“You are just in time to have a bite of supper with us, Wanza. We heard the rattle of your cart, and Joey has gone to the spring for cress.”
She met my glance dourly. Her brows came together and she ignored my outstretched hand.
“Mr. David Dale,” she said with great dignity, “perhaps I am wrong, but it’s my opinion you’ve forgotten what day it is.”
I smiled into the sullen face. “Oh, no,” I said airily, “I have not forgotten! To-day is wash day—therefore Monday.”
“Yes, and whose birthday is it, Mr. Dale?”
I stared at her.
“Whose birthday, whose? Just his—his—as never had a birthday that’s known of! Except that you vowed he should keep a day for his own every year, and named a day for him, which I thought you meant to keep sacred as Christmas, ’most.”
A light dawned on me. Some years before Wanza and I had decided that Joey must keep one day each year as his birthday, and I had dedicated the fifth of June to my little lad; planning to keep each fifth of June as if it were indeed the anniversary of his birth, as it was the anniversary of his coming to me. A week since I had bethought me of this, yes, even yesterday I had remembered it. But to-day I had visited a charmed spot, I had seen a radiant being, I had listened to a seraphic voice—I had forgotten. I hung my head.
Wanza spoke again. “The poor boy,” she said, “poor Joey!” There was a break in her accusing tones. “I didn’t think that you’d be the one to forget him, Mr. Dale.”
“I’m ashamed of it, Wanza,” I confessed. My heart turned heavy within me. I felt a traitor to my trusting lad who would never in his most opulent moment have forgotten me. “I am heartily ashamed of it,” I repeated.