm” as they say in the games of seeking, and he began to look about him closely.
“It was right here—” His apple fell out of his blouse and he stooped to pick it up. He sprang up with a shriek and ran screaming toward an opening in the woods.
“It was a snake—a great, big, nasty, bitey snake!” he sobbed. “I put my hand right on it—all slippy and cold!”
He looked back—was it a snake after all? What was that curved black thing that lay there so quietly at the foot of a tree?
Then Sunny Boy did a very brave thing indeed. He was all alone, remember, and there was no one to laugh at him had he gone on home believing that he had touched a snake. But he liked to be very sure in his own mind, and he went back, cautiously and ready to run if a twig snapped, but back, nevertheless, to the place where he thought he had seen the snake. Any one, you know, may be frightened, but to face the fear and see if it is an afraid thought, or something really scary—that takes a truly brave person. And always afterward Sunny Boy was to be glad that he had had the courage to go back and see.
For his snake was only an old twisted tree root, after all!
“But I guess it’s dinner time, an’ I can come again an’ look for the bonds,” he told a chipmunk. “Maybe Jimmie will come to-morrow and help hunt.”
This time Sunny Boy crossed the stone crossing without getting either foot wet and he was half way up to the house when he saw Peter and Paul standing hitched to the fence. They had been hauling the tomato plants for Jimmie and Grandpa, who was always kind to the farm animals, had ordered them to be unharnessed and tied in the shade while the plants were being set out.
“No horse likes to be anchored to a wagon when ’tisn’t necessary,” said kind Grandpa.
“Jimmie’s always saying he will let me ride Peter,” grumbled Sunny Boy, looking very little as he stood by the fence, fumbling with the strap that tied Peter fast. “Pretty soon we’ll be going home, Mother says, and I won’t ever learn to ride.”