"He wrote me a letter. May I sit on it,
Grandpa?"

Sunny meant the seat of the mowing machine, and Grandpa lifted him in and
held him while Mr. Sites harnessed up a pair of fat white horses and Mr.
Hatch appeared from somewhere. Sunny Boy was acquainted with Mr. Hatch.
He was Araminta's father and did most of the farming for Grandpa. The
Hatches lived in a yellow house down the road, and Araminta had six
little brothers and sisters with whom Sunny sometimes played. So you see
he was not lonely.

"Now we'll go over to the fence," said Grandpa, lifting him down, "and
watch how the grass is cut. That saw-thing is the knife, and you must
never go near a mowing machine unless you can see the knife sticking up.
Little boys and dogs, and even men, can be very easily hurt if they are
careless and don't watch the knife."

So Grandpa and Mr. Sites and Sunny Boy sat on the fence and Bruce lay
down at their feet, while Mr. Hatch rode on the mowing machine round and
round the field. The fat white horses did not hurry in the least, but a
wide light green path marked where the grass was being cut. Grandpa
explained that when the sun had dried this grass it was called hay, and
that Peter and Paul liked it to eat and to make their beds of in the
winter. He promised Sunny Boy that he should help rake the hay the next
afternoon.

Whr-rr! purred the mowing machine as Mr. Hatch turned and the fat white
horses came toward them.

"Whoa!" the horses stopped suddenly.

Up came the long saw-knife, and Mr. Hatch jumped down from his seat and
bent over, looking at something on the ground.

"He's found something," said Mr. Sites to Grandpa. "Wonder if it is--"

"Hey, Sunny! Sunny Boy! Oh, Sunny Boy!" Mr. Hatch waved his big straw hat
wildly. "Come and see what I've got. Make Bruce stay there."

"I'll hold Bruce," said Mr. Sites. "You two go on over. I'll bet a cookie
I know what he's found."

Sunny Boy raced over the meadow, dragging Grandpa by the hand. Mr. Hatch
had looked very near, but it was a very wide meadow if you tried to run
across it.

"Hurry," sputtered Sunny Boy, red in the face with the excitement and
heat.

"Am hurrying," grunted Grandpa. "You seem to forget about the bone in my
leg!"

But Sunny Boy was too eager to see what Mr. Hatch had found to be sorry
even for a grandfather with a bone in his leg.

CHAPTER IX

SUNNY BOY FORGETS

When they reached the horses and the machine, the Something was around