world, and I thank God that he led me to it and "made me
to lie down in its green pastures, beside its still waters." I found
that in the Bible the other night, and it fitted me and Byrdsville.
Good-night, Louise!

Of course when I grow up I shall have many things happen to me, like
graduating from Byrdsville Academy, marrying, and being president of
clubs, and going to balls and theaters in the city, if I have to; but
there will never be a night like this one of my sixteenth birthday,
April twenty-second.

Miss Priscilla Talbot was the first slice out of the happiness
birthday cake when we met down at her house to get into the wagon. I
can never have things here at my home like that, because of the
precious sick thing upstairs that cannot be disturbed, but who is the
core of my heart, anyway, even if she doesn't know it.

But of all astonishing things, this is what Miss Priscilla did as we
were all lined up for Father and the Colonel to help us into the wagon
on the great mound of hay, to the front of which four horses were
hitched.

"And now to start off the birthday we must each give Phyllis a kiss,
as we would do if we were blowing out the candies on the cake that is
packed in the basket; and each one whisper a wish to her, as they give
her a kiss. I will be first and the Colonel next," she said and she
bent down and kissed me and whispered: "A happy sixteenth year."

I never had been kissed--even Father never did it to me, because I
have been more like a son than a daughter, and he hasn't thought of
it. To get a whole wagonload of them at one time, and unaccustomed to
them, was enough to paralyze any girl, and I stood dumb and took
it--them, I mean. The blow-out-the-candle-with-a-kiss-wish is one of
the first family birthday customs in Byrdsville, and I felt that it
was right to subscribe to it. I didn't mind when I saw the boys were
going to refuse firmly to do it and just shake hands instead.

"Bully for you, Bubble, and a pound or two to cover your elbows," Tony
exploded while he nearly pumped my arm out of the socket. Everybody
laughed, because I _am_ getting thin with so much growing.

The Colonel's kiss was a ceremonial, like you have in church or at
graduation day, and his wish took five minutes to say, but the tall
Willis choked up my throat with the lump by whispering a hope for my
mother, which can never be, I know.

Next the Idol kissed my hand with grace like is in a story-book and
which made