sandboy

plural sandboys

1. A boy who sells sand.

   Up and down the street not a child was to be seen. A sandboy with a donkey cart was the sole human arrangement in it.

   1880, George MacDonald, Sir Gibbie, Hurst and Blackett

2. A proverbially happy or jolly person.

   Drink always rubbed him the right way, and he would reach his rooms as jolly as a sandboy.

   1910, O Henry, “The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball”, in The Trimmed Lamp

   1 more example

   Craw was happy as a sandboy, he reported: quite his former vile self, but a bit dazed to be bearded by Luke without warning.

   1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 23