Ole Mammy's Torment Part 3

"Yes, that's it," she announced at last. "Miss Hallie is nineteen this Satiddy, and you'll be nine next Satiddy. A week from to-day is yoah buthday. Pity it hadn't a-happened to be the same day, then maybe Mis'

Haven mought a give you somethin' like Mis' Alice give Jintsey's boy."

John Jay had that same thought all the rest of the way to Rosehaven, but after they entered the brilliantly illuminated grounds he seemed to stop thinking altogether. It was a sight beyond all that his wildest imaginings had pictured. He did not recognize the place. All the lanterns were lighted now, hanging like strings of stars around the porches, and from tree to tree. Violins played softly, somewhere out of sight, and everywhere on the night air was the breath of myriads of roses. Handsomely dressed people pa.s.sed in and out of the house, and across the lawn. The light, the music, and the perfume made the place seem enchanted ground to the bewildered little John Jay, and when he reached the illuminated fountain just in front of the house, he clung to Mammy's skirts as if he had suddenly found himself in some strange Eden, and was frightened by its unearthly beauty.

The fountain into which, only that morning, he had thrust his hot little face for a drink, now seemed bewitched. It was no longer a flow of sparkling water, but of splashing rainbows. From palest green to ruby red, from amethyst to amber it paled and deepened and glowed.

All the evening he moved about like one in a dream. The tableaux with their shifting scenes of knights and ladies and marble statuary were burned on his memory as heavenly visions. He knew nothing of the tinsel and flour and red lights which produced the effect. He stood about as Miss Hallie told him: he held a horse in one tableau, and posed as a bronze statue in another. Then he went back to the fountain, and sat dreamily watching it, while the violins played again,--in the long parlors this time, where the dancing had begun.

Raleigh Stanford, still in his cavalier costume, and with Miss Sally Lou on his arm, spied him as they pa.s.sed by. "Oh, there's that funny little fellow that was here this morning!" she said. "We tried to make him talk, but he just kept his head on one side, and was too embarra.s.sed to say anything."

"Hey, Sambo," called the young man suddenly in his ear. "What do you know?"

John Jay gave a start, and looked up at the amused faces above him. He took the question seriously, and thought he must really tell what he knew; but just at that moment he could remember only one thing in all the wide world. Every other bit of information seemed to desert him. So he stammered, "I--I know M--Miss Hallie, she's nineteen this Satiddy, an' I'll be nine next Satiddy."

Miss Sally Lou laughed so gaily that her young cavalier made another effort to please her.

"Is that so!" he exclaimed, as if surprised. "It's a mighty lucky thing you told me that, now, or I never would have thought to bring you anything. You didn't know that I am a sort of birthday Santa Claus, did you? Just look out for me next Sat.u.r.day. If I'm not there by breakfast-time, wait till noon, and if I don't get there by that time it'll be because something has happened; anyway, somebody'll be prancing along about sundown."

"Oh, come along, Raleigh," said Miss Sally Lou, moving off toward the house. "You're such a tease."

John Jay, sitting beside that wonderful fountain and surrounded by so many strange, beautiful things, did not think it at all queer that such an unheard-of person as a birthday Santa Claus should suddenly step out from the midst of the enchantment and speak to him.

"A blue velvet cape on," he said to himself, thinking how he should describe him to Bud. "An' gole buckles on his shoes, an' a sword on, an' a long white feathah in his hat. Cricky! An' it was his hawse I done held! Maybe it will be somethin' mighty fine what he's goin' to bring me, 'cause I did that!"

Later he found his way to the kitchen, where Sheba was washing dishes.

The cook gave him a plate of ice-cream and some sc.r.a.ps of cake. She was telling Sheba how beautiful Miss Hallie's birthday cake looked at dinner, with its nineteen little wax candles all aflame. That was the last thing John Jay remembered, until some one shook him, and told him it was time to go home. He had fallen asleep with a spoon in his hand.

Mammy was afraid to take the short cut through the woods after dark, so she led him away round by the toll-gate. He was so sleepy that he staggered up against her every few steps, and he would have dropped down on the first log he came to, if she had not kept tight hold of his hand all the way.

When they reached Uncle Billy's house, he had just gone out to draw a pitcher of water. Mammy stopped to get a drink, and John Jay leaned up against the well-shed. The rumbling of the windla.s.s and the fall of the bucket against the water below aroused him somewhat, and by the time he had swallowed half a gourdful of the cold well-water he was wide awake.

Uncle Billy went up to the cabin with them in order to hear an account of the party, and to walk back with Aunt Susan. John Jay fell behind. He could not remember ever having been out so late at night before, and he had never seen the sky so full of stars. They made him think of something that Aunt Susan had told him. She said that if he counted seven stars for seven nights, at the same time repeating a charm which she taught him, and making a wish, he'd certainly get what he wanted at the end of the week.

Now he stopped still in the path, and slowly pointing to each star with his little black forefinger, as he counted them, solemnly repeated the charm:

"Star-light, star bright, Seventh star I've seen to-night; I wish I may and I wish I might Have the wish come true I wish to-night."

"Come on in, chile! What you gawkin' at?" called Mammy from the doorway.

John Jay made no answer. It would have broken the charm to have spoken again before going to sleep. He hurried into the house, glad that Mammy was so occupied with her company that she could pay no attention to him.

She stood in the door with them so long that John Jay was in bed by the time she came in. Although he pretended to be asleep, inwardly he was in a quiver of excitement.

"I'll count 'em every night," he thought. The wish that burned in his little heart was a very earnest one, fraught with hopes for his coming birthday.

CHAPTER V.

Late hours did not agree with John Jay. Next morning he felt too tired to stir. He groaned when he remembered that it was Sunday, for he thought of the long, hot walk down to Brier Crook church. To his great surprise, Mammy did not insist on his going with her: she had been offered a seat in a neighbor's spring-wagon, and there was no room for him.

So he spent a long, lazy morning, stretched out in the shade of the apple-tree. A smell of clover and ripening orchards filled the heated air. The hens clucked around drowsily with drooping wings. A warm breeze stirred the gra.s.ses where he lay.

Ivy dug in the dirt with a broken spoon, while Bud kicked up his heels beside John Jay, listening to a marvellous account of Miss Hallie's party. It lost nothing in the telling. For years after, John Jay looked back upon that night as a John of Patmos might have looked, remembering some vision of the opened heavens. The lights, the music, the white-robed figures, and above all, that wonderful fountain looking as if it must have sprung from some "sea of gla.s.s mingled with fire," did not belong to the earth with which he was acquainted. He repeated some part of that recollection to Bud every day for a week, always ending with the sentence uppermost in his thought: "And next Satiddy _I_ has a buthday."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Under the apple-tree]

Of course he knew that his celebration could be nothing like Miss Hallie's; but he had a vague idea that something would happen to make the day unusual and delightful. Every night after he had gone to bed, and when Mammy was drowsing on the doorstep, he raised himself to his knees, and looked through a wide hole in the wall where the c.h.i.n.king had dropped out from between the logs. Through this he could see a strip of sky studded with twinkling stars. One by one he pointed out the magic seven, repeating the charm and whispering the wish.

It was a long week, because he was in such a hurry for it to go by. But Friday night came at last; and, as he counted the stars for the seventh time, the little flutter of excitement in his veins made them seem to dance before his eyes.

Early Sat.u.r.day morning he was awakened by Mammy's stirring around outside among the chickens, and instantly he remembered that the long-looked-for day had come. Somehow, a feeling of expectancy made it seem different from other days. He wanted it to last just as long as possible, so he lay there thinking about it, and wondering what would happen first.

As soon as he was dressed, Mammy sent him to the spring for water. He was gone some time, for he had a faint hope that the birthday Santa Claus whom he had met at Miss Hallie's party might come early, and he spent several minutes looking down the road.

Breakfast was ready when he reached the house, and he set the pail down in such a hurry that some of the water slopped out on his bare toes. His wistful eyes scanned the table quickly. There was a better breakfast than usual--bacon and eggs this morning. There was no napkin on the table under which some gift might lie in hiding, but remembering Miss Hallie's other experiences, he pulled out his chair. A little shade of disappointment crept into his face when he found it empty.

After he had speared a piece of bacon with his two-tined fork, and landed it safely on his plate, he rolled his eyes around the table. "Did you know this is my buthday, Mammy?" he asked. "I'm nine yeahs ole to-day."

"That's so, honey," she answered, cheerfully. "You'se gettin' to be a big boy now, plenty big enough to keep out o' mischief an' take keer o'

yo' clothes. I'll declare if there isn't anothah hole in yo' shirt this blessed minute!"

The lecture that followed was not of the gala-day kind, but John Jay consoled himself by thinking that he would probably have had a cuffing instead had it happened on any other day.

After breakfast Mammy went away to do a day's scrubbing at Rosehaven.

The children spent most of the morning in watching the road. Every cloud of dust that tokened an approaching traveller raised a new hope. Many people went by on horses or in carriages. Once in a while there was a stray bicycler, but n.o.body turned in towards the cabin.

After a while, in virtue of its being his especial holiday, John Jay ordered the smaller children to stay in the yard, while he took a swim in the pond. But the pleasure did not last long. He could only splash and paddle around dog-fashion, and the sun burnt his back so badly that he was glad to get out of the water.

Afternoon came, and nothing unusual had happened, but John Jay kept up his courage and looked around for something to do to occupy the time. A wide plank leaned up against the little shed at one side of the cabin.

It made him think of Uncle Billy's cellar door, where he had spent many a happy hour sliding.

"I'm goin' to have a coast," he said to Bud. A smooth board which he found near the woodpile furnished him with a fine toboggan. By the help of an overturned chicken-coop, which he dragged across the yard, he managed to climb to the top of the shed. Squatting down on the board, he gave himself a starting push with one hand. The downward progress was not so smooth or so rapid as he desired.

"Needs greasin'," he said, looking at the plank with a knowing frown. A rummage through the old corner cupboard where the provisions were kept provided him with a wide strip of bacon rind, such as Uncle Billy used to rub on his saw. John Jay carried it out of doors and carefully rubbed the plank from one end to the other. Then he greased the underside of the little board on which he intended to sit. The result was all he could wish. He slid down the plank at a speed that took his breath. Up he climbed from the coop to the shed, carrying his board with him, and down he slid to the ground, time and again, yelling and laughing as he went, until Bud began to be anxious for his turn. When the little fellow was boosted to the shed, he did not make a noise as John Jay had done; he slid in solemn silence and unspoken delight.

Over an hour of such sport had gone by when Bud remarked, "Ivy's a-missin' all the fun."

"She's too little to go down by herself," answered John Jay; "but if I had another little board I'd take her down in front of me."

He began looking around the wood-pile for one. Then he caught sight of the big dish-pan, which had been set outside on the logs to sun.

"That's the ve'y thing!" he exclaimed. "It'll jus' hole her." The bacon rind was nearly rubbed dry by this time, but the pan, heated by sitting so long in the sun, drew out all the grease that remained. It took the united strength of both boys to get Ivy to the top of the shed, but at last she was seated, with John Jay just behind her on his little board, his legs thrown protectingly around the pan. They shot down so fast that Ivy was terrified. No sooner was she dumped out of the pan on to the ground than she retired to a safe distance, and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Nothing could induce her to get in again.

"I'm goin' down in the dish-pan by myself," announced Bud from the shed roof. "It jus' fits me."

John Jay grinned, and stood a little to one side to watch the performance. "Go it, Brer Tarrypin!" he shouted.