“Hello!” called the policeman, as Sunny Boy and Grandpa Horton came close to the shore.  “Thought you’d try it again, did you?  Where were you yesterday during the big excitement?”

Sunny Boy sat down on the bank to take off his skates and Grandpa Horton told the policeman what had happened to them.

“Do you know, I thought about the little chap,” said the policeman kindly.  “I knew you were with him; but I said, suppose the crowd tears ’em apart from each other?  I know what a crowd can do when it loses its head, you see.  All the time I was telling girls they were not drowned, I kept one eye open for the little boy, but I didn’t catch a glimpse of him.  You say an older lad pulled him ashore?”

“Yes, and he ran away when I said I was going to try to find you,” said Sunny Boy, standing up, now that the skates were off.  “He was just as nice, but he is afraid of policemen.”

“Then he is a silly boy, and you tell him I said so,” answered the tall policeman promptly.  “Of course a bad boy might not want to see me; but this was a mighty good lad, to my way of thinking.  He has an old head on young shoulders, to get you out of such a mix-up without a scratch.”

But the policeman could not tell them who the big boy was, of course; and after they went home, and found that Mother and Grandma had a bowl of good, hot, buttered popcorn for them, Sunny Boy and Grandpa continued to talk about the lad in the poor, torn coat and to wish they could find him.  Daddy Horton, too, at dinner that night said he would rather find the boy than a ten dollar goldpiece.

“I’m afraid he is a lad who needs some help,” he said anxiously; “and we would be so glad to do anything for him.  I must see some of the men who work over in the River Section and try to get them to hunt him up.”

And Mr. Horton did interest several people in his search for the big boy, but when they reported, one by one, that they could find no boy who had carried a little boy ashore at the skating pond, he began to think that perhaps the boy did not live in the River Section, after all, but in some other part of the city.

While Mr. Horton was trying to find the boy who had been so good to his little son, Sunny Boy was having great fun.  There was no school, of course, during the holidays, and, after two days of skating, there came a heavy fall of snow.  When Sunny Boy woke up and saw the roofs all white, his shout wakened Daddy and Mother.

“It snowed!” shouted Sunny Boy, dancing up and down in his white flannel sleeping suit.  “Oh, Mother, it snowed!  I can use my new sled, Mother!”

“Well, for pity’s sake!” cried Daddy Horton, pretending to be very cross.  “What is all this fuss about?  All over a little snow?  Why, I don’t think snow is half so nice as rain!”

“Oh, Daddy!” Sunny Boy climbed into bed with his father and put his arms around his neck.  “Daddy, boys with new sleds like it to snow.  I’m going coasting right after breakfast.”