eyes, and turned away with a lump in his throat. He was beginning to
grow discouraged.

Mammy was so tired that she did not cook anything for supper, as she had
intended, but set out the contents of the basket beside the corn bread
left from dinner. Before they were through eating somebody called for
sis' Sheba to come quick, that Aunt Susan was having one of her old
spells.

"Like enough I won't get back for a good while," said Mammy, as she
hurriedly left the table. "Put Ivy to bed as soon as you wash her face,
John Jay, an' go yo'self when the propah time comes. Be a good boy now,
and don't forget to close the doah tight when you go in."

When Ivy was safely tucked away among the pillows, the two boys sat down
on the door-step to wait once more for the birthday Santa Claus. John
Jay repeated what the thoughtless fellow had said:

"If I don't get there by noon, it'll be because something has happened;
anyway, somebody'll be prancing along about sundown." In the week just
passed, Bud had come to believe in the birthday Santa Claus as firmly
as John Jay.

"Wondah wot he's doin' now?" he said, after a long pause and an anxious
glance down the darkening road.

Ah, well for those two trusting little hearts that they could not know!
He was sitting on the steps of the porch at Rosehaven with a guitar on
his knee, and smiling tenderly into Sally Lou's blue eyes as he sang,
"Oh, yes, I ever will be true!"