It was Martha Mary’s birthday; the brightest, happiest birthday she could remember. But, of course, the last birthday a person has always seems the nicest. Everyone had presents for her. From Father and Uncle Captain Mick there were oodles of books and ribbons and things for a sewing-basket. John borrowed fifty cents from Levy, the butcher, and bought a perfectly good spy-glass. Martha Mary could use it, he said, to spy out the rest of the family when she wanted company, or Liza when she got lost. Personally, I think he expected some pretty good times with it himself. Walter and Edward Lee sold forty bottles to the rags-bottles-sacks-man for fifteen cents, and with the aid of a nail managed to get eleven cents more out of their penny-bank. They bought five molasses sticks, one for each of the children, which left just a penny over. Mother’s presents were the nicest of all. First there was a white linen cushion to be embroidered with golden poppies; then there was a book of the Secret Garden and a perfectly beautiful edition of Peter Pan. Best of all! Guess what! There was a corset! It wasn’t a really and truly corset because Mother Dear did not approve of them, not even for grown-up women, but it had whalebone all up and down it like the strait-jacket they keep prisoners in.
Martha Mary went under the trees with all her presents, and John was particularly nice and not at all grown-upish. He built a throne on the stump of the old oak tree and Martha Mary sat there, surrounded by the trees and flowers and birds, and John made her a wreath of buttercups and a daisy chain. Then he tooted a blast on the cook’s dinner-horn and called all the court to do homage to Queen Mary.
Flip was out in the field planting alfalfa. When he heard the horn he stopped work, although he was quite sure it was not lunch time. Still, he wasn’t going to take any chances because he certainly did like to eat. Across the lawn he came and there he saw the queen, surrounded by all her subjects.
“What is this?” asked Flip. “Why the celebration?”
“Please,” said Martha Mary, a little bit choky, “you have forgotten, Flip, and I did not want you to forget.”
“What did I forget, Ladykin Dear?” asked Flip.
Martha Mary would not tell because she did not want him to feel badly. Neither would John.
“You tell me, Butterfly,” Flip coaxed Liza.
“It’s her birfday,” said Liza, “and there is going to be cake with candles for tea.”
Well, at first Flip felt so badly that he couldn’t talk at all; then he got an idea.