THE ANIMALS' BIRTHDAY PARTY

童话故事THE ANIMALS' BIRTHDAY PARTY

Birthdays are always important events, but some are more important than others. The most important of all, of course, is one you can’t remember at all—the zero birthday, when you were born.
After that, the fifth, I suppose, is the red letter day. A boy certainly begins to appreciate life when he gets to be five years old. Next, probably, would come the seventh, for a boy—or a girl—is pretty big by then, and able to do so many things. In old Bible days seven was supposed to be a sacred number, and even today many people think it lucky. Why, at the baseball games the men in the stands rise up in the seventh inning and stretch, they say, to bring victory to the home team.
The seventeenth birthday is the next great event. By that time a boy is quite grown up and ready for college; and on the twenty-first he can vote. But after that people don’t think so much of birthdays until their seventieth or so, when they become very proud of them once more. Perhaps they grow like little children again. Wouldn’t it be funny to have, say, eighty candles on one cake? But what cook or baker makes cakes big enough for that?

Marmaduke wasn’t looking so far ahead. All he was thinking about was his own birthday, which came that fine day, his seventh; and he was wondering if Mother would put the seven candles on his cake, and if it would turn out chocolate, which he very much hoped.

About three o’clock of this same day, Mother looked out of the window and said “Good gracious!,” which were the very worst words she ever said; and Father looked up from the cider-press which he was mending, and said “By George!”, which were the very worst he ever said; and the Toyman looked up from the sick chicken to which he was giving some medicine, and said “Geewhillikens!” And whether or not that was the worst he ever said I do not know. I hope so.

What could they be exclaiming about? Marmaduke! He was all alone as far as human beings went, for Jehosophat was putting axle-grease on his little red cart, and Hepzebiah was playing with Hetty, her rag doll, and the rest were busy at their tasks, as we have just seen.
But he had some fine company, oh, yes, he had. He was giving a birthday party for the animals.
And this is the way he persuaded all his noisy quarrelsome friends of the barnyard to come to his party:
First he went to the barn and filled one pocket—you see, he was a big boy now and had pockets—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—one over his heart, two close by his belt, one on the inside of his jacket, one on each side of his hips, and two in the back of his corduroy trousers. Well, he filled pocket number one with golden kernels of corn from the sack; pocket number two with meal from another sack; and he filled pocket number three with lettuce leaves from the garden; and number four with birdseed from a little box. That makes four pockets.

To fill the others, he had to make three more journeys—three very strange journeys, so strange you could never guess where he was going. First he went to the wagon-shed, and there, because it was near the three kennels, was kept the box of dog-biscuits. Six of these biscuits went in the fifth pocket. Let’s see—yes, that leaves two more to be filled.

For the sixth, he went into his own little room and got a bottle with a stopper in it, one which he had begged from the doctor that time he was sick. Then he went to the springhouse by the well, and filled the little bottle with milk from the big can.

But the seventh pocket had the strangest load of all. He took his shovel and actually dug some worms from the garden, long, wriggly worms—“night-walkers,” the boys call them—and placed them in a can, and presto! that too went into his pocket, the seventh. And now all the pockets were filled.
And, mind you, he did all this by himself. And when he came back from all these errands he bulged out in such funny places, the places where he had stuffed his pockets, so that he looked as if he had tremendous warts or knobs all over his body.

“Did you ever!” said Mother, and all three—she, the Toyman, and Father—kept watching, trying hard not to laugh. It paid them to watch him, too, for they were going to see something worth-while, better than a “movie,” better even than a circus.
Well, after all the errands were over, Marmaduke collected some shingles, and all the cups and tins in which the Three Happy Children made mud-pies. And he spread them out on the table in the summer-house very carefully.
Can you guess what he did that for? I don’t believe you can. I know I couldn’t.
Then he took his little scoopnet, and went to the pond and put the net in. Out it came, and in the meshes flopped and tumbled and somersaulted three tiny fish.
These he placed in one of the pans on the table in the summer-house, and then hurried to the rabbit-hutch and opened the sliding door and called,—

“Come, Bunny, Bunny,
An’ don’t be funny!”
But first we must explain that Marmaduke had a queer trick of making rhymes. I guess he caught it from the Toyman, who used to make lots for the children, just to see them laugh. So Marmaduke got the habit. And making rhymes is just as catching as measles and whooping cough, only it doesn’t hurt so much.

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