ned Sunny Boy. "There's more out in the hall."
He put down his load and ran out to bring in the rest.
"But, precious," said Mrs. Horton, looking from the kiddie-car to her
little son, "we can't take all these things with us. Why, Mother wouldn't
have a place to put your socks and blouses, to say nothing of the cunning
bathing-suit we bought yesterday."
"You won't need them, you know," urged Aunt Bessie. "You'll be so busy
playing with the new things you'll find up at Grandpa Horton's that
you'll probably never remember the toys at home. Then when you come back
they will seem like new ones."
Sunny Boy was disappointed. His kiddie-car was the hardest to give up.
The woolly dog, too, was very dear to him. Mrs. Horton understood, and
she sat down in her low rocking chair and took her little boy on her
lap.
"The kiddie-car wouldn't be any fun in the country," she said. "There are
no stone pavements, you see, dear, and it wouldn't run on the grass. As
for the woolly dog, why you will have a real dog to play with--a collie
dog that will run after sticks and bring them to you and take walks with
you. That will be fun, won't it?"
Sunny Boy slid to the floor and stood up. He was excited.
"I am simply crazy to have a real dog," he declared.
Mrs. Horton stared at him, but Aunt Bessie, bending over the trunk, sat
down on the edge and laughed.
"Where in the world did you hear that, Sunny Boy?" asked Mother. "Who
talks like that?"
Aunt Bessie swooped down upon her nephew.
"I do," she told her sister. "But I'll have to be more careful when
little pitchers with big ears are about. Why don't you copy the nice
things I say, Sunny?"
"Isn't that nice?" puzzled Sunny. "Shouldn't I say it? Why not, Mother?"
"It isn't wrong, dear," Mrs. Horton assured him. "Aunt Bessie only means
that speaking that way is rather a bad habit to get into. We call it
exaggeration. Let me see, how shall I make you understand? Well, if I say
'I'm starving to death,' when I mean that I am hungrier than usual for
dinner, that's exaggeration. I couldn't be starving, unless I had had
nothing to eat for several days."
"And though some people think I'm crazy, I'm really not," concluded Aunt
Bessie gayly. "You think I'm rather nice, don't you, Sunny? And now I
wonder if there's a young man about who would be kind enough to take this
skirt down to Harriet and ask her to please press the hem?"
"I will," offered Sunny Boy. "And then I'll come
|