ore games, and then it was time to go
home. Mrs. Dunlap was almost smothered by the little girls who all
tried to kiss her at once and tell her they had had the nicest time at
Oliver's party. Nearly every one said-good-bye to Oliver and his
mother and started down the steps at the same time.

At the first corner every one but the Baker children and Sunny Boy went
a different way. They could walk home together, and that was why Mrs.
Horton had said that Harriet need not come for Sunny Boy.

As they were passing a house some one tapped on the window. Nelson and
Ruth's aunt lived there, and she had been waiting to see them pass.

"Your mother telephoned me you went to Oliver Dunlap's party and would
go by our house on your way home," said Aunt Edith, coming out on the
steps, with a coat thrown over her shoulders. "I asked her to let you
stay and visit us till eight o'clock this evening. Then I'll take you
home. The cat has a basketful of new kittens for you to play with,
Ruth."

"May Sunny Boy stay, too, please?" asked Ruth.

"Yes, of course," said Mrs. Tyler, who was Ruth's Aunt Edith. "Of
course, he may. I will telephone to his mother so that she will not
worry about him."

"No, thank you. I have to go home," Sunny Boy said shyly. "I said I
would come right home. And I want to tell Mother about the party."

"All right, dear, just as you please," said Mrs. Tyler kindly. "You
are sure, Sunny Boy, you don't mind going the rest of the way alone?"

Sunny Boy replied that he did not mind, and Nelson and Ruth went into
the house, while he trudged off down the street by himself. Presently
he chuckled.

"Didn't Jerry look funny?" snickered Sunny Boy. "I wonder what made me
pin the donkey's tail on him."

"Where do you think you're going so fast?" cried Jerry, stepping out
from behind a barrel where he had been hiding.

"Hello!" said Sunny Boy, surprised to see him. "I'm going home. The
party is all done. You missed it--we had two kinds of ice cream."

"I hope you're happy, spoiling my afternoon and making everybody laugh
at me," scolded Jerry Mullet. "You're a nice kind of boy. Do you know
what I'm going to do to you?"

"No, I don't," said Sunny Boy, trying to walk past him. "Let me be. I
told my mother I'd come home and not stop to play on the way."

"This isn't playing," growled Jerry disagreeably. "You can't go till I
say you can. Are you sorry you made everybody laugh at me?"

"I told