OUT IN THE BLIZZARD

“Daddy,” said Mrs. Horton at the breakfast table one morning, “what do you think about sending Sunny Boy to school to-day?”

Mr. Horton glanced out of the window.  The snow was piled high on the sill and the white flakes were still falling steadily.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly.  “I don’t believe the storm will be much worse, Olive.  It has snowed all night, and our storms seldom last twenty-four hours.  It may be a little hard going this morning, but the walks will be cleared before it is time for him to come home.  And if the wind rises, let him stay at school till Harriet or some one can go after him.”

Sunny Boy had listened anxiously.  He loved to go to school and he did not mind the snow.  Didn’t he have a pair of real rubber boots and a fur cap that covered his ears?  And this was the first chance he had had to go to school in a snowstorm.  There had been snow, of course, but it had always snowed in the night or after school was out, or during the holidays.  Now he was going to go to school while it was snowing, just as Daddy Horton had done when he was a little boy.

“I wonder if Bob has rubber boots?” said Sunny Boy to Harriet, after breakfast.  She was watching him put on his boots in the hall.

“I don’t know.  But he won’t be able to come to school to-day if he has,” replied Harriet.  “The suburban trolleys won’t run in a storm like this.  I don’t think your mother ought to let you go to school when it is snowing so hard.”

Mr. Horton came downstairs, putting on his overcoat.  He looked rather serious.  “The storm is worse than I thought,” he said.  “Sunny Boy, do you want to go to school very much this morning?”

Sunny Boy’s lip quivered.  His eyes filled with tears.  Couldn’t he go, after all?

“I put my rubber boots on,” he said, trying not to cry, and holding out his foot for Daddy to see.

Mr. Horton loved his little son dearly and he wanted him to be happy.  He saw that Sunny Boy would be sadly disappointed if he had to miss a day in school.

“All right, you shall go,” he said cheerfully.  “I’ll take you myself, and I think we’ll manage to get there.  Good-bye, Mother.  And don’t worry about us.”

Mrs. Horton and Harriet stood at the parlor windows and watched Sunny Boy go down the street, holding fast to his daddy’s hand.  The snow did not drive in their faces, and it did not seem very cold.

“I like it, don’t you?” cried Sunny Boy, tramping along in his rubber boots and wishing that Daddy could walk to school with him every morning.

Here and there they saw a man shoveling the sidewalk, and already teams of horses and carts were standing at the street corners while gangs of men and boys shoveled snow into them.

“Where do they take the snow?” asked Sunny Boy.  “Why don’t they leave it on the street so people can go coasting?”