After an uncomfortable pause I ventured to raise my eyes from the floor. I saw then that Wanza’s arms were filled with mysterious weighty looking bundles. As I would have taken them from her she shook her head, then nodded in the direction of the kitchen.
“You’ve got a good fire going, I see. Let’s get busy! Split up some good dry wood. I want a hot oven in ten minutes. I’ve brought raisins and spices and brown sugar—I’ll stir up a birthday cake. And as for you—” she paused in her progress kitchenward to favor me with an ominous frown—“as for you, Mr. David Dale, don’t let that boy know you went and forgot his birthday or—or I’ll never speak to you again.”
She passed on to the kitchen and I seized the ax and betook myself to the chopping block. I had just laid my hand on a piece of resinous wood when I heard a joyous confused babble of tongues in the kitchen I had quitted. Joey had entered by the front door and shouted Wanza’s name gleefully. And then I heard:
“Bless your old heart! Have you a birthday kiss for Wanza? Well I am late getting round this birthday—I usually come at noon, don’t I, Joey?—but better late than never! It’s getting too hot to eat in the middle of the day. We thought—Mr. Dale and me—that we would change the doings this year. We didn’t want you to imagine, Master Joey, that we couldn’t think up anything new for your celebration. We ’lowed as how you were getting a big boy now, and would like more grown-up doings.”
Joey responded chivalrously:
“You’re terrible good to me, Wanza. I like any doings, ’most. I’ll remember this birthday forever and ever, I know. Why, it’s been the funniest birthday! Mr. David has been on the river ’most all afternoon. I was ’most sure he’d forgot what day it was. But soon as I heard your cart, Wanza, I knew what it was—a surprise party! Like folks give ministers. And that was why Mr. David would not let on. I guess not many boys have spice cake on their birthday, and can help bake it, too.”
I heard the sound of a kiss, and Wanza saying in a choked voice:
“There’s a bit of store candy in that brown paper sack, Joey. My, the heat of the oven smarts my eyes! See, Joey! You can stone the raisins for me while I beat the eggs for the frosting.”
“Of course Mr. David wouldn’t forget my birthday,” I heard my loyal lad resume as I stole forward to the door with my armful of wood, “I’m ’bout the same as his boy, ain’t I, Wanza?”
I swung open the door, and dropping my load of wood to the floor, cried cheerily: