R IV

DEAD SEA FRUIT

"Why don't I never have no fav-ver?"

Often David asked that question; upon awakening and upon going to
bed he was pretty sure to make inquiries that were never
satisfactorily answered. And now, one morning, it was a decided
relief to Mother to have him ask something else. With eager
questioning he said:

"Am I?"

Early, very early, he had awakened her to ask her that, for he
had been told, on going to bed, that when the day should come
again he would be four years old. Twice in the night he had
asked if he was It; so when the dawn at last showed with a
lovely pinkness in the lacy folds of the curtains, and the note
of a far-away meadow-lark called him into the glory of birthday
happiness, he wanted to be very certain that this famous period
of his life had actually come.

Before demanding if it were quite true, he lay still awhile and
thought about it. He looked at Mother's face, and snuggled his
fingers into the fairy foam of her nightgown, but the face and
the fairy foam at her throat had not changed in the least. They
were just the same as they had been yesterday and the day before
and the day before that.

It was very strange. He had supposed that when a little boy is
four years old, his life would be somehow--different. That is why
he was still in doubt; he was not at all sure about being four
years old. He would wake up Mother and then, if he _was_ It, she
would make him feel that he was.

Her reassurance, though, was not nearly so satisfying as he had
hoped.

"Yes, dear; it's your birthday. Now go to sleep awhile, my
pretty."

David lay very still, but he did not go to sleep. By and by he
asked rather uneasily:

"What do you do first?"

"What do you mean, little boy?"

"Little? _Am_ I little?"

"Of course you're growing," Mother told him.

But David would not be deceived. Already the suspicion had come
to him that there was nothing grand about being four years old.
It was not a success; it was a failure, and his one hope now
rested in Dr. Redfield, for this was the morning when the Doctor
had promised to waylay the little boy.

"How does _that_ begin?" David asked. He could not think what it
was that began.

"How does _what_ begin?" Mother inquired.

And that was not nice nor reasonable of her. Mothers are made to
answer questions, not to ask questions, and they are so
discouraging when they can't understand about being waylaid!
David felt abused, but he deci