COPYRIGHT STORY. The Losing of the Sunny Boy

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 19, 4 November 1908, Page 53

COPYRIGHT STORY. The Losing of the Sunny Boy

By

K. F. PURDON

POVV this catastrophe came about has never been made clear till now. Larry, the gardener, could have told you, an’ he would; but Larry had his share of that racial instinct by which an Irishman withholds information that may be awkward later- on. Larry accordingly held his tongue about the Losing of the Sunny Boy, until he had been found again; for, in fact, he had only been mislaid, as often happens with small things. Now, from the outsider’s view point, the Sunny Boy being only three, was not very big. But he loomed large in the eyes of the household that enshrined him. A pebble the size of a pea may not he a large stone, hut what a fine .diamond it would be! The Sunny Boy was among other children as a pearl among broken oyster shells, in the opinion, naturally infallible, of those who kne wrnost about him. It is pleasant, however, to reflect that many such gems exist, glittering in somewhat similar setting; to wit, a Holland over-all, strap shoes, and a wide hat. The Sunny Boy was in the garden one lovely afternoon,- and as usual very hard at work; as busy, in fact, as the big bumbley bees themselves that he was trying to catch in the- cool, ereasy, satin of the crimson peonies. He intended putting them under a flower-pot, and giving them his silver mug to make honey in.

But he was tiring of this, for the bees were quicker than his fingers. All at once he became aware of the blooms on a row of early peas, close by. They were very white and glistening, and just within reach of three-year-old fingers, and mother liked any flowers he picked for her, so he turned with fresh energy to this new business, and had the front of his short skirt—what he called his “lap” —nearly full of the pea-blooms, when up came Larry, just in time to be too late, as indeed often happened.

“Whats’ this you’re afther doin’ here at all, at all, Masther .Tack?” he said. (It may be explained here that this small person had been christened John. The “Sunny Boy” was merely a name invented, for private use only, by his ineffably happy and silly young parents. His mother liked it spelt with a “u.” For she was a disciple of the gospel of cheerfulness, who, though she eould not exactly make sunshine, did her best always by keeping her blinds up.) “Is it,” the irate Larry continued, “that you have all the blossoms picked off o’ the grand airly pays, no less! An’ we havin’ it laid out to send a dish of them to the show! I never seen as bould a little thing as what ye are! Wait till yer mama catches ye, that's all!” Well, really Larry ought to have known better! Actually scolding the Sunny Boy! Unheard of! And sueh waste of energy, too! For the Sunny Boy did not understand it, one bit. Mother “catching" him? Why, so she did, or he caught her, most evenings now, when they ran races on the tennis ground, and daddy lay smoking in his long chair. The Sunny Boy just stood, and listened, dropping his “lap" in his bewilderment, so that the pea-blooms fell in a soft white heap about the strap-shoes, mid looking up with sueh wide, puzzled eyes, that Larry relented. "Whisht now, alanna! Sure, it's not goin’ to go cry, y’are!” he said. And then, Larry, like Browning's “Boy in the Desert,” was stung with the splendour of a sudden thought. He knew no one would dream of punishing the Sunny Boy. Why should not he, Larry, give him’ a bit 'of a lesson, that would “I'arn him to go meddlin’ without I’ave, another timet”

So he took the Sunny Boy by the hand and said in a tragedy voice, “Here’s your mama cornin’! be off wid yerself out o’ this!” and hustled him through a door leading from the garden into a back lane. "I’ll not tell on ye!” he whispered, reassuringly. Then he went back into the garden, and shut the door. If the Sunny Boy had thought of listening, he might have heard Larry explaining about the peas to his mother, just as glibly as if that promise bad never been made. He might have heard mother laugh a little to herself, too, as she picked up enough of tire poor peablossoms to make a knot for the front of her pretty summer dress. Indeed, he did hear her eall out, “Sunny Boy! come and say good-bye!” as indifferently as if the peas were still growing hopefully towards the honours of the show. But it was her day to visit at the Children’s Hospital, so she could not wait for an answer—which, indeed, the Sunny Boy was in no mind to make. He thought this banishment into the lane was an improved kind of Hide and Seek; in which game, he had always understood that he was to say nothing, and to make himself as small as he could. The Sunny Boy always breatiled very hard, and got very red in the face, during this play. Half an hour later, when Larry, thinking the punishment had lasted long enough, opened the door and called to Master Jack, there was still no answer. There eould not well be now. No Jack was there to make reply. The Losing of the Sunny Boy had begun. But, Larry, never dreaming of such a climax to his scheme of discipline, just bade him “come in out o’ that, like a good child; is it that ye’re hidin’ on me ?” and getting no answer, “well, I can’t Ire delayin’ me time here, waitin’ on ye! Sure ye'll come, when ye have yersel’ plazed!” So he left the door open, and went back to his barrow, and sat on it to have a smoke; and the cook brought him out a cup of tea she was "afther wettin’.” On her way to the onion-bed she was; and it took her a good hour to get there and baek. And the parlour maid played croquet with two balls. She could have had a partner, if only the Sunny Boy had had a nurse. But this-child had been always minded by everybody, “handed about like snuff at a wake,” Larry said. For his mother liked to give him his bath herself and the cook liked to feed him, which was considered only fair, when she had the trouble of making things for him. And the parlour-maid liked to take him for walks, for reasons of her own. whenever that is, the Sunny Boy could be coaxed away from Larry and the garden. And that is how it happened, naturally enough, that no one missed him at first. Besides, when his mother was away, the household became like a set of dancers when the music suddenly stops; they don’t cease moving all at once, but their steps are spasmodic and out of time.

These people had “their minds riz from their business,” as cook afterwards confessed. They enjoyed themselves, however, and without any twinges of conscience. For they knew the “mistress” liked everyone to lie happy, and had "no mime little worritin’ ways wid her about what might go on, when her baek would be turned.”

Somehow, this made it all the worse when soiucmie remembered that it was time for the Runny Boy to be “claned tip,” and have his supper; and, behold I he was nowhere to be found! This deep, eued the cousUruatiou that seized them;

they had been trusted with a treasure, and it was gone! They called and they looked; at the rabbit-hutch, the hen-house, the cherry tree, which the Sunny Boy had been known to climb, to a height of at least n' from the ground; the water-barrels with their fascinating taps; all in vain. A horrible sense of the reality of the thing, that the .Sunny Boy was in truth not to be found, was making itself felt, when the mistress came gaily home, and ealled, as usual, “Sunny! My Sunny Boy! where are you?” it was dreadful that nobody could tell her. Everybody had thought that everybody else had had an eye on the child. And now, everyone thought secretly that everyone else was to blame—-everybody, that is, except Larry. And he was wishing, miserably, to be able to explain the lane episode. But telling the truth is like early rising, or eating with your fork—you must begin while you're young.

The Sunny Boy’s mother had a lot to tell him, about the siek babies in the Hospital—and slie had been hurrying home, and was hot and flushed. But now, all the light aud colour left her face, as if a flame that had been illuminating it had suddenly died out. She stood, silent and white, looking from one to another, trying to realise what had happened. It was terrible! Could there be only a blank where that busy little fellow had been playing! “You never think a thing so small, Could leave a place so large,” she might have said—only people don't, as a rule, drop into poetry on such occasions. “Sure he ean’t be far!” ventured the cook, consolingly. "No len’th at all,” said the housemaid. crying into the corner of her apron. “I’ll hould ye a pint, it’s just hidin’ on us lie is,” said Larry, addressing no one or thing in particular—except the spade, which he was rarely seen without -—a badge of office: however, rather than a tool. And Larry thought to himself now, "It wouldn’t be half so bad if she'd take and fight us, bitther, all round.” But the mot tier of tlie Sunny Boy, though she may have said to herself; "Among you ail, how did it happen ? Didn’t yoir know that house and garden, and all, might have taken wings, and lieen less missed tlian niy little happy treasure?”—yet said no word of blame. .She ran once round the garden, calling to the child, in just her usual way —then turned and flew wildly out on the road again "The railway! Holy Mother o' God!” groaned Larry'. “Slop her, some of yiz, an’ tell her I'll go and s’arch it first meself! ” The parlour maid rushed in pursuit.

Luckily the Sunny Boy’s mother had stopped—the pea-blossoms had fallen from her dress—and as she was picking them up—but oh J she wouldn't let herself thiuk, that maybe they were the last he would give her—“l just lx-thought me this instant minute,” quoth the parlourmaid, “to hear Masther Jack talkin’ about the shells he had seen ou the strand— ’’

“God bless you.” said Jack’s mother, iiiconsequently. “I’ll go there first.” Thus had lairry cause once more to bless the ready lie, for this led her away from the railway, ami when he reached it a few minutes later “the sight left me eyes,” be often related, “for wasn’t Masther Jack’s hat there, and it all in jommethry between the metals, and just inside the tunnel of the bridge [ took notice of a little heap of clothes lyin'—” Meanwhile, where was the Sunny Boy ? Well, as has been explained, he thought this was all hide and seek, and that it behoved him to crouch down behind some tall weeds in the lane, and stay still. So he did this, for quite half a minute, and then a bird fluttered by, and the Sunny Boy was sure be could catch it —if only he had the pinch of «alt Larry talked about. Anyway, he followed it, and when it went soaring away out of sight, why, dear me! weren’t there oyster shells, and sardine tins, heaps and heaps of things, waiting to be picked up. The Sunny Boy’s “lap” had been filled am! emptied again, two or three times over, before he got out of the lane and on to the road. Just there the railway ran under it.

The lane had been splendid. It had offered all th-' enthralling ecstacy of discovery and adventure, for the Sunny Boy had never been there before. But the railway; and the bridge! they promised the realisation of hojies often nipped in the bud.

Ob, many and many a time the Suimy Boy had to climb on that para pet, and watch the trains pacing below and not a bit would lie be let. And now, Larry’s little boy, that Master Jack's old clothes were given to, ay, and two or three other children as well, were sitting enjoyably on that wall, with the lovely steam from a passing engine curling up round their bare feet, delightful to behold!

The Sunny Boy rushed over, letting go “lap” ami all. “I’ll det up. tun!” he shouted But this was more easily said than done. Try as hard as he could, and pull and help him as hard as the others could. he was not able to get up beside (hem. His shoes hamiicapp’sl him; ban* feet are tar su|»erior. for climbing. But this disability was a providence in disguise, 'ria.* .Sunny Roy would probably have fallen over in bis excitement and inexperience.

’ “Here** another Cowin* along!** (he watcher* on the walP.shouted, with kicks of glee. The Sunny Boy, frantic with longing, ran to a gap at the road aide, which he had often wanted to explore. He could get through it now, and inside the hedge that divided off the railway bank, and scramble down the slope to the line. There! he was closer to the fun than any of them!

He looked up at the others, and laughed—then glanced back along the line. A train was just coining round the next bend. The Sunny Boy started Off, to dash in before it, under the bridge.

As he did so, ‘’The lx*rd between us and harin’ what’s the poor lanecn at, at all, at all!” exclaimed a thin, shaky .voice. It was an old woman who was speaking. Sitting close by the bridge, she was comforting herself with a “draw” Of a pipe.

She got up as quickly as she could, and hurried after the Sunny Boy, crossing herself as she did so, and letting go a bundle she carried on her back, to move the quicker. She was very lame, but she made such good play with her Crutch that she had time to seize the child by his Hap” and hustle him along, and Hing herself with him, panting, on to the grassy bank at the other side of the bride, before the train, rushing after them, could overtake them. . The wind it made blew off the Sunny Boy’s hat, and whirled it along, and crushed it into nothing under the wheels, in no time.

The old woman was trembling, partly because she had had to hurry so much, but more because she understood quite Well the danger of what she had done, and without anyone to look on, or talk about it. that she knew of. And somehow it is easier to l»e heroic when you have someone to witness and sing your deeds. Nobody saw Catty; except the Sitnny Boy, and the children looking down from the bridge, and they were quite unaware of anything splendid in vhat. Catty had done. Indeed, if she had been killed then and there, it would have mattered very little to anyone—even to herself. She was so old, that the people said sometimes that ‘‘Catty the Crutch had a right to get up upon flomc hill, the way Death wouldn’t be forgetting her altogether!” So old, that she lived almost altogether in the Laud of Looking Back. And among the shades that peopled that dim world for her, a little child would flit, just out of reach; but she always hoped to overtake him. And that was why she hurried so after Jack into the archway of the bridge, and .why her gra.>p now tightened on him.

‘ Let me alo-o-a-n!” cried the Sunny Boy. -struggling to get back to that wonderful bridge. What he wanted was, to find out if there would be room for him between ihe wall and a passing train; with a cheerful disregard of the possible consequences. But he was unable to explain hi-> views—a common disability among chilfren, and one which often Causes them to be quite wrongly judged. "What at all is to be done wid ye!” naid Catty the Crutch, recovering her breath, and coming back temporarily to the present : "is it to get kilt ye want ?” *1 want to go home,” declared the Sunny Boy, with a sudden change of front. ‘•Jbmie? In troth ye do! and I wish to God I was shut of ye! An’ no one wid ye, only yerself. in this dangerous place! Where do ye live? or who has the mindin’ of ye, at all. at all?” But the Sunny Boy could only reply that he lived in "de nursery,” and lots of trees outride it, and hi*, father was Daddy, ami his mother was Sweetheart Koon, and he was the Sunny Boy; information too vague to l»e profit-aide, even to minds more alert than (’atty the .Crutch owned. <{ Woud ye find your own way home?” she d«*manded. 'lhe Sunny Buy waft puzzled. I he place looked very strange from the unaccustomed level <»f the railway. Be-ddcs he had never before seeir it from the other side of (be bridge. ••There-/ nothin’ f<»r it only to take him wid me.” said the old woman to herself —"if only he’|| agree to come p’aeeable. Will yr come, ’aviv,’ and we’ll go and get a sugar stick I he Sttniiv Bov agreed, and they moved Off together. Ami now. the image of 1 r little, longlost child came hark at the touch of ■Jack’s hand, soft ami warm, ami small, and slipjwd so confidingly into liers. ( atty tlir Crutch clasped it close. •’l’ll m»t let him go. this offer!” she said to herself. "Sure 1 always knew in me own mind it wasn’t dead on me he was, at all. at all! But J’ll want to houJd me lion It on him. or he’ll be off Hg’in, like a rrd-alutnk! What odds alwMtC the bundle? Au’ can’t I get it, au’ 1

cornin’ back? Troth. I disrememlier rightly what was in it; and terrible weighty it was gettin'. this while back—” Catty’s equanimity was enviable; thus indifferently could she contemplate the abandonment of all her earthly goods.

She and the Sunny Boy soon reached the point she aimed at —a disused sig-nal-box, in which she had sometimes taken shelter lor the night. She pushed in tlie door, and showed him some sacks and straw in a corner. ’‘Lie there now, and. rest yourself, ‘acushla,’” she said.

‘ Where de sugar-stiek?" demanded the Sunny Bov.

“Sugar-stiek? God help us! Well sure, I’ll go look for it, and you stay here."

She went out. vaguely anxious to get him what he wanted. She pulled the door to, liehind her, and smiled complacently. The latch was too high for Jack to reach.

“No one could think what rampageous work he’d be gettin’ on wid while I’ll be away!" she thought; ’•hut lie’ll not I’ave that in a hurry.”

•So Catty theCrtitch limped away; and maybe she never remembered any more about that small prisoner and the sugarstiek. She often said, “1 do lie forgettin’ a power of things, those times!" Or may be she wandered to where there’s no turning back; and there at last, we mayhope, did overtake the shadow-child. But when such as Catty sink beneath the stream of life, there is scarcely a ripple to mark the event. No one wanted her here now. At all events, the Sunny Boy had time io get tired of the novelty of that queer little house, and then to grow hungry, and then to begin to cry with pure loneliness, when—

When, what should happen, but the door to be pushed open; and when the •Sunny Boy looked up frightened and sobbing, there stood, not that queer old woman with the frilly cap, and the crutch, but his very own Sweetheart Roon! For, during her miserable flight back, after a fruitless search upon the strand. Jack’s mother had thought of the railway. And was there ever music, she thought, so welcome, as the wailing of the Sunny Boy, varied by sudden passionate shouts for “Mother!" that greeted her from the signal-box. ‘What’s de matter, Sweetheart?" said the Sunny Boy, with a final satisfying sob. And, indeed, it was a strange thing to see his mother, white and breathless, “sinking down to clutch him in her arms, with blessed tears at last falling. She said nothing; she could not. She lifted him in her arms, and lie cuddled his round her neck, and so they' set off home. But before she had got very far with her recovered treasure, here was Larry coming along the railway. » “Glory be to God, but it’s yourself has him found!" said Larry. “An’ wasn’t I full sure it was kilt be the thrain he was; sec here now;” and he held up the remains of the Sunny Boy’s hat. “Will 1 carry- him for ye. ma’am?” “No, no! I’ll keep him!" “And then," Larry went on, “and I lamentin' him, who should I see. cocked up on the wail above, as bould as brass, only me own little chap—-and 1 bethought me to go up and give him a few skelps. For the same gosson can't lie kept off o' that wall; cries a sackful, if he’s not let to go, and lias his mother lieart-scalded about the same thing. But I’ll have to chastise her, to keep him ’ithiii; putting notions of wildness into Masther Jack's head, too, along wid all.” “What call have ye to he there at all?”

says I to him, “and Masther Jack, that’s worth a cart-load of ye, afther getting’ run over wid the thrain!” says I, "and kilt, God help us,” says I.” “ ‘Sure it’s not kilt at all he is.’ says the young fellah, ‘only galloped off wid himself a-tlirough the tunnel’ ” —here the Sunny Boy felt his mother shudder and hug him tighter than before —“ ‘and Catty the Crutch after him, fightin’ him to keep out of it, and was just in time afore the thrain kem up; and then h-away wid him and her!’ And I was just on me way to see could I see any tokens of them! see here!” as they came, to the arch of the bridge—“here’s what happened—she threwn away her bundle—• look at her ould rags scattered hither and over—r”

“Au’ who’d believe it, now?" Larry often demanded, when relating how he found Master Jack; “only I’m fellin’ it to ye meself —ay, an’ seen it, too; the Misthress, that let on never to care one thrauneen up to that, no, but appeared

really quite hardened in herself — well, she laid eyes on them ould polthoguCs of Catty’s; well/me dear! down wid hee on her two knees, to gather them up. A clane ould skirt there was, and a pair of shoes for Sundah, and a Prayer Book, lettin’ on she could read, no less! an' a weeny little red frock, about the fit of Master Jack. And the Misthress gother then up, now, as tindher as young goslin’s just out o’ the Shell, and she eryin* like the rain—and bid me to take MasterJack be the hand, the way she could carry away ould Catty’s rubbitch herself. And has it all laid by safe, and the polis noticed, and everyone, to have an eye out for Catty the Crutch. But sight nor light of her we never seen from that good day to this. Very quare and conthrary in herself, that ould one was gettin’, this len’th o’ time past.” The cook and parlour-maid were on the watch for the rescue-party, and rushed out to welcome them.

“And weren’t you terrible frightened.

when you found out you were lost, Mas. ter Jack?” they asked. The Sunny Boy lifted his “Jap” and stooped forward, as if to renew acquaintance with his little brown legs and the strap-shoes—very dusty and scuffed they were, too; and then he replied, "Sure I just look-ted down, and I saw I wor dere.”

Thus did Jack, probably without design, express the great truth, that a man can always possess himself. It is very often only ‘‘a poor thing but mine own;” yet has this inward suzerainty been found comforting under worse adversities than befell this Sunny Boy.