The next morning early, before breakfast, Susan ran out on the front porch to view the new day. Grandfather had suggested that she go look for “fairy tablecloths” in the grass, but Susan more than half suspected that he wanted her out of the way while he finished shaving. She couldn’t help whisking about the room and it did make his hand shake.
Susan watched two rosy little clouds grow fainter and fainter in the pale blue morning sky, and then disappear. She leaned over the porch railing and stared down into the bed of gay portulaca that Grandmother tended with such care both night and morning.
“Grandmother’s flowers,” thought she, smiling at the bright little cups, all wet with dew. “They are awake and I am awake. I guess everybody is awake now. But where is Snuff? He’s always the first one up.”
Susan turned to go in search of her playmate when a flutter of white caught her eye. On one of the porch posts a slip of paper had been fastened with a common white pin. In a twinkling Susan was on the rail and down again, paper in hand.
“Grandfather, Grandfather, here’s a letter,” she called, and, running through the house, she gave the paper to Grandfather, just settling himself at the breakfast table.
“Hum,” said Mr. Whiting, when he had read the slip and studied it backward and forward. “This is a strange thing. It’s for you, Susan. Look at this, Grandmother.”
On a jagged slip of wrapping-paper, printed in uneven letters that slanted downhill, were the words:
“A pressent for the little miss on the school-house steps.”
“A present for me?” said Susan, delighted, as Grandfather read it aloud. “I’ll go straight down and get it. Shall I?”
“No, no. Eat your breakfast first,” answered Grandfather, who was not nearly so pleased at the idea of a present as Susan thought he ought to be.