"But the fireman was right," said Daddy Horton gravely. "Coats and
rubbers are not important enough, Sunny Boy, even if they were trimmed
with gold fur, to risk one's life for. I hope there'll be no more
fires till you are grown up and able to judge for yourself. But if
there should be, remember what the fireman said. That will keep you
from dashing into a blaze after foolish trifles."

Sunny Boy knew he would not forget, and then he went out into the
kitchen and told Harriet about the afternoon's excitement.

"And we never had the snowball fight at all," he said. "All the
bullets were made, too. Perhaps we can have it to-morrow."

But the next morning was rainy, and though there was plenty of cold
weather through February which followed, not once did it snow again.
There was not even much good skating, though Sunny Boy did enjoy one
afternoon with Bob Parkney, who declared that he would soon be a
champion skater with his new skates to help him. After that, though,
it thawed and froze and thawed and froze and the Centronia Park
Commission refused to allow any one on the ice. The children were
disappointed in the weather, but Miss May said she was glad to see it
rain. She had had enough snow, she said, till another year.

Bob stopped in once a week after school at the Hortons, to get the egg
container. He brought Mrs. Horton two dozen fresh eggs every Monday
morning from his mother's poultry yard, and Friday afternoon he came
for the box. Mrs. Parkney was so busy and happy now that she had
almost forgotten she had ever been discouraged. Judge Layton had put
the farmhouse in good order for her family, and he had stocked the