sented Sunny Boy, but he was thinking about going to the
Park with Grandpa Horton and trying his new skates, and not about
making a "private" skating pond in the back yard. "There! I heard the
front door shut. I hope Daddy's come."

Sunny Boy and Nelson ran downstairs to find Daddy and Mother Horton in
the hall, taking off their coats.

"Nelson, your mother wants you to come home," said Mr. Horton. "We saw
her in the window as we passed your house. She's waiting for you.
Your Aunt Caroline has come."

"Take a popcorn ball, Nelson," said Sunny Boy's mother, as Nelson began
to put on his coat and hat. "And here is one for Ruth." Ruth was
Nelson's little sister.

Nelson said good-bye to Sunny Boy and ran down the steps of the Horton
house and up his own. It was never any trouble for Nelson or Sunny Boy
to go calling on each other.

"Now we can go skating, can't we, Grandpa?" asked Sunny Boy eagerly.
"I thought Nelson stayed ever so long."

"Why, Sunny Boy, how impolite you are!" cried his mother. "That isn't
a nice thing to say. Suppose you should go to see Nelson and he should
spend the time wishing you would go home--how would you feel?"

Sunny Boy looked uncomfortable.

"Well, he can come back after I go skating," he suggested. "Grandpa
promised we could go this afternoon, Mother."

"So I did; and we'll start this minute," declared Grandpa Horton,
coming out into the hall and smiling at his small grandson. "Who ever
heard of a little boy with a brand-new pair of skates and ice on the
pond, not going skating, Olive? Sunny Boy is just as polite as he ever
was, Olive, but we have to go skating, whether we have company or not."

"Oh, Father, how you do spoil Sunny Boy!" cried Mrs. Horton,
half-laughing. But she kissed them both and waved to them as they went
off, the new skates dangling over Sunny Boy's arm and buckled together
with a leather strap just as the big boys tie their skates.

"Can you skate, Grandpa?" the little boy asked, as they trudged along,
Grandpa's rosy face and white mustache showing above a gray and white
muffler and Sunny Boy's pink cheeks and dancing eyes set off by a
muffler of scarlet wool. "Will you go skating with me?"

"Why, I haven't been skating for thirty years!" exclaimed Grandpa
Horton. "I don't know whether I have forgotten or not, Sunny Boy. But
I have no skates, you see, and I shall not get any because I don't
expect to go skating often this winter. I'll ge