Breakfast was over. Aunt Susan and Rosa were in the pantry consulting on housekeeping matters. Wilbur sat down in a rocking-chair on the front porch and waited. He waited and waited, rocking violently. And then at last he heard Aunt Susan calling him.
He was out of his chair and in the hall like a flash.
'Yes’m,' he answered. 'Yes’m. What is it, Aunt Susan?'
Aunt Susan was coming down the stairs.
'Here is the ball I promised you, dear,' she said. She placed in his outstretched hand—
Wilbur had visualized it so vividly, had imagined the desired thing with such intensity, that it was as if a strange transformation had taken place before his eyes. He was holding, not the hard, heavy, white ball he had seemed actually to see, with its miraculously perfect stitching and the trim lettering of the name upon it: a curious, soft thing lay in his hand, a home-made ball constructed of wools. There seemed to be millions of short strands of bright-colored wools, all held together in the centre by some means and sticking out in every direction. Their smoothly clipped ends formed the surface of the ball.
It was the kind of thing you would give a baby in a go-cart.
Wilbur stood and gazed at it. The kind of thing you would give a baby in a go-cart! Then he looked up at Aunt Susan, and suddenly the sense of his great disappointment was lost in that immense, aching pity for her. She was so old, and she had made it herself, thinking it would please him.
'It’s—it’s awful pretty!' Wilbur stammered.
He felt inexpressibly sorry for Aunt Susan. How could any one be so utterly without comprehension!