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Read Ebook: Sonny Boy by Swett Sophie Miriam
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Ebook has 228 lines and 9950 words, and 5 pages
Sonny Boy, with a very red face, followed the conductor to the baggage-car.
On a trunk a little girl was sitting, with her nurse, a rather cross-looking woman, beside her. Between them was a large cage. "If you want to leave your live stock here, you can go back to the car. I guess 'twill be safe enough," said the conductor. But Sonny Boy shook his head firmly.
"Oh, what lovely little dears!" cried the little girl. She was about as old a little girl as Trixie, but she had a bright, grown-up manner that made Sonny Boy feel bashful.
"Pussy? Pussy? Scat!" shrieked the parrot from the little girl's cage.
"Isn't Polly wonderful to know that they are mice?" cried the little girl to Sonny Boy.
But the mice, not being used to pussies, did not mind hearing her call a cat in the least.
Some were quietly nibbling at a lump of sugar which Trixie had put into the cage for them, and some were trying to thrust their heads through the wires to see the world.
"Polly is a gray African parrot," said the little girl. "She knows a lot, and she's worth a hundred dollars. We are carrying her to Otto, at the hospital, but we are a little afraid they won't let him keep her there, for some don't like her voice."
"I like it," said Sonny Boy, politely and truthfully.
"So do I like your mice," said the little girl as politely.
And then they felt they had known each other for a long time.
They sat down on a large trunk, with the cage of mice between them, and Sonny Boy told the little girl that the mice with black spots on them were Spaniards, and showed her just which of the white ones were Dewey and Sampson, and told her that the dashing little fellow that led all the others in daring swings and leaps was Hobson.
"Oh, if Otto could only see them!" cried the little girl. "He loves soldiers. He wants to be one, and only think! he isn't like other boys. His back isn't straight and he is lame, and though he is eleven you wouldn't think him more than eight."
To be lame was worse than to be bow-legged, and Sonny Boy felt a thrill of pity for Otto. He hoped Otto wasn't cross-eyed, and he quite longed to ask if fractions and spelling came hard to him.
When it was nearly dark the nurse said that the next stopping-place would be their station, and she put a newspaper over the parrot's cage and made ready to leave the car.
The train would reach the city soon after it left their station, she said, so Sonny Boy covered his mouse-cage with a newspaper, too, and prepared to say good-bye to his new friend.
There was great hurry and bustle when Lena and her nurse reached their station, but Lena ran back after she had gone down the car steps to tell Sonny Boy that he was one of the nicest boys she had ever seen, and had been beautifully kind all the afternoon to her and to her nurse. Sonny Boy wished that Polly could have heard her!
In the great city station Aunt Kate's big, pompous coachman came shouting through the crowd for "Master Peter Plummer." And Sonny Boy had to stop to think who it was he meant, for in Poppleton he was never called anything but Sonny Boy.
"Take your things, sir?" said the pompous footman, just as if Sonny Boy were grown up!
"I'll take this, please," said Sonny Boy, keeping hold of the cage. "It's full of white mice."
"Dewey! Sampson! Hobson! Cock-a-doodle-doo! Pussy! Pussy! Scat! Polly wants a cracker!" cried a shrill voice from the cage. And the pompous coachman stared in amazement.
"It's Lena's parrot! We must have changed cages! Oh, and she's got my white mice!" cried Sonny Boy.
SONNY BOY GOES IN SEARCH OF HIS WHITE MICE
SONNY BOY GOES IN SEARCH OF HIS WHITE MICE
"My dear Sonny Boy!" Aunt Kate leaned out of her carriage, ready to take him, big cage and all, into her arms.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo! Remember the Maine! Dewey! Sampson! Hobson!" screamed the parrot again. And the crowd following Sonny Boy and the coachman cheered and cheered.
Sonny Boy was afraid they would tear the cage from his arms. And they might have, had not the coachman used his fists to clear the way.
"Get us out of this, Jarvis!" said Aunt Kate.
Jarvis made the horses plunge forward, but Sonny Boy could hear the shouts following them along the street.
"She--she's a remarkable parrot," said Sonny Boy faintly.
"I should think so!" said Aunt Kate.
"I didn't exactly bring the parrot. She belongs to another fel--another girl," explained Sonny Boy, a little confused.
"I'm so glad!" said Aunt Kate heartily.
"I had my white mice in a cage just about as large as this. You ought to see them! Trixie and I have drilled them into two armies, American and Spanish, and we've got the commanders on both sides--and, oh, I don't know where they are now! I changed cages with a girl!"
"Oh, we'll find them, never fear! And the girl shall have her parrot," said Aunt Kate, growing suddenly very cheerful.
When they reached Aunt Kate's house a beautiful Angora cat ran into the hall to meet her mistress. "Scat! Scat!" screamed the parrot. She had torn the newspaper off the cage with her sharp beak and was taking a look around her.
Off whisked the cat in terror, and hid, so that no one could find her. Then Aunt Kate's little poodle waddled up to the cage. "Bow-wow!" barked the parrot. And they couldn't drag the poodle out of the coal-cellar that night!
Sonny Boy lay awake that night longer than he had ever lain awake a night in his life, planning how to rid himself of that parrot and get his white mice again.
In the morning Aunt Kate sent out for all the daily papers, but there was no advertisement of a lost parrot in them. The parrot, with her cage muffled, was shut up in the back attic, but Aunt Kate had a nervous headache.
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.
"I want to see a boy named Otto," said Sonny Boy. "I want to give him his parrot and--"
"Are you his brother?" asked the man. "Only relatives admitted." And when Sonny Boy shook his head he shut the door.
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