Who ever heard of a boy with a name like that?

But his mother said that long before he could speak he chose the
name for himself, for even as a baby he was full of a cheery good
humor that was always sparkling out in his winning smiles and his
rippling laugh. He was a good-natured, happy child from the time
that he could toddle about; and he was very young when he began to
give pleasure to his friends by serving them in all the little
ways within his power.

The very golden curls that topped his small head glistened as if
they had caught and imprisoned the glory of the morning sun; and
it really did seem as if a better name could not be found for the
merry, helpful little fellow than Master Sunshine.

His real name was a very different affair--Frederick Alexander
Norton--and his boy friends called him Freddy for short. His
little sister Lucy called him "buzzer" and Suns'ine; and Almira
Jane, the help, who made the brownest and crispest of molasses
cookies, and the most delicious twisted doughnuts, said he was a
"swate angel of light," except at such times as she called him a
"rascalpion."

Master Sunshine never stopped to argue with Almira Jane when she
called him a "rascalpion." He knew that this was a plain sign that
she was getting "nervous;" and when Almira Jane was nervous, it
was always best for small boys to be out of the way.

A little later, when the kitchen floor had been scrubbed, and the
stove polished like a shiny black mirror, and the bread-dough had