“Ouch!” shrieked a boy’s voice.

After that came a moment of perfect silence; and then, such a shout of laughter!  Girls and boys seemed to be shouting together and Sunny Boy thought he heard Mrs. Dunlap laughing with them.  He pulled off the handkerchief, and then he saw what they were laughing at.  He had pinned the donkey’s tail on Jerry Mullet!

“Oh, my!  Oh, my!” laughed Perry Phelps, rolling over on the floor.  “Oh, Sunny Boy, I never saw anything so funny in my life!  You lifted that pin so high in the air and brought it down on Jerry’s arm before he knew what you were going to do.  I never saw anything so funny!” and Perry rolled over on the rug and began to laugh again.

All the children were laughing, and pretty Mrs. Dunlap had tears in her eyes because she had laughed so much.  Only Jerry Mullet looked cross.

“I hope I didn’t hurt you,” Sunny Boy said to him.  “I didn’t mean to stick a pin into you.”

Before Jerry could do more than scowl, Perry sat up on the floor wiping his eyes.

“What I want to know—­” he said, “is Jerry a donkey?” And then he began to laugh again, and this time the children shouted with him.

They thought this was the funniest question, and they laughed and laughed and kept saying to each other:  “Is Jerry a donkey, because Sunny Boy pinned the donkey’s tail on him?  Is Jerry a donkey?”

“I’ll show you whether I’m a donkey or not,” growled Jerry, frowning at them all.  “I’ll show you!  I won’t stay at your old party!”

And he dashed upstairs and into Oliver’s room where his hat and coat were.  Downstairs he came flying, and never stopped in the parlor to tell Mrs. Dunlap he was going or to say that he had had a pleasant time.  No!  Instead, Jerry opened the front door and banged it after him with a crash that shook the house.

“He’s gone!” said Sunny Boy, dismayed.  “He’s mad!”

“I’m afraid he is,” admitted Mrs. Dunlap.  “And I’m sorry.  He didn’t have his ice-cream.”

“He didn’t like it ’cause I pinned the donkey’s tail on him,” said Sunny Boy sorrowfully.  “But I didn’t mean to.”

“No, of course you didn’t,” answered Mrs. Dunlap.  “Don’t feel bad over that, Sunny Boy.  I’m afraid we teased Jerry too much about it, though.  He is a stranger here in Centronia, and we should have tried to be extra kind to him.  You shouldn’t have said that about Jerry being a donkey, Perry,” she added, turning to Perry Phelps.  “You must have hurt his feelings.”

Miss May often said that Perry had the best manners of any boy in her school.  He did not laugh now, but he came up to Mrs. Dunlap and said he was sorry he had asked his cousin if he were a donkey.

“I should think he could take a joke,” he said.  “He’s ten years old.  But I’m sorry, Mrs. Dunlap, and Mother will be, too, that Jerry left your party like this.  And I hope you’ll ’scuse him banging your front door.”