CHAPTER XX

MISS JOHNSON’S BIRTHDAY

‘Accept at our hands, we pray you, These mean presents, to express Greater love than we profess. * * * * * Gifts these are, such as were wrought By their hands that them have brought, Home-bred things.’

――_Campion._

Doctor O’Neill did not join the young people on the lawn, but merely waved a hand to them before getting into his car.

Edward lay on his back on the grass, a tin of toffee by his elbow; Grif, now convalescent, Barbara, Ann, and Jim, were playing croquet. They gave up the game, however, when they caught sight of Palmer, and Edward pushed the tin of toffee towards his chum. They had all, in fact, been waiting for him, for this was Miss Johnson’s birthday, and preparations for its proper celebration had been in progress ever since breakfast.

“We ought to build the bonfire before tea,” Jim cried.

“So we will; there’s plenty of time,” returned Palmer, lazily. He dropped down on the grass beside Edward as he spoke, while the sound of the doctor’s car died in the distance.

“But the fireworks have to be got ready, too.”

“I thought you said they _were_ ready.”

“The set-piece is, but the others will have to be pinned up.”

“That won’t take a jiff.”

Palmer lay watching the sunlit lawn, his thoughts far enough away from both Miss Johnson and fireworks. Sometimes he stole a glance at Grif, who sat very quiet. The chequered shadows on the grass, the green branches of the trees, the dark summer sky――to Palmer Grif was as remote from him as all these. Now that he had more or less constituted himself his protector he had begun to observe him closely, and he found him very easy to understand. He looked at Edward; he looked at Jim, at Barbara; and he wondered if he and Grif could become friends. Edward, of course, had always been his friend, and he still liked him fairly well:――it was only that he liked Grif better. He was quite aware that he was not Grif’s sort; (that sort, he imagined, would be rather difficult to find). The little boy made him feel rough and coarse and――something else he could not altogether understand. But his way of speaking pleased Palmer, his manners, which were so gentle and gracious; and he wondered how he would get on at school, for he was to come back with Edward and him after the holidays. He decided that he should have to look after him, and he also decided that it was fortunate he should be there to do so. Even with all the looking after in the world it seemed to him that Grif would have a pretty thin time.

“There aren’t really enough,” said Edward. “The whole show will be over in about two ticks.”

“What show?” asked Palmer absently, leaning his head back on the grass, and gazing up through green leaves at the sky.

“The bonfire won’t,” said Jim.

“How old do you think Miss Johnson is, Balmer?” Ann inquired, nestling up to him.

“Oh, I don’t know. About seventy.”

“No; but really. I want to put candles round the cake I’ve baked for her.”

“You’ll jolly well spoil that cake if you go messing about with it,” said Edward. “Why can’t you leave it alone!”

“But I want to have the candles,” Ann persisted, “and I don’t like to ask Miss Johnson her age――she’s so particular about questions.”

At that moment Miss Johnson herself appeared, in search of Barbara, whom she was taking into the town. “Are you ready, Barbara?” she called out, straightening her glasses, and surveying her pupil through them to see if she were quite tidy.

Barbara dropped her mallet and declared that she was.

“Miss Johnson, just a sec,” said Palmer, shaking off his reverie, and springing to his feet. “I want to try a puzzle: it won’t take half a jiff.” He produced a pencil and a rather dirty-looking letter from home, which had evidently been in his pocket for many days. These he handed to Miss Johnson.

“Another time, Palmer,” the governess said, for, ever since the evening of the dramatic performance, she had regarded all the red-haired boy’s overtures with mistrust.

“It won’t take a minute,” Palmer coaxed, and Miss Johnson, after some further hesitation, yielded so far as to accept the paper and pencil.

“What am I to do?” she asked.

“Just think of a number――any number――and write it down on the envelope and multiply it by three.”

Miss Johnson, conscious that all eyes were fixed upon her, did the necessary sum. “Well?” she said.

“Add one to it, and then multiply the result by three again.”

“I hope this is all,” said Miss Johnson severely, while at the same time she cast a penetrating glance round the assembled company. She noted in particular the solemn gaze of Ann and Jim, and immediately her suspicions in regard to a trap were confirmed.

“Very nearly. Now add the original number you chose.”

“No, Palmer: this will go on for ever! I haven’t time. Besides, you can get one of the others to do it;”――and she gave the paper and pencil to Ann. “Come, Barbara, we must hurry. The shops close early to-day.”

Palmer submitted politely, while Miss Johnson, satisfied that, if any foolish joke had been intended, it had failed, withdrew, taking Barbara with her.

“What am I to do, Balmer?” Ann asked.

“Oh, just add the original number to what you have there. The original number will be the first one of all.”

“But what do I add it to?”

“Here, show it to me,” said Edward brusquely, taking the paper out of her hand. “Right you are, Dorset. This is a very ancient trick.”

“I didn’t say it was new,” replied Palmer, yawning, “but if you read out the result it may have answered its purpose.”

“What purpose? Three-forty-three.”

“The purpose of finding out that Miss Johnson’s age is thirty-four. Ann wanted to know.”

“Oh, Balmer, how frightfully clever of you!” cried Ann, in ecstasies.

“It’s all swank!” exclaimed Edward, incredulously. “You can’t get a person’s age that way. It just gives you whatever number they happen to choose. It’s an old thing out of the _Boy’s Own Paper_.”

“That’s all that is wanted,” said Palmer. “What is the first number that is most likely to come into Miss Johnson’s head to-day? Her age. I don’t say that it’s sure to be right; but I’ll bet three to one in tins of toffee that it is. Will you take it on?”

“No,” replied Edward simply; “it isn’t profitable to bet with you, Dorset: you’re too fond of certainties.”

“It isn’t a certainty. You know as much about it as I do. The only difference is that I’m willing to back my opinion, and you aren’t.”

“Well, I’m not going to bet anyway.”

“I think you ought to apologize for that remark about certainties.”

“All right: I take it back.”

“But I can’t put thirty-four candles on the cake,” Ann said sadly. “It isn’t nearly big enough.”

“I tell you what,” cried Jim. “We’ll let off thirty-four rockets.... Only we haven’t enough, unless we take down the set-piece.” Then he had a bright idea. “I’ll go and tell Aunt Caroline what it’s for, and she’ll maybe give me the money to buy the extra rockets.” He was off before anyone had time to speak, but in a very few minutes he came back, looking rather crest-fallen.

“Aunt Caroline says Miss Johnson wouldn’t like it, and that we’re not to mention her age at all. She asked me how we knew what it was.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“I told her Palmer had worked it out by arithmetic, but she didn’t seem to understand.”

“I wonder why Miss Johnson wouldn’t like thirty-four rockets?” pondered Ann. “_I_ would.”

“It’s because it makes her seem so old.”

“Grown-up people never want to be thought old,” said Jim. “If you ask them their age they always say eighteen, or twenty-one, or something silly, and then they laugh as if they had been funny, and all the others laugh.”

“Thirty-four _isn’t_ old,” said Ann. “Grandpapa read out of the newspaper the other day about a lady who was a hundred-and-two.”

“What a ripping lot of rockets they could have had for her!” said Jim, regretfully.

“Oh, but they couldn’t very well, because she had just died.”

“They needn’t have waited till her very last day to have them.”

Ann considered this. “Maybe she died suddenly.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that:――it was just that they didn’t think of it.”

“Miss Johnson says more opportunities are wasted by want of thought than by anything else,” said Ann, improvingly.

“She doesn’t think of many things herself――at least not of things anybody else wants to do.”

“She thinks of the things _she_ wants to do, I expect. She says the thing she likes best of all is to watch the sun setting over the sea.”

Jim was puzzled. “Why; what happens when it sets?”

“I don’t think anything happens. She says it’s just a sort of feeling you get inside you:――and that it’s sad.”

“Something _must_ happen then――in her inside. I hate feelings like that, and I don’t see how anybody could like them.” He eyed his stomach dubiously.

They both remained pensive for a minute or two, as if held by a memory of past indispositions; then they dismissed the subject from their thoughts.

Palmer and Edward had remained silent during the discussion, but the latter now got up. “Come on,” he said, “and let’s build the bonfire.”

* * * * *

But neither rockets nor bonfire were to be witnessed by Palmer, for at half-past seven Doctor O’Neill’s car drove for the second time up to the door, with a note for Aunt Caroline, requesting that Master Dorset should be allowed to pay the doctor a visit; and Aunt Caroline left it to Palmer himself either to accept or refuse the invitation.

He turned to the others.

“Why can’t you put it off?” grumbled Edward, voicing the general opinion.

Even Aunt Caroline felt it rather strange that the doctor shouldn’t at least have asked Edward as well. She objected very strongly to such favouritism, more particularly, perhaps, because the favourite was not one of her own nephews. All she said, however, was, “You must remember Doctor O’Neill is very busy, and can’t choose his own time.”

And Palmer added, “I think I’d better go.”

This decided the matter, and it spoke highly for his fellow-pyrotechnists that his conduct was not criticized by them. All seemed to have an idea that a summons coming from such a quarter was more or less compulsory, and that if anyone were to blame it was the doctor himself.

Besides, the joy of fireworks is a great and a solid joy, though unhappily, when capital is limited, far too transitory. Still, while it lasts, it leaves no room for regret. Miss Johnson liked the fireworks very much indeed. The catherine-wheels, attached to the trunks of trees, whirled round, sending golden stars sailing into the darkness; the Chinese crackers hopped along the ground making a terrific noise; and when the set-piece flared out, somewhat reluctantly, with its “Many Happy Returns” in flaming letters, the governess was quite touched, and thanked them in a little speech for their kind thoughts.

Edward replied in a few well-chosen words, which included a graceful allusion to the novel. Then a belated Chinese cracker, going off suddenly and away from its neighbours, produced a scream from Bridget, and the ceremony was finished.

For the bonfire, which was to have been the principal item of the evening, and would have served as a pretext for sitting up till all hours, was cruelly nipped in the bud. Hardly had Jim and Grif and Edward set their matches to it, hardly had the first crepitating sounds rejoiced their hearts, the first tremulous flames flickered up with a delicious cloud of aromatic smoke, when grandpapa intervened and commanded them to put it out.

The ‘putting out’ was perhaps not performed so expeditiously as it might have been, and there was a good deal of kicking of blazing sticks about the grass; but grandpapa was firm, and it had to be done. It was at this trying moment that Miss Johnson revealed the excellent sportswoman she had secretly been all the time, by proposing that they should come indoors and play games instead, and that the hour of bedtime should be postponed, even for Jim and Ann, till the delirious stroke of ten.