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."

Bob grinned and said he would "tell Ma," and the next morning he
stopped on his way to school to say that the Parkneys would be
expecting Sunny Boy and his friends the next Saturday morning.

"And tell them to wear their rubber boots, Mrs. Horton," he said
earnestly. "Such mud you never saw! Ma keeps a broom at the back
door, and she won't let us come in till we change our shoes. She hands
us out clean ones. But of course it is always soft when the frost is
coming out of the ground."

Sunny Boy could hardly wait till Saturday. He and Oliver Dunlap were
the ones who had teased to be allowed to go on an "exploring" trip in
the country. At first they had planned to go together, without any one
else, but as soon as the other boys heard of the scheme, they wanted to
go, too. Nelson Baker heard about the plan, and he asked if he could
go. Nelson did not see much of Sunny Boy on school days because, of
course, he went to the public school and did not get home till three
o'clock in the afternoon. But he and Sunny Boy were good friends, and
Sunny was glad to have him go exploring with the rest.