“Oh, I guess I can find out,” replied Jimmie, though he was wondering how to find the answer to that question.

“Do you know how to drive a horse?” asked Sunny Boy.

“Well I never did, but I think I could,” said Jimmie, who was a good-natured boy and quite ready to try any kind of new experiment.

“You know how, don’t you, Sunny Boy?” said Perry Phelps.  “You went to see your grandfather in the country, didn’t you?  And he has horses and things.  You drive us home.”

“No,” said Sunny Boy, “I don’t know how to drive a horse like this.  Wait a minute, and I’ll think.”

The other children waited for him to think.  Though he was the youngest in his class, they had found out that Sunny Boy was often wiser than they were and that he could be trusted to find a way to do things.  Miss Davis said that Sunny Boy was her “right-hand man.”

“My daddy says,” announced Sunny Boy, after he had thought a minute, “that horses can go home all by themselves, so I guess this one can.  But if we all got into the wagon, the girls would cry and be afraid he would run away.”

“We wouldn’t, either!” said Jessie Smiley crossly.

“Yes you would,” Sunny Boy told her.  “I think the girls ought to get in the wagon and ride and we’ll stay and walk with the horse.  Then he’ll go home and we’ll find out where he lives.”

They argued a few minutes about this plan, but as no one could think of a better one, the girls, Helen and Jessie and Dorothy, climbed into the wagon and the four boys trudged along beside the horse who started to walk slowly the minute Sunny Boy called “gid-ap” to him.

He wasn’t a fast horse, and it did seem as though his home must be at the very end of Centronia, for he continued to walk long after the boys were lame and tired from slipping around in the snow.  The three little girls were more comfortable, for while the wagon was not warm, the cover kept the snow off them.

“I never saw much a slow horse,” grumbled Jessie, putting her head out to see where they were, though it was impossible to tell because the whirling snow hid everything.

“My feet are cold!” cried Dorothy Peters.

“I don’t think this horse lives anywhere,” shouted Helen, so that the boys could bear her.  “He’s probably going out into the country and we’ll all freeze and Miss May will wonder where we went, and is she does come looking for us, she’ll never find us!”

Sunny Boy patted the horse gently.

“I guess you’re cold, too,” he said gently.  “I wish I had a blanket for you Mr. Horse.  Maybe there is one in the wagon.”

He said “whoa” and the horse stopped.  Then Sunny Boy climbed into the wagon and felt under the seat.  Sure enough there was a blanket.

“What are you going to do with that, Sunny Boy?” asked Helen Graham.

“Put it on the horse,” replied Sunny Boy.  “I think he must be awfully cold.  He’s a pretty tall horse, but I guess Jimmie will help me.”