It lost nothing in the telling. For years after, John Jay looked
back upon that night as a John of Patmos might have looked, remembering
some vision of the opened heavens. The lights, the music, the
white-robed figures, and above all, that wonderful fountain looking as
if it must have sprung from some "sea of glass mingled with fire," did
not belong to the earth with which he was acquainted. He repeated some
part of that recollection to Bud every day for a week, always ending
with the sentence uppermost in his thought: "And next Satiddy _I_ has a
buthday."
[Illustration: Under the apple-tree]
Of course he knew that his celebration could be nothing like Miss
Hallie's; but he had a vague idea that something would happen to make
the day unusual and delightful. Every night after he had gone to bed,
and when Mammy was drowsing on the doorstep, he raised himself to his
knees, and looked through a wide hole in the wall where the chinking had
dropped out from between the logs. Through this he could see a strip of
sky studded with twinkling stars.
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