A Birthday Story
By Mrs. M.E. Sangster
Jack Hillyard turned over in his hand the few bits of silver which he had taken from his little tin savings-bank. There were not very many of them, a ten cent piece, a quarter, half a dollar and an old silver six-pence. And he had been saving them up a long, long time.
“Well,” said Jack to himself, soberly, “there aren’t enough to buy mother a silk dress, but I think I’ll ask Cousin Susy, if she won’t spend my money and get up a birthday party for the darling little mother. A birthday cake, with, let me see, thirty-six candles, that’ll be a lot, three rows deep, and a big bunch of flowers, and a book. Mother’s never had a birthday party that I remember. She’s always been so awfully busy working hard for us, and so awfully tired when night came, but I mean her to have one now, or my name’s not Jack.”
Away went Jack to consult Cousin Susy.
He found her very much occupied with her dressmaking, for she made new gowns and capes for all the ladies in town, and she was finishing up Miss Kitty Hardy’s wedding outfit. With her mouth full of pins, Cousin Susy could not talk, but her brown eyes beamed on Jack as she listened to his plan. At last she took all the pins out of her mouth, and said:
“Leave it all to me, Jack. We’ll give her a surprise party; I’ll see about everything, dear. Whom shall we ask?”
“When thou makest a dinner or a supper,” said Jack, repeating his golden text of the last Sunday’s lesson, “call not thy friends, nor thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee.”
“Jack! Jack! Jack!” exclaimed Cousin Susy.
“I was only repeating my last golden text,” answered Jack. “We don’t often have to give a feast, and as it was so extraordinary,” said Jack, saying the big word impressively, “I thought of my verse. I suppose we’d better ask the people mother likes, and they are the poor, the halt, the blind, and the deaf; for we haven’t any rich neighbors, nor any kinsmen, except you, dear Cousin Susy.”
“Well, I’m a kinswoman and a neighbor, dear, but I’m not rich. Now, let me see,” said Miss Susy, smoothing out the shining white folds of Kitty Hardy’s train. “We will send notes, and you must write them. There is old Ralph, the peddler, who is too deaf to hear if you shout at him ever and ever so much, but he’ll enjoy seeing a good time; and we’ll have Florrie Maynard, with her crutches and her banjo, and she’ll have a happy time and sing for us; and Mrs. Maloney, the laundress, with her blind Patsy. I don’t see Jackie, but you’ll have a Scripture party after all. Run along and write your letters, and to-night we’ll trot around and deliver them.”
This was the letter Jack wrote:
“Dear Friend:—My mother’s going to have a birthday next Saturday night, and she’ll be thirty-six years old. That’s pretty old. So I’m going to give her a surprise birthday party, and Cousin Susy’s helping me with the surprise. Please come and help too, at eight o’clock sharp.
“Yours truly,
“Jack”.
When this note was received everybody decided to go, and, which Jack did not expect, everybody decided to take a present along.
“You’ll spend all my money, won’t you?” said Jack.
“Certainly, my boy, I will, every penny. Except, perhaps, the old silver sixpence. Suppose we give that to the mother as a keepsake?”
“Very well, you know best. All I want is that she shall have a good time, a very good time. She’s such a good mother.”
“Jack,” said Susy, “you make me think of some verses I saw in a book the other day. Let me read them to you.” And Cousin Susy, who had a way of copying favorite poems and keeping them, fished out this one from her basket:
Little Hans
Little Hans was helping mother
Carry home the lady’s basket;
Chubby hands of course were lifting
One great handle—can you ask it?
As he tugged away beside her,
Feeling oh! so brave and strong,
Little Hans was softly singing
To himself a little song:
“Some time I’ll be tall as father,
Though I think it’s very funny,
And I’ll work and build big houses,
And give mother all the money,
For,” and little Hans stopped singing,
Feeling oh! so strong and grand,
“I have got the sweetest mother
You can find in all the land.”
Now, some people couldn’t do very much with the funds at Cousin Susy’s disposal, but she could, and when Jack’s money was spent for refreshments what do you think they had? Why, a great big pan of gingerbread, all marked out in squares with the knife, and raisins in it; and a round loaf of cup cake, frosted over with sugar, with thirty-six tiny tapers all ready to light, and a pitcher of lemonade, a plate of apples, and a big platter of popped corn.
Jack danced for joy, but softly, for mother had come home from her day’s work and was tired, and the party was to be a surprise, and she was not to be allowed to step into the little square parlor.
That parlor was the pride of Jack and his mother. It had a bright rag carpet, a table with a marble top, six chairs, and a stool called an ottoman. On the wall between the windows hung a framed picture of Jack’s dear father, who was in heaven, and over the mantelpiece there was a framed bouquet of flowers, embroidered by Jack’s mother on white satin, when she had been a girl at school.
“Seems to me, Jack,” said Mrs. Hillyard as she sat down in the kitchen to her cup of tea, “there is a smell of fresh gingerbread; I wonder who’s having company.”
Jack almost bit his tongue trying not to laugh.
“Oh!” said he grandly, “gingerbread isn’t anything, mamma. When I’m a man you shall have pound-cake every day for breakfast.”
By and by Mrs. Maloney and Patsy dropped in.
“I thought,” said Mrs. Maloney, “it was kind o’lonesome-like at home, and I’d step in and see you and Jack to-night, ma’am.”
“That was very kind,” replied Mrs. Hillyard.
“Why, here comes Mr. Ralph,” she added. “Well the more the merrier!”
Tap, tap, tap.
The neighbors kept coming, and coming, and Jack grew more and more excited, till at last when all were present, Cousin Susy, opening the parlor door, displayed the marble-top of the table covered with a white cloth, and there were the refreshments.
“A happy birthday, mother.”
“Many returns.”
“May you live a hundred years.”
One and another had some kind word to say, and each gave a present, a card, or a flower, or a trifle of some sort, but with so much good will and love that Mrs. Hillyard’s face beamed. All day she stood behind a counter in a great big shop, and worked hard for her bread and Jack’s, but when evening came she was a queen at home with her boy and her friends to pay her honor.
“And were you surprised, and did you like the cake and the thirty-six candles, dearest, darling mamma?” said Jack, when everybody had gone home.
“Yes, my own manly little laddie, I liked everything, and I was never so surprised in my life.” So the birthday party was a great success.