“The days that followed were full of mingled pleasure and pain for me. I was happy at the idea of having a real party, but it didn’t seem fair to deceive Mother. Once I thought of telling her all about it just as I told her about everything else. But I was afraid she would say I was too young to have a party, and I had never been to a party in my life. Sister Aggie was visiting Aunt Louisa in Clayville, and Mother had no one to help her except for what I could do mornings and evenings. But I would be at home all day Saturday, and Annie and Callie had said that they would help.
“Thursday morning Annie told me that she had baked a cake and put my initials on top in little red candies, and Callie said her mother was going to bake an election cake with spices and raisins in it. All day Thursday I kept thinking about the party. It wasn’t off my mind a minute. I couldn’t study for thinking about it, and I missed a word in spelling—the first word I’d missed that term—and had to go to the foot of the class.
“But by the time we had started home I had made up my mind to one thing, that if I could not have a party with everything open and above board I did not want one at all. And so I told the girls that I had changed my mind and did not want them to have a surprise party for me. They coaxed and argued and teased, but I was firm. I was sorry that Annie had baked a cake and I hated to disappoint them, but I did not want a party. The girls were cross with me, and I felt miserable when Annie turned in her gate without saying good-by.
“Aggie had come home from Clayville that afternoon, and she was so busy telling Mother the news and describing the latest fashions, and showing the things she had bought, that no one noticed me much. Not a word was said all evening about my birthday being so near. Even Charlie didn’t tease me about what he would do, such as ducking me in the rain barrel, as he always did, and I thought everyone had forgotten all about my birthday.
“But Friday morning just before I started to school Aggie gave me a plain little handkerchief that she had hemstitched before she went away, and then I knew for sure that she had not brought me anything from Clayville. And when Mother gave me a pair of common home-knit stockings, I thought I should cry right out before everybody instead of waiting until I got started to school.
“Annie and Callie were in a good humor again and as pleasant as could be, but I felt so unhappy that day that I didn’t notice that the girls at school seemed unusually happy and excited. When I finally did notice it, I was afraid that Annie and Callie had gone ahead with plans for the party. I accused them of this, but they denied it.
“‘No, no, we didn’t do another thing about the party,’ they declared. But they looked at each other and laughed when they said it, and I didn’t believe them.
“‘You did,’ I said, ‘you know you did.’
“‘Cross my heart and hope to die if we did,’ Callie insisted.