'To-mowwow is my birfday, my birfday, my birfday!'
Some deep wisdom kept him from letting the other boys suspect what Mr. Grey had foretold for his birthday; but when he came to Miss Lyman that she might look him over before he went to school, he pulled her down close to whisper, 'I’m goin' to look at you de very first one of all.' And to seal the matter he deposited a kiss in the palm of her hand, and shut her fingers upon it.
'Keep vat till I come back,' he commanded, and went jauntily off to school, where in all probability he made the same engaging promise to Miss Cynthia, and sealed it with the same token. But if he did, one may be certain he hid the token safe away in her hand. He was always shy about kisses, not being quite sure but that they might be visible. You could certainly feel the things, so why mightn’t they be seen as well, sticking right out on one’s cheek, for seeing people to stare at? For this reason, he refused them on his own account, ''cause vey might show'; and those that he gave were always bestowed in the palm of the hand, where the fingers could be closed hastily upon them.
Miss Lyman sat in the clothes room that morning, and sewed and waited. Her needle blurred, and her thread knotted, and the patches seemed more difficult than ever, and all because she had told herself that presently she must take a little boy up in her lap and shatter his dearest hope with truth. She had made up her mind that, when he came from school that morning, she would have to tell him. Therefore she sat and sewed, her whole being tense for the sound of his footsteps. She knew just how he would come—with a sudden scamper up the steps outside. He always ran as soon as his fingers were sure of the rail, because much of his time he was an engine, 'An’ vats ve way twains come up steps.' Then he would whisk around the corner, fumble an instant for the door-handle, and burst in upon her.
But after all, none of these sounds came. Instead, there was suddenly the trampling of grown-up feet, the rush of skirts, and Miss Cynthia threw the door open.
'Oh, come—come quick!' she panted. 'Stanny is hurt—He ran away—Oh, I told him to come straight to you! But he ran away down the road, and a motor—'
Together they sped down the long corridors to the hospital. They had brought Stanny there and laid him on one of the very clean little beds. Such a tiny crushed morsel of humanity in the centre of the big bare room! But his hand moved and he found Miss Lyman’s chatelaine as she bent over him.
'I knowed you was comin' by ve tinkly fings,' he whispered. Then—'I was dest playin' it was my birfday an’ I could see.—Gwey said to.—Is you—is you goin' to punish me vis time?' he quavered.
'No, lovey, no—not this time,' she faltered, for she had caught the look on the doctor’s face.
'Gwey said he al’us dest barked an’ barked at aut’mobiles.—Let me hold ve tinkly fings so’s I will know you is vere.' And by and by he murmured, 'It’ll be my birfday soon—weal soon now, won’t it?'