Mr. Parkney’s arm gradually grew stronger, and he was proving such a handy man on the little farm, so willing and so capable, that Judge Layton told Mrs. Horton that he was thinking of building a new house and asking Mr. Parkney to go on living in the farmhouse and to be his farm manager.

“He’s going to paint the house and the barns for me this spring and whitewash all the fences,” said the judge.  “There isn’t anything that man can’t do.”

“Spring is on the way,” announced Daddy Horton, one evening early in March.  “I see they are having freshets out in Yardley county.”

“What is a freshet?” asked Sunny Boy.

“A freshet, Son, is when a stream rises suddenly and overflows its natural course,” explained his daddy.  “In spring, freshets are often caused by the ice and snow melting too rapidly and draining down into the brooks and rivers.  Then the stream rises, and if the banks are narrow, it overflowers [Transcriber’s note:  overflows?] them and sometimes great damage is done.  A big river may sweep away houses and cattle and send people scurrying about in boats and rafts.  Centronia is not near a river, though, so it isn’t likely that you’ll see a freshet soon.”

The news of the freshets was not the only sign of spring.  At school, Miss Davis had a large blue jar filled with beautiful pussy willows on her desk, and the nature study lessons were all about the spring birds.  When Bob Parkney brought Mrs. Horton her fresh eggs, he also brought her some budded twigs which he said would blossom if she put them in water.

“My, it’s nice out in the country now,” said Bob.  “Why can’t Sunny Boy come out and see us, Mrs. Horton?  Ma was saying yesterday she’d like to have him come any time.  He’s never really seen the place, and Judge Layton is fixing it up fine.  Can’t he come next Saturday?  I’d meet him at the trolley station.”

“I’ll tell you, Bob, what Sunny Boy has been teasing to be allowed to do,” replied Mrs. Horton.  “He and half a dozen of the boys he plays with want to take their lunches and spend a day exploring.  Mr. Horton and I have suggested that they wait till it is warmer, but I am afraid they can’t wait contentedly much longer, and your suggestion has really solved the problem for me.”

“Oh, Mother!” cried Sunny Boy, who had been listening eagerly.  “Next Saturday, Mother?  Please!”

Mrs. Horton laughed as she put her twigs in a vase of water.

“You see how it is, don’t you, Bob?” she said.  “Well, Mr. Horton and I are not willing to have Sunny Boy go to a strange place.  But if your mother is willing to let them come out where you are, they can play around and have a beautiful time.  They’ll bring their own lunches, and she musn’t let them track mud on her clean kitchen floor.  Indeed, they’ll be too busy with all outdoors, to think much about coming in the house, I suppose.  But you and your father will be there, to keep an eye on them, and I shall feel so much easier.  Some one will put them on the trolley car here in the morning, and if you will meet them at the corner of your lane and see that they are put on the half past four car in the afternoon, every mother will be much obliged to you.”