Sunny Boy in the Big City Part 6

The driver was perched up on a little seat behind and held the reins over the roof of the coach.

"That's a hansom cab," explained Mrs. Horton. "They were very popular and stylish before the automobile came."

Privately Sunny Boy thought it wasn't very handsome, and the poor old horse was no longer stylish if he had ever been, but there was little time to think about hansom cabs, for just then Mother remarked:

"Here's the big store where they have such a wonderful toy department."

It was a big store, much larger than any Sunny Boy had ever seen in Centronia, and it seemed filled with people to him.

"Oh, Mother!" he stopped so short that several people nearly fell over him, "what's that?"

"That" was a long s.h.i.+ning moving thing on which people were being wafted gently upward. It reminded Sunny Boy of the fairy tale he had seen in the motion picture where the Wis.h.i.+ng Girl who wanted to fly was suddenly granted her wish.

"Where do they go?" Sunny Boy asked so loudly that a floor-man heard and answered him.

"That's an escalator," he announced, much as one might say: "That's a strawberry."

"It's a moving stairway, precious," added his mother. "I suppose you want to ride on it. Well, first I must get Daddy some handkerchiefs, for we never packed him a one. And we'll find out on which floor the toys are, too."

Sunny Boy waited patiently while the handkerchiefs were bought, and then while Mother chose a new veil, a pretty white one with black dots.

"Here are the post-cards, Sunny," she said, turning into another aisle. "See which ones you want for Ruth and Nelson."

"What do they say, Mother?" asked Sunny Boy, wis.h.i.+ng he could read.

"May I send all the boys some?"

Mrs. Horton said he could, and she helped him select a dozen views of New York, promising that he should print his name on each one and that she would write whatever messages he wanted sent.

"You can look them over this afternoon," she suggested, "and see what places you want to see first. That will be nice, won't it?"

"Yes, Mother," agreed Sunny Boy. "And now can we ride on the alligator?"

"The escalator?" corrected Mother, laughing heartily. "Why yes, I think we are about ready to do that. The girl at the handkerchief counter told me the toys were on the sixth floor. Do you think you want to ride that far on such a queer thing?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He had not supposed that a moving stairs went further than one story" (Page 63)]

Sunny Boy was enraptured. He had not supposed that a moving stairway went further than one story, and the thought of riding to the sixth floor was bliss. He felt decidedly odd when he put his foot on the moving platform at first, but ahead of him and behind him people were serenely moving up, so he knew everything must be all right. When he reached the top he slid off with such an unexpected b.u.mp that he gave a startled cry and the girl who was there to see that no one was hurt laughed at him.

"You said we could go to the sixth floor!" exclaimed Sunny Boy, turning aggrievedly to Mother who had followed him.

"And so we can, dear, but not without stopping," explained Mrs.

Horton. "See, we turn here and there is another escalator. At every floor we get off one and then on another."

Sunny Boy thought this was absolutely the most delightful way of going upstairs he had ever tried. He wondered why the stores at home didn't have moving stairways, and he resolved to come down the whole six flights the same way. He was astonished when the time came to go home and he found that the escalators didn't carry people down, but only up.

"I see a horse!" he shouted, when they were half way up the last stairway.

They stepped off onto a floorful of toys that reminded Sunny Boy of Christmas and birthdays and Santa Claus all rolled into one. A tank of water in which boats were sailing caught his eye.

"I wish I'd brought my boat," he remarked, standing on tiptoe to see over the edge. "See the motor-boat, Mother? It's just like Captain Franklin's."

Captain Franklin was the man who had found Sunny Boy when he was drifting out to sea in a rowboat that summer, as related in the book called "Sunny Boy at the Seash.o.r.e."

"If you want to see them race," said the young man in charge of the boats, "I'll wind another up for you."

CHAPTER V

SUNNY BOY LOSES HIS ROOM

Of course Sunny Boy wanted to see the boats race, and he hung breathlessly over the edge of the tank while the good-natured clerk wound up the motor-boats and sent them racing across several times.

"Come, dear," Mrs. Horton urged at last. "You haven't seen the trains yet, nor the rocking-horses. And Daddy will be waiting for us at one, you know."

So Sunny Boy, very reluctantly, thanked the man in charge of the boats and walked down the aisle to see the mechanical trains.

Goodness! the trains were more fascinating than the boats. There were miles and miles of track, and little colored signal lights, and stations and tunnels and freight and coal and pa.s.senger trains, with freight and coal and pa.s.sengers to go in them.

"All running!" marveled Sunny Boy. "Just like Christmas!"

Mrs. Horton was trying to pull him past this absorbing counter, for they really had a great deal more to see and the time was getting short, when Sunny gave a shout.

"Mother, look! There's a runaway engine! Whee, a wreck!"

Sure enough, an engine with no cars attached was coming rapidly down grade toward a pa.s.senger train stopped at one of the stations. Sunny Boy's voice had drawn a number of the shoppers, and a small crowd gathered to see what would happen. The clerk had left the counter and gone out to an aisle table to have a floor-man sign his book, and there was no one about to prevent the wreck.

Smas.h.!.+ with a truly thrilling noise the engine crashed into the train and the pa.s.sengers must have, as the newspapers say, "received a severe shaking up."

"Oh, gee!" breathed Sunny Boy, and his sigh was echoed by the grown-ups.

People looked at one another and smiled.

"n.o.body hurt!" announced the clerk, who had hurried back when he heard the noise of the collision. "I said that switch needed overhauling yesterday. Guess I'll shut off the current and get a repair man to come up."

As there would be no more moving trains for the present, Sunny Boy was willing to go to see the rocking-horses. He had a fine time, too, for the clerk lifted him up on the largest one, and very high from the ground Sunny felt.

But it was the tin automobile that captured his heart.

"Oh, Mother!" he said when he found it, "it's just like our car, two lamps and all."

"It is pretty nice," admitted Mrs. Horton. "We'll have to see what Daddy says about one when we go home. You are getting too old for the kiddie car, aren't you? How does this one run, dear?"

Sunny Boy showed her, and explained how the brakes worked, and they had an interesting half-hour comparing the different kinds of cars and learning how much they cost. Then Mother discovered that it was time to go back to the hotel if they were to meet Daddy promptly.

"I could stay here," suggested Sunny Boy, his arm about a stuffed camel that was almost large enough for him to ride. His jaw went up and down if you poked it right, and he had two most realistic humps.

"You could go and see Daddy and then come back and get me."