The telephone man came to fix the wires that afternoon, and when Daddy Horton came home to dinner he said that much of the snow had been cleared away in the streets.

The next morning Sunny Boy started off to school and Daddy walked with him up to the steps, as he had done the snowy morning.  It was very cold, but all the walks were clear and the great high walls of snow that had been piled up along the pavements made fine places for jumping boys.  Sunny Boy tried several himself, and Daddy had to remind him that it was a quarter to nine, or he might have been late for school.

Every one talked about the blizzard in school.  All the children wanted to hear from those who had been lost, and Sunny Boy and Jimmie and Perry and Carleton and the three little girls were kept busy answering questions.  Miss May and Miss Davis asked questions, too, and even when they did get at their lessons they read snow stories and drew sleighs and horses and snow forts on the blackboard.

But after that day, Oliver Dunlap’s party was the most exciting thing talked about.  There might be another snowstorm but, as Oliver said, he wouldn’t be eight years old again that winter.

“Oliver’s party is to-morrow, and I haven’t any birthday present for him yet,” Sunny Boy said to his family at breakfast the day before the party.

“We’ll go down town and get it this afternoon, as soon as lunch is over,” Mrs. Horton promised.  “I didn’t mean to leave it till the last minute, dear, but I have been very busy.  Hurry home from school, and we’ll go and buy him something nice.”

After school Sunny Boy hurried home, and he and Mother went down town shopping as soon as they had had lunch.  They looked at ever so many things which might please Oliver, and finally they decided that a little flashlight he could carry in his pocket would be a good birthday gift for him.  They bought it, and Mrs. Horton wrapped it up nicely and Sunny Boy wrote on a little white card, “Many Happy Returns of the Day from Sunny Boy to Oliver,” and this was tied on the outside of the package.

The next day was Oliver’s birthday.  It happened to be a Saturday.  Miss Davis said this was lucky, or she didn’t know what might have happened in school.  She said no one could expect children who were going to a party in the afternoon to be very much interested in learning to spell and write in the morning.

The party was to be from two to five o’clock, and Sunny Boy, in his best white flannel suit, and carrying Oliver’s present under his arm, started about quarter of two for the birthday boy’s house.

At the same time the door of the Bakers’ house opened.

“Going to the party?” called Nelson, running down the steps of his house, followed by Ruth.  “What did you get for Oliver?”

Sunny Boy told him.  Nelson said he had a story book to give Oliver.  Ruth had a little silver pencil, she said.  Sunny Boy thought that Ruth looked very pretty, dressed all in white from her white rubbers to her white fur hat.  She didn’t complain about her feet being cold, either.  But that may have been because Oliver did not live very far away.