The Little Colonels Hero | Page 4

be a baby," Lloyd whispered to herself, winking her eyelids
rapidly to clear away a sort of mist that seemed to blur the landscape.
"I'm too old to care so much."
Still, it was such a disappointment, added to all the others that the day
had brought, that she buried her face in the cushions and cried softly.
She could hear her father's voice in the next room, presently. It seemed
quite loud and cheerful; more cheerful than it had sounded since her
mother's dreadful neuralgic headaches had begun. A few minutes later
she heard her mother laugh. It was such a welcome sound, that she
hastily dried her eyes and started to run in to see what had caused it, but
she paused as she passed the mirror. Her eyes were so red that she
knew she would be questioned, and she concluded it would be better to
wait until she was dressed for dinner.
So she sat looking out of the window till the big hall clock struck six,
and then hastily bathing her eyes, she slipped into a fresh white dress,
and looking carefully at herself in the mirror, concluded that she had
waited long enough. To her surprise, she found her mother sitting up in
a big Morris chair by the window. Maybe it was the pink silk kimono
she wore that brought a faint tinge of colour to her cheeks, but
whatever it was, she looked well and natural again, and for the first
time in six long days the neuralgic headache was all gone, and the lines
of suffering were smoothed out of her face.

The wide glass doors opening on to the balcony were standing open,
and through the vines stole the golden sunset light, the chirping of
robins, the smell of new-mown grass, and the heavy sweetness of the
locust blooms. Lloyd rubbed her eyes, thinking she surely must be
dreaming. There on the vine-covered balcony stood a table all set as if
for a "pink party." There were flowers and bonbons in the silver dishes,
and in the centre Mom Beck was proudly placing a mammoth birthday
cake, wreathed in pink icing roses, and crowned with twelve pink
candles ready for the lighting.
"Oh, mothah!" she cried. "I--I thought--"
She did not finish the sentence, but something in her surprised tone, the
sudden flushing of her face, and the traces of tears still in her eyes, told
what she meant.
"You thought mother had forgotten," whispered Mrs. Sherman,
tenderly, as Lloyd hid her face on her shoulder.
"No, not for one minute, dear. But the pain was so bad this morning,
when you came to my room, that I couldn't talk. Then you were out
riding so long this morning, and when I wakened after lunch and sent
Mom Beck to find you, she said you were asleep in your room. Papa
Jack and I have been planning a great surprise for you, and he did not
want to mention it until all the arrangements were completed. That is
why there was no birthday surprise for you at breakfast. But you'll soon
be a very happy little girl, for this surprise is something you have been
wanting for more than a year."
How suddenly the whole world had changed for the Little Colonel! The
sunshine had never seemed so golden, the locust blooms so deliciously
sweet. Her birthday had not been forgotten, after all. Mrs. Sherman's
chair was wheeled to the table on the balcony, and Lloyd took her seat
with sparkling eyes. She wondered what the surprise could be, and felt
sure that Papa Jack would not tell her until the cake was cut, and the
last birthday wish made with the blowing of the birthday candles.
He had intended to save his news to serve with the dessert, but when he

questioned Lloyd as to how she had spent the day, and laughed at her
for reading the old tale of Marguerite's wonder-ball so many times, his
secret escaped him before he knew it. Turning to Mrs. Sherman he said,
"By the way, Elizabeth, our birthday gift for Lloyd might be called a
sort of wonder-ball." Then he looked at his little daughter with a
teasing smile, as he continued, "I wonder if you can guess my riddle. At
first your wonder-ball will unroll a day and night on the cars, then a
drive through a park where you rode in a baby-carriage once upon a
time, but through which you shall go in an automobile this time, if you
wish. There'll be some shopping, maybe, and after that flags flying, and
bands playing, and crowds of people waving good-bye."
He had intended to stop there, but the wondering expression on her face
carried him on further. "I can't undertake to