“I’m six years old,” replied Jimmy importantly. “An’ I’m large of my age; Barb’ra says so.”
“Then it mus’ be so, I reckon. Say, here’s a letter fer Barb’ra f’om ’way out west. I’ve been wonderin’ who Barb’ra knows out west. Ever hear her say, Jimmy?”
The boy shook his blond head vigorously, as he bestowed the letter in the pocket of his coat.
“I’ll ask her if you want me to,” he said with a friendly little smile.
But young Mr. Hewett was back at his post behind the little window, where he presently became engaged in brisk repartee with a couple of red-cheeked girls over the non-arrival of a letter which one of them appeared confidently to expect.
Neither bestowed a glance upon the small figure in the red cap which presently made its way out of the door, carefully carrying a covered tin pail, and out of whose shallow pocket protruded the half of a thin blue envelope addressed to Miss Barbara Preston, in a man’s bold angular hand.
There was a cold wind abroad, roaring through the branches of the budding trees, and tossing the red maple blossoms in a riotous blur of color against the brilliant blue and white of the sky. To Jimmy Preston trudging along the uneven sidewalk, where tiny pools of water from the morning’s rain reflected the sky and the tossing trees, like fragments of a broken mirror, came a sense of singular elation. It was his birthday; in one hand he carried the beautiful sparkling card, and in the other the tin pail containing the molasses; while in the dazzling reflections under foot were infinite heights—infinite depths of mysterious rapture.
“If I sh’d step in,” mused Jimmy, carefully skirting the edges of a shallow uneven pool in the worn stones, “‘s like’s not I’d go clear through to heaven.”
Heaven was a wonderful place, all flowers and music and joyous ease. He knew this, because Barbara had told him so; and nearly all of the family were there—all but Barbara and himself. But there might not be popcorn balls in heaven; Jimmy couldn’t be certain on that point; and, anyway, he concluded it was better to stay where Barbara was and grow up to be a man as soon as possible.