Sunny Boy in the Big City Part 10

"Is Central Park bigger than Brookside?" Sunny Boy asked, as they drove over a well-kept road past the greenest of green lawns and bright flower beds. Brookside was the name of Grandpa Horton's farm.

"How big is Brookside?" asked the driver, slapping the reins to make his horse go faster.

"Oh, ever so big," Sunny Boy a.s.sured him. "Seventy-nine acres, Daddy said."

"Well, you could put Brookside right down in Central Park and never see it," announced the driver complacently. "This park has eight hundred and seventy-nine acres."

"Gee!" murmured Sunny Boy.

He was silent for a few moments, trying to imagine how large the park must be.

"What a funny way to hay," he remarked, as they came up to a horse tramping steadily over the gra.s.s pulling a machine that looked something like a mower. "Grandpa didn't do it that way."

"They're cutting the gra.s.s," explained the driver of the carriage.

"Guess you haven't seen one of those machines. If they had only a lawn mower like the one your father uses on your lawn at home, you know, the gra.s.s would never get cut in one summer."

"Can't we get out?" Mrs. Horton asked next. "I'd like to go up and see the reservoirs."

"Sure you can," was the quick response. "I'll wait right here for you.

Suppose you'll want to go in the snake house, too, and see the menagerie and the monkeys."

"Frank said to see the monkeys, didn't he, Mother?" said Sunny Boy.

"But he didn't say anything about snakes."

They were out of the carriage now and walking toward the reservoirs.

"No, and I don't believe we want to see the snakes," returned Mrs.

Horton. "I don't like them very much, and if you don't care I'd much rather see the monkeys. They can do so many funny tricks."

Sunny Boy didn't care about snakes, and he forgot them right away when he saw the gallons of water, spread out like a smooth lake.

"Is it all to drink?" he wanted to know. "Can't they go swimming in it, Mother? Where does it come from?"

"I'm afraid I don't know where the water comes from," admitted Mrs.

Horton, "but we know it must be piped from miles and miles away. Think of all the thirsty people in New York who are glad to get a cool, clean drink this warm day."

"Wouldn't they like to swim in it?" insisted Sunny Boy.

"My, no, precious! No one must swim in water that is to be drunk, you must know that. Now we'll go back to our carriage, or the driver will be tired of waiting."

When they came to the menagerie and the monkey house, Mrs. Horton decided not to keep the carriage standing. She did not know how long they would be, and she knew that they could easily get back to the street and car lines again. She paid the driver and he drove off, whistling merrily.

"Let's see the bears, first," suggested Sunny Boy.

And they did. Sunny Boy pressed so close to the cages of the animals that his mother pulled him back repeatedly. They saw lions and tigers and bears and elephants and more queer and curious animals than Sunny Boy dreamed existed.

"I like the bears best," he told Mother, as they came away. "The polar bear looked just like our fur rug at home. And he had cakes of ice to sleep on."

"That is because he is used to cold weather," explained Mrs. Horton.

"The polar bear isn't well or happy unless his den is nice and cold."

In the monkey house Sunny Boy was fascinated by one little black-faced monkey that kept running up to the top of his cage, swinging across, and then hanging by his tail at the other end before he dropped with a bang that would shake any one else's teeth loose.

"Doesn't he get a headache?" asked Sunny Boy aloud.

A boy who had been standing with his nose pressed against the cage bars, a rather shabby-looking boy with big holes in his tan stockings, answered without turning around.

"He's been doing that for the last hour," said the boy. "I think some one was mean to him early this morning and he is just mad."

Sunny moved closer to the other boy.

"You _are_ Joe Brown, aren't you?" he asked, puzzled.

The boy turned sharply, and they saw that it was Joe Brown. A shabbier Joe Brown than he had been on the train, and with a pinched hungry look on his face that went to Mrs. Horton's heart.

"Did you find your aunt, Joe?" she asked kindly. "And do you like New York?"

Joe s.n.a.t.c.hed off his cap awkwardly when Mrs. Horton spoke to him, and he tried to stuff it into his pocket now as he shuffled his feet and mumbled that he liked New York pretty well. Plainly he was not comfortable.

"Aunt Annabell moved away," he explained. "I went to the house, but Italians were living in it and they didn't know where she'd moved to.

But I guess I can find her. Folks don't drop out of sight in New York."

"But where are you staying?" said Mrs. Horton. "What do you do? Can't I or Mr. Horton help you, Joe? A boy alone in a great city like this might need a friend, you know."

Joe Brown scuffled his feet uneasily.

"I'm all right," he insisted.

"Well, at least come and have some lunch with Sunny and me," invited Mrs. Horton. "Perhaps you can tell us some place to go? And then come up to the hotel with us this afternoon and we'll see if Mr. Horton can't find out something about your aunt."

Joe knew of a place where lunch could be had, and he and Mrs. Horton and Sunny Boy were soon seated at a white-topped little table eating sandwiches and milk. Joe ate as though he were half-starved, and Mrs.

Horton pretended to be hungrier than she was so that he would not be afraid to eat all the sandwiches he wanted.

"Has Sunny seen the carrousel?" Joe demanded, when the ice-cream had been brought and Sunny was deep in the blissful employment of scooping spoonfuls out of the white mound before him.

"No, I haven't," answered Sunny quickly.

"Well you'll like it--it's like a big playground," explained Joe.

"Swings, merry-go-rounds, all that kind of stuff, you know. And it's pretty around there, too. I'll take you if you want to see it."

After they had finished lunch he did take them, and he was very good and patient, too, about swinging Sunny Boy and giving him rides on all the contrivances that make small people happy.

"Let the old cat die," called Sunny Boy, as he was being swung for the third time.

Slower and slower went the swing, and finally it stopped. Sunny Boy sat still, expecting Joe to come and lift him out, but no Joe came.

Mrs. Horton was quietly reading on one of the benches. Sunny Boy turned his head. Where was Joe?

"Looking for the boy that was swinging you?" demanded a girl in the next swing. "He ran off. I saw him going across the park after he gave you that one good push. Was he your brother? Did he get mad at you?"