"These will soon dry on me," I said.
"Put them on—ye laggard! Michael Henry told me to give them to you. It's the birthday night o' little Ruth, my boy. There's a big cake with candles and chicken pie and jellied cookies and all the like o' that. Put them on. A wet boy at the feast would dampen the whole proceedings."
I put them on and with a great sense of relief and comfort. They were an admirable fit—too perfect for an accident, although at the time I thought only of their grandeur as I stood surveying myself in the looking-glass. They were of blue cloth and I saw that they went well with my blond hair and light skin. I was putting on my collar and necktie when Mr. Hacket returned.
"God bless ye, boy," said he. "There's not a bear in the township whose coat and trousers are a better fit. Sure if ye had on a beaver hat ye'd look like a lawyer or a statesman. Boy! How delighted Michael Henry will be! Come on now. The table is spread and the feast is waiting. Mind ye, give a good clap when I come in with the guest."
We went below and the table was very grand with its great frosted cake and its candles, in shiny brass sticks, and its jellies and preserves with the gleam of polished pewter among them. Mrs. Hacket and all the children, save Ruth, were waiting for us in the dining-room.
"Now sit down here, all o' ye, with Michael Henry," said the schoolmaster. "The little lady will be impatient. I'll go and get her and God help us to make her remember the day."
He was gone a moment, only, when he came back with Ruth in lovely white dress and slippers and gay with ribbons, and the silver beads of Mary on her neck. We clapped our hands and cheered and, in the excitement of the moment, John tipped over his drinking glass and shattered it on the floor.
"Never mind, my brave lad—no glass ever perished in a better cause. God bless you!"
What a merry time we had in spite of recurring thoughts of Uncle Peabody and the black horse toiling over the dark hills and flats in the rain toward the lonely farm and the lonelier, beloved woman who awaited him! There were many shadows in the way of happiness those days but, after all, youth has a way of speeding through them—hasn't it?
We ate and jested and talked, and the sound of our laughter drowned the cry of the wind in the chimney and the drumming of the rain upon the windows.