rd, the horse stopped suddenly. He pointed
his ears straight ahead and then turned the wagon around so quickly
that the girls inside cried out in fright. They thought they were
going to be tipped out in the snow. But the horse was walking slowly
up a driveway, and now he stopped again and Sunny Boy saw that he stood
in front of a barn.
The barn doors were closed and the children heard a horse inside give a
loud neigh. Their own horse answered.
"I'll bet he lives here," said Jimmie Butterworth.
Sunny Boy waited a minute, and then, as no one opened the barn doors,
he looked around for a house. Yes, there was a house; at least there
was a chimney showing through the driving snow.
"I'll go tell the folks the horse is here," he said. "You wait for
me." They all wanted to come, but Sunny Boy pointed out that the horse
might go off again. So Perry Phelps and Carleton agreed to hold him
and keep the blanket on him, while Sunny Boy and Jimmie Butterworth
went to tell the people in the house that their horse had come home.
The two little boys walked out of the drive way and started to go
across the field to the house. Sunny Boy was ahead, and suddenly he
went into a snowdrift up to his neck!
"Do you suppose it is as deep as that all the way there?" he gasped,
when Jimmie helped him out. There was snow inside his rubber boots and
down under his coat collar. But Sunny Boy seldom fussed even when he
was not quite comfortable.
Luckily, it was not as deep all the way to the house, and after they
had walked and stumbled and even run a little, they reached the front
door of the farmhouse. Sunny Boy rapped on it, and a woman came in
answer to his knock. She held a small child in her arms.
"Why, Sunny Boy!" she cried. "How did you ever get here in weather
like this? Where is your mother? Come in quickly, out of the storm."
It was Mrs. Parkney, and Sunny Boy was so surprised that before he
could say a word he found himself in the warm kitchen with the seven
Parkney children and Mr. and Mrs. Parkney all standing around him and
Jimmie.
"Does a horse live here?" was Sunny Boy's first question. "He's
waiting outside your barn. And the other children are there, too."
Mr. Parkney, who by the way looked strong and well again, soon had
everything all straight. He and Bob went out to the barn and put the
horse in his stall and brought back the five children. Mrs. Parkney
spread a red cloth on the kitchen
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