“Mamma,” he said, “was I born?”
Mamma looked at him a moment in mute surprise. “Were you born, dear?” she repeated. “Yes, certainly you were born. Why do you ask me that, little boy?”
Bobby’s lip began to quiver, and his blue eyes filled with tears. “Den why,—why don’t I have birfdays?” he asked.
Mamma looked very sorry. “Dear! dear!” she said. “Now who has been telling my leap year boy about birthdays? Come and sit in Mamma’s lap and tell me all about it, and then I will tell you all about it.”
So Bobby climbed up into Mamma’s lap and hid his face in her dress, and sobbed out his little story about frosted cake and pink letters, and gold dollars with Grandmamma’s love to her dear little boy. “And I neber—I neber had any!” he said, piteously.
Then Mamma told Bobby a funny little story. It was about the years, and it told how they came along, one after another, and how each year had just the same number of days in it.
“Three—hundred—and sixty-five!
So many days I’ve been alive.
Storm and shine, and sorrow and cheer,
Really, there never was such a year!”