“Could I go this afternoon, Harriet?” asked Sunny Boy.  “Mother didn’t say not to; she just said to come home at half-past eleven.”

“Yes, I know she did,” answered Harriet, putting salt in her soup and then tasting it to be sure it was right.  “But I don’t think she wants you to play on Court Hill in the afternoon when there will be a larger crowd.  I tell you what you do this afternoon, Sunny Boy:  Build the biggest snow man you can in the yard and then you’ll surprise your mother and grandmother when they come home from your Aunt Bessie’s.”

“I could s’prise ’em, couldn’t I?” replied Sunny Boy, chuckling in delight.  “And Daddy and Grandpa, too!  Do you think I could make a very big snow man, Harriet?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Harriet.  “You have a yard full of snow to make him out of.”

Sunny Boy was hungry, but he was so eager to begin to build his snow man that he would have hurried through his lunch and skipped the bread and butter entirely if Harriet had not said that he could not go out to play at all unless he ate the things she gave him.

“Now I’m through,” he declared when he had eaten even the crusts and his glass of milk was quite empty.  “Now may I build the snow man, Harriet?”

“Yes indeed you may,” said Harriet.  “And here is the old broom I promised you, and the felt hat.  Do you know how to build a snow man, Sunny Boy?”

Sunny Boy was sure he did, and he went out into the yard, where the snow was piled white and smooth and not even a path had been shoveled, and began to roll a snowball to make the snow man.

“Hello, Sunny Boy, coming coasting?” called Oliver Dunlap.

He had rung the bell and Harriet had told him Sunny Boy was in the back yard.  So Oliver had walked through the house, scattering snow at every step, and out through the kitchen to the back porch where he found Sunny Boy beginning his snow man.

“Aren’t you going coasting?” called Oliver again.  “Come on, Sunny Boy.  Nelson and Ruth have gone to dancing school and we can have heaps of fun.”

“I have to build a snow man,” replied Sunny Boy.  “I want to surprise my grandpa.  Do you want to help build him, Oliver?”

“Why, I don’t mind,” said Oliver.  “Wait till I bring my sled in.  I left it out on your front steps.”

He ran through the house, and when he came back in a few moments there were four other boys with him.  They brought in a good deal of snow, but Harriet did not mind; she said she would rather sweep up snow than mud, any time.

“Here’s Jimmie Butterworth, Sunny Boy,” cried Oliver, as the five lads tumbled down the steps, “and Perry and Leslie and Harry.  We’ll all help you build a snow man.”

Sunny Boy was glad to see his friends, and the snow man grew very fast with six boys to work on him.  First they rolled the biggest snowball you ever saw.  It took pretty nearly all the snow in Sunny Boy’s yard, and he and the other boys had to go into Nelson Baker’s yard and get more snow to make a head for the snow man.