"Perhaps sooner. I'll see the Superintendent. We may be able to find it for you."
"Could I find it if I hunted and hunted all day long, like the spoon?" queried Bobby eagerly.
The Man Who Lets You Play with the Puppy laughed.
"Don't worry about your birthday, Bobby. You'll stumble across it some day when you are walking along and not thinking about it."
"It won't matter if you don't, dear," said Mrs. Eller. "Folks will love you just the same."
"No'm," said Bobby skeptically, replying to her first statement, and retiring under a tree to puzzle over the matter and consume the rest of the apple. The other children were playing their games and Mr. and Mrs. Eller soon went into the house.
Bobby decided that the lady, Richard's mothers, didn't know the importance of a birthdays, whereas nothing could be more important. Birthdays brought little boys all the things they had always wanted, like "glassies" and baseball bats and little pigs. He knew he wanted the "glassies" and the bat and wasn't quite sure but that he might want the pigs to help buy an edge-cation when he grew to be as big as Richard's fathers who said he wished that he had one.
If he had really lost his birthdays himself, he might find it as he did the spoon which he lost in the yard one day. The Supe'tendent made him hunt and hunt for it till he couldn't see for the water in his eyes. And then, suddenly, he stepped on it when he wasn't thinking about it and bent it all twisty-like. What if he should step on his birthdays and bend it just as he had the spoon? He must be very careful where he stepped. Didn't the Man Who Lets You Play with the Puppy say he would find his birthdays some time when he was walking along and not thinking about it?
He wanted very much to find his birthdays; so he must be up and about it. He would start at once; he might find it before night and would show that Richard that he did know where to find his birthdays. He knew that he could walk ever so far, but was not so sure that he could keep from thinking about what he was looking for. It was worth trying anyway. If only he might step on his birthdays! He must be careful though not to step on it with all his weight and bend it as he did the spoon—it might be harder to straighten it out.