Hazel sighed, but felt relieved. It would be well to have the guests very young so that she could handle them.
“And Mammy Smith’s little girl, and Carrie and Johnnie Hunt, that will be enough, and I’ll teach them songs and games.”
There were busy days next week. Hazel drilled the little country children, who looked shyly at her and understood nothing of what she was saying. Hazel called them stupid many times in her heart and sometimes with her lips, but they were only unfamiliar with all that she was trying to put into their lives. But one thing was sure. They could sing the birthday verse.
“Here’s a little box for you, honey,” Granny said one morning, handing Hazel a package. “Come by the post,” and she eyed it curiously.
“It’s—it’s a secret just now,” Hazel stammered.
“A secret? Well, child, don’t you tell it until you is good and ready,” and Granny went to her work in the garden.
In her room Hazel opened the box. It contained six dozen little candles, pink and green and blue and yellow and white. Just what she wanted. Mother always did exactly right.
But now, most difficult of all, to make the cake!
Granny loved to cook in the old way over the fire, but she had a stove in an outhouse which she used now that the warm weather had come. If Hazel could get access to this, without Granny’s knowing it, she would make and try to bake the cake. At home she did the mixing and her mother the baking. But would Granny go away long enough for her to do her work? There was the great difficulty.
On the day after the candles came, however, it was solved.