as Ivy."

Bud opened his eyes in amazement.

"Deed she did," persisted John Jay, enjoying the sensation he was
making. "She gave me some, and I saved a piece for you." After much
searching through his pockets, John Jay handed out a big chocolate cream
that had been mashed flat. Bud ate it gratefully as they walked on, and
wiped his lips with his little red tongue, longing for more.

After supper, as Mammy and John Jay went down the narrow meadow path in
Indian file, he ventured a question that he had pondered all day.
"Mammy, does we all have buthdays same as white folks?"

"Of co'se," answered the old woman, tramping on ahead with her skirts
held high out of the dewy grass.

"When's yoah's?" he asked, after a pause.

"Well," she began reflectively, not willing to acknowledge that she had
never known the exact date, "I'm nevah ve'y p'tick'lah 'bout its
obsa'vation. It's on a Monday, long in early garden-makin' time."

They had come to a little brook, bridged by a wide, hewed log. When they
had crossed in careful silence, John Jay began again. "Mammy, when's my
buthday?"

"I kaint tell 'zactly, honey," she answered, "'twel I adds it up." As
she began counting on her fingers, her skirts slipped lower and lower
from her grasp, until they brushed the dew of the wayside weeds.

"Yes, that's it," she announced at last. "Miss Hallie is nineteen this
Satiddy, and you'll be nine next Satiddy. A week from to-day is yoah
buthday. Pity it hadn't a-happened to be the same day, then maybe Mis'
Haven mought a give you somethin' like Mis' Alice give Jintsey's boy."

John Jay had that same thought all the rest of the way to Rosehaven,
but after they entered the brilliantly illuminated grounds he seemed to
stop thinking altogether. It was a sight beyond all that his wildest
imaginings had pictured. He did not recognize the place. All the
lanterns were lighted now, hanging like strings of stars around the
porches, and from tree to tree. Violins played softly, somewhere out of
sight, and everywhere on the night air was the breath of myriads of
roses. Handsomely dressed people passed in and out of the house, and
across the lawn. The light, the music, and the perfume made the place
seem enchanted ground to the bewildered little John Jay, and when he
reached the illuminated fountain just in front of the house, he clung to
Mammy's skirts as if he had suddenly found himself in some strange Eden,
and was frightened by its unearthly be