Sonny Boy felt sure that she was wishing she had borrowed some other one of the Plummers who wouldn’t have brought a parrot, and he was very unhappy. When Aunt Kate sat down at her desk to write an advertisement for a girl who changed a parrot for a cage of white mice, Sonny Boy stole up to the attic and got the parrot, and slipped out at the front door. He did not know the name of the station where Lena and her nurse had stopped, but he knew that it was the next station to the city, and that there was a children’s hospital there.
When Aunt Kate had said they couldn’t find the little girl without advertising, as they did not know her last name, Sonny Boy had been too bashful to tell her he thought he could.
But of course any little Poppleton boy knew what tongues were made for, and Sonny Boy felt he could make things come out right if that parrot would only keep still!
He had learned the way to the station and was hurrying on when a newsboy’s cry about the war aroused Polly.
She shouted all her war-cries, and such a crowd gathered that Sonny Boy was forced to turn into a side street and run.
But fortunately the side street led to the station, and once on board the train Polly became quiet.
He got out at the station where Lena had left him, the day before, and inquired for the children’s hospital.
There was no children’s hospital, he was told, but there was a children’s ward in the big general hospital on the hill, which the station-agent pointed out to him.
He rang timidly at the great door of the hospital, then waited a long time.
“Hurry up! Hurry up!” shrieked Polly. And a man, looking very much astonished, opened the door.