To be lame was worse than to be bow-legged, and Sonny Boy felt a thrill of pity for Otto. He hoped Otto wasn’t cross-eyed, and he quite longed to ask if fractions and spelling came hard to him.
When it was nearly dark the nurse said that the next stopping-place would be their station, and she put a newspaper over the parrot’s cage and made ready to leave the car.
The train would reach the city soon after it left their station, she said, so Sonny Boy covered his mouse-cage with a newspaper, too, and prepared to say good-bye to his new friend.
There was great hurry and bustle when Lena and her nurse reached their station, but Lena ran back after she had gone down the car steps to tell Sonny Boy that he was one of the nicest boys she had ever seen, and had been beautifully kind all the afternoon to her and to her nurse. Sonny Boy wished that Polly could have heard her!
In the great city station Aunt Kate’s big, pompous coachman came shouting through the crowd for “Master Peter Plummer.” And Sonny Boy had to stop to think who it was he meant, for in Poppleton he was never called anything but Sonny Boy.
“Take your things, sir?” said the pompous footman, just as if Sonny Boy were grown up!
“I’ll take this, please,” said Sonny Boy, keeping hold of the cage. “It’s full of white mice.”
“Dewey! Sampson! Hobson! Cock-a-doodle-doo! Pussy! Pussy! Scat! Polly wants a cracker!” cried a shrill voice from the cage. And the pompous coachman stared in amazement.
