“We’ll tuck Sunny Boy up in the front seat between us,” said Bob, “and then he can tell us where the different youngsters live.”

And Sunny Boy did, though he was so sleepy Bob had to wake him by shaking him gently every time.  They soon reached Centronia, for it was not a very long drive for two horses and a sleigh which can travel swiftly over the snow.  Once in the city, Bob began shaking Sunny Boy awake and asking him where his playmates lived.

They came to Jessie Smiley’s house first, and she did not wake up, even when Bob lifted her and carried her in.  Mrs. Smiley wanted to hear the whole story, but Bob explained that he had more children to see safely home, and Mrs. Smiley was so glad and thankful to have Jessie back that she told Bob to hurry.

“For I know the other mothers are as anxious as I have been,” she said.  “We have had a terrible day.  The telephone wires are all down, and my husband has been to Miss May’s school and to the house of every child in Jessie’s class, trying to find some trace of her.  He is out hunting now.”

Around and around Mr. Parkney drove, and at every house they stopped Bob carried in a sleeping child.  How glad the mothers were, so glad they wanted to hug Bob, and some of them did.  At last every one was safe home but Sunny Boy, and then Mr. Parkney made the horses go as fast as they could.  When he stopped them at the Horton’s house, both he and Bob got out and went in with Sunny Boy.

“Mrs. Horton, here’s Sunny Boy!” cried Harriet, when she answered the ring at the doorbell and found Sunny Boy standing there with the Parkneys.

Daddy Horton came down the front stairs three steps at a time and grabbed Sunny.  Mother Horton came running down after him, and she was so glad to see Sunny Boy that she cried just a little—­the way she had cried in New York when he was lost and then found again.

She held him in her lap all the time Mr. Parkney and Bob were explaining how they came to bring him home.  When Mr. Horton tried to thank them, Mr. Parkney stopped him.

“I’m only trying to do for your family one-tenth part of what you’ve done for me and mine,” he said, though Sunny Boy was so sleepy he didn’t hear him very well and had to ask Mother the next day what he had said.  “There isn’t anything the Parkneys, from the two-year-old to Mrs. Parkney and me, wouldn’t do for you, Mr. Horton.”

CHAPTER XI

MR. HARRIS BRINGS A LETTER

Sunny boy did not go to school the next day.  There was no school to go to.  Though, even if there had been, he would not have gone, because he did not wake up till half past ten, and then Mother and Harriet brought his breakfast up to him on the pretty wicker tray.

When Sunny Boy had had his breakfast, he started to dress.  While he was dressing he told his mother and Harriet all the things that had happened to him and the other children the day before.  He had gone to sleep almost as soon as Mr. Parkney brought him home.  Of course Mrs. Horton was anxious to hear what had happened to him after school was dismissed that snowy morning.