Miss Bayley laughed. She knew that it was her fault, for she had filled the boy’s mind with longing for adventure, and she also knew that he would be unable to study that day, and so she said, “But you haven’t had your lunch.”
“I’ve got my share in my pocket this minute. Could I go, Miss Bayley? Could I go now?”
What was there to do but agree, and, with a little half-suppressed whoop of joy, the boy leaped to the row of hats, snatched his own from a hook, waved it in farewell, and was gone. A wild gazelle could hardly have been more fleet of foot.
No stick did he carry to beat ahead for snakes. This little lad, born and reared in the mountains, had no fear of the other creatures dwelling there. With understanding sympathy and comradeship he made them all his friends.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CELEBRATING
The holiday spirit continued to pervade the little log schoolhouse, and Dixie marveled, for was not this Monday, the day of the week when lessons were usually the hardest? Then, at two o’clock, and right in the middle of the spelling recitation, Miss Bayley closed the book, and, placing it in her desk, made an unprecedented announcement, “Suppose we speak pieces for a while, and then I have a surprise planned for you.”
Unable longer to keep from expressing her curiosity, the slim, freckled hand of Dixie went up. The beaming teacher nodded, and the little maid rose and inquired, “Miss Bayley, is it your birthday to-day?”
The girl-teacher laughed aloud. “I feel as though it were,” she confessed. “I am almost sure it is, somehow. We might call it an extra make-believe birthday, for my real one comes in January when it’s blustery and cold.”
Then, following up the idea suggested by the pupil she so loved, she asked, “How many of you would like to come to my extra-birthday party?”
How the hands flew up! The suggestion of it was beyond the understanding of some of them, but “party” was a word known to all except the little Mexicans. However, even their small brown hands went up, and their smiles were as bright as the smiles of those who fully comprehended the meaning of the magical word.