THE BORROWED BIRTHDAY
"Is it tomorrow now?" asked Bobby eagerly as he awoke the next morning
in the little white room and found the Lady Who Likes Little Boys
bending over him.
"Yes, this is day-after-tomorrow."
"Your little boy's birthday?"
The reply was a long time in coming.
"It's your birthday this time, dear."
"For all day and always?"
"For all day long."
Bobby felt of himself all over and then announced wistfully:
"It doesn't not feel any different, having birthdays--not yet."
"Wait, Bobby, until you have had your bath and breakfast, then maybe it
will be different."
Bobby didn't mind the bath this time at all, only he was in a
tremendous hurry to get through with it, and when he was seated at the
table he scampered through breakfast very quickly without being scolded
once. He did not even notice that the girl with the little white apron
did not bring him things to eat as she had the night before. He was
back in the red room with the forty or a dozen red-shaded lights, now
all put out, shaking hands with the Man With the Pocketful of Quarters,
when the maid came into the room and said:
"It's all ready now, sir."
"All right, Sarah," replied the man and the girl left the room.
"We're going to start out _this_ birthday right, son."
"Yes'm," said Bobby, watching him with eyes that sparkled expectantly.
"Up in the room where you slept," continued the man, "are a lot of
things that small boys like. I want you to go up there alone and look
them over. Then you are to pick out the _one_ thing that you want most
of all--just one. That will be yours for keeps."
"'Glassies' or the bat or the train?" asked Bobby.
"It's just _one_ thing for now," interposed the lady. "There will be--"
"Don't give me away, Alice," pleaded the man.
Bobby wondered how she _could_ give away the Man With the Pocketful of
Quarters, but soon forgot that thinking about more important matters.
"Or little pigs to buy an edge-cation with curly tails?" pursued Bobby.
The man burst out into a big laugh that filled the room.
"I haven't a doubt but what you'll have a curly-tailed edge-cation all
right, Bobby, when the time comes, pigs or no pigs."
"Yes'm," smiled Bobby not knowing quite what the man meant.
"Come," said the lady. "I'll go as far as the door with you."
And that was as far as she _did_ go. Her hand slipped gently over
Bobby's straight blond hair and lingered there before she pushed him
into the room and closed the door between them.
Bobby stopped at the head of the little bed which had already been made
up, and looked carefully about the room. There was the enchanting train
all ready to get up steam to carry him away into that strange land
where red Indians tomahawk little boys, or where pirates dig all day in
the white sand making places to hide yellow gold in. And there on the
bed was the box of marbles, "glassies," agates and all, and a little
blue sailor suit, and a baseball bat, and a whole row of quarters, and
there--
Bobby's eyes opened wide and he made a jump for the thing that was
almost hidden in the pocket of the sailor suit. It _couldn't_ be, and
yet it _was_! The shiningest, white-handled pocket knife a boy ever
had! He counted the blades; there were three of them, but not one of
them could he open. He sat down on the floor and tried and tried to
open those blades, oblivious to everything else.
Before very long he became aware of a barely audible scratching sound.
It was soon followed by a high-pitched whine. Bobby looked eagerly all
about; a strange excitement thrilled his blood, but didn't see anything
that _could_ make such a noise.
At last he leaned clear over until his head almost touched the floor
and looked under the bed. Way down at the foot of it was something
in a basket, that moved. Bobby watched fascinated, hardly daring to
breathe. The whining came again. Then the dearest little black nose was
lifted above the edge of the basket and two soft brown eyes looked into
Bobby's.
Bobby shouted and the puppy yelped at the same instant. Bobby,
forgetting that he could walk around the bed, crawled under it. The
puppy tried just as hard to come to him. It managed to get half way out
of the basket when Bobby's face came down against its black nose. Puppy
and boy mingled affection and gratitude.
The puppy's ugly face and wide-apart bow-legs were at that moment
the most beautiful things in the world to Bobby. Even birthdays were
forgotten and he hugged and patted that worshipping creature for a
long, long time before recollection of the Lady Who Likes Little Boys
caused him to crawl hastily out from under the bed, burst through the
door, and tear wildly downstairs to the red room, the puppy clutched to
his heart.
The Man with the Pocketful of Quarters sat at the table in the corner,
talking to the Lady. They both looked up.
"Well, son, is that what you want most?"
"Yes'm," smiled Bobby. "Is it _all_ mine?"
"Head, body and tail," replied the man.
"It knew me!" exulted Bobby.
The man and the lady exchanged laughs.
"He's all boy," said the man. "Made of the right stuff."
The lady patted the man's shoulder and looked away.
"Come here, son, and tell me what you think about birthdays."
Bobby marched close up to the man.
"Wish it was mine."
The wistful note in his voice made the lady's hands fly out to him.
"Oh, you like it, do you?" asked the man. "Well, this birthday has only
just started."
"Yes'm," said Bobby and hugged the squirming puppy till it licked his
ear.
"Here's another quarter for you. That's four quarters--quite a sum for
a small boy."
Bobby took one hand off the puppy long enough to accept the quarter.
"What have you done with the others, Bobby?" asked the lady.
He fished them out of the pocket of his blouse and held all four out in
the palm of his hand.
"That makes a dollar, son. That's a whole lot of money for a boy only
five years old."
That set Bobby to wondering.
"Is it lots of money for a little boy with _seven_ birthdays?" he asked.
"You can just bet your boots it is. A boy can buy all sorts of things
with a dollar."
As he spoke, the man pulled a great, round white piece of money out of
his pocket, thereby revealing to Bobby that his pockets contained other
things besides quarters, and making him forget that four quarters _is_
an awful lot of money even for a boy with seven birthdays.
"Know what this is?" asked the man.
"Money," replied Bobby.
"How much money?"
"A grown-up quarter," hazarded Bobby at length.
"It's a dollar," replied the man, "and is worth just as much as the
four quarters. Would you rather have your money all in one piece? I'll
give you the dollar for the four quarters."
Bobby hesitated in perplexity and the Lady came to his rescue.
"Take the big piece, Bobby. It's not so easy to lose and easier to find
if you do lose it."
[Illustration]