Filled both his hands
He looked about him with round, astonished eyes, but never said a word in answer to the eager questions of the girls, beyond a bashful "yessa" or "no'm."
The arrival of Raleigh Stanford and one of his friends, on their wheels, put an end to the girls' interest in John Jay. He was dismissed with a message to Sheba that sent him flying home through the woods like an excited little whirlwind. The lid of the basket flopped up and down, in time to the motion of his scampering feet. At the foot of the hill he began calling "Mammy!" and kept it up until he reached the door. By that time, he was so out of breath that he could only gasp his message. Sheba was expected to be at Rosehaven at seven o'clock, and John Jay was to take part in the performance on the lawn.
It took a great deal of cross-questioning before Mammy fully understood the arrangement. She could readily see that her services might be desired in the kitchen, but it puzzled her to know what anybody could want of John Jay. She shook her head a great many times before she finally promised that he might go.
Bud had passed a very dull morning without his adventurous brother. Now he came up with a bit of rope with which to play horse. But John Jay was looking down on such sports at present.
"Aw, go way, boy," he said, with a lofty air. "I ain't no hawse. I'se goin' to a buthday-pa'ty to-night. Miss Hallie done give me an invite—me an' Mammy."
"Whose goin' to stay with me an' Ivy?" asked Bud, anxiously.
"Aunt Susan, I reckon," answered John Jay. "Mammy tole me to go ask her. Come along with me, an' I'll tell you what all Miss Hallie got for her buthday. I reckon she had mos' a thousand presents, an' a box of candy half as big as Ivy."
Bud opened his eyes in amazement.