Sunny Boy in the Big City Part 8

"Now you're talking," said the clerk approvingly. "Here you are." He read from the big register: "'Mr. and Mrs. Harry Horton and son'.

You're son. And your room is 1038. Jack, you take him up, will you?

Is any one there, or have they gone out and left you alone?"

Sunny Boy explained that his mother was lying down, and Jack lifted him from the counter and went over with him to the elevator.

"He lost his room," he told the elevator boy as they shot up. "Didn't you bring him down?"

"Must have come down in one of the other cars," said the elevator boy.

"I don't remember him. Here's your floor."

Jack showed Sunny Boy which was the door to his room, and, still grinning at the idea of losing one's way in a hotel, he went back.

"Why, Sunny dear, where have you been?" Mrs. Horton was sitting up in bed as Sunny Boy came in. "I woke up a minute ago and thought you were still painting. Then I spoke to you and found you weren't in the room.

Where did you go?"

"I got lost," said Sunny Boy placidly.

He told his mother what had happened and she laughed.

"Here's Daddy," she announced, as some one rapped on the door. "Come in, Harry. Sunny Boy's adventures in New York have already begun."

So Mr. Horton heard the story.

"Well, well, we'll have to go out for our ride, or there's no knowing what will happen next," he said jokingly. "Want to come, Olive?"

Mrs. Horton answered that she didn't want to dress hurriedly and that she would rather wait for them and write a letter or two, perhaps.

"I'll help you write your post cards in the morning," she promised Sunny Boy. "Harriet will be expecting a card from you every day till it comes."

Sunny Boy and his father went out of the hotel and walked over toward Fifth Avenue. The trolley cars and automobiles and crowds of people seemed to Sunny Boy to be hopelessly mixed. He held tightly to Daddy's hand when they crossed the street, and he was very grateful to the tall policeman that made the traffic stop while the people surged safely across.

"Up top, you know, Daddy," he urged, trotting along, trying to keep step with his father's long stride.

"All right, up top we'll go," said Mr. Horton, smiling. "I thought we'd walk around to the Pennsylvania station and get a bus there. We may want to go home from there instead of the way we came."

CHAPTER VI

ON TOP OF THE BUS

The Pennsylvania Station is a beautiful building, but Sunny Boy hardly saw it, so eager was he to climb up the winding stairs on one of the busses.

"Are we going up, or down?" he chattered to Daddy, as they stood on the curb.

"Over first," explained Mr. Horton, "and then up. I thought we might go as far as Grant's Tomb; then you can see the river, and to-morrow, if Mother likes to, we will go down and through the Arch at Was.h.i.+ngton Square."

A bus came up and stopped presently, and Sunny Boy was afraid there would be no room left for him, so many people seemed to want to ride outside and enjoy the fine September afternoon.

"Careful, now," cautioned Mr. Horton, as he guided Sunny Boy up the narrow, steep stairs. "They will start before you get to the top."

Sure enough, the bus did start, but Sunny Boy had a firm grip on the iron railing. He thought it great fun to be going upstairs on a moving automobile, and when he reached the top, the very first seat, away up front, was vacant!

"P'haps I'd better take my hat off," he suggested, as he snuggled into the seat next the railing and Daddy sat down beside him. "The colored boy took my first one, you know, and if I lost this one Mother might not like it."

"Indeed she might not," agreed Mr. Horton. "Neither should I, because new hats cost money. You'll be more comfortable holding it, anyway."

Sunny Boy took it off then, and held it in his lap. When the conductor came for their fares, he held out a funny-looking thing and said they were to put the money in that.

"Let me," begged Sunny Boy.

Daddy gave him two ten-cent pieces, and he put them in the little slit and heard the bell ring twice.

Sunny Boy had never been so happy. He liked to look down from the high top of the bus and watch the motors and the people in the street. At nearly every cross street they had to stop while traffic went the other way, and often there would be four or five automobiles abreast.

Once Sunny, looking down, saw a little boy in a beautiful car looking up at him. Sunny Boy waved, and the little boy smiled delightedly and waved back. Then the whistle blew and the car shot far ahead of the slow-running bus.

"Where are we going now?" demanded Sunny, as their bus turned.

"Wait and see," smiled Mr. Horton.

And in a minute Sunny Boy saw on one side of him a row of handsome houses, on the other a strip of cement walk and a green park, and beyond that water that sparkled in the sun.

"This is Riverside Drive," said Mr. Horton. "See, Son, those are battles.h.i.+ps anch.o.r.ed out there."

Sunny Boy stood up to see better, while Daddy steadied him. He had never seen a battles.h.i.+p before except in pictures.

"What funny wire cages," he puzzled. "And see the little boat going out to them, Daddy."

"Those wire 'cages' as you call them, are masts," explained his father. "And the little boat is probably carrying some officers or sailors out to their s.h.i.+p. That is as near as the battles.h.i.+ps can come to the land, you see."

Sunny Boy wanted to know why, and Mr. Horton told him that the water wasn't deep enough close in sh.o.r.e.

"If you want to see a battles.h.i.+p better, perhaps go aboard one, we must visit the Navy Yard before we go home," he remarked.

Sunny Boy was sure he would like that.

The battles.h.i.+ps were left far behind now, and a man and woman riding horseback attracted Sunny's attention. He thought it must be fun to have a horse and go riding along such a beautiful drive.

"I could roller skate and Harriet could knit like that," he suggested, pointing to a boy skating merrily up and down while a white-capped nurse sat on a bench and knitted comfortably.

"Yes, you could," said his father. "But since Harriet isn't here, you'll have to write her about what you've seen instead. We get off at the next corner, Sunny; press the little black b.u.t.ton there by your hand."

Sunny Boy pressed the b.u.t.ton which rang the bell to tell the bus driver to stop, and he and Mr. Horton walked to the stairs. Sunny was very glad to have his father go first, because he discovered that coming downstairs was more ticklish than going up. He had a feeling that he was going to pitch forward on his yellow head.

However, they both reached the ground safely, and, his hand in Daddy's, Sunny Boy crossed over and stood at the flight of broad steps that led to Grant's Tomb.