“The whole cake is yours, Mollie dear. But you must eat the first piece yourself,” Mrs. Arnold said quickly; “you are to take the remainder home.”   

     Mollie drew a long breath. “I reckon my Ma never tasted a birthday cake,” she said soberly.   

     After dinner was over and Mollie had seen Mrs. Arnold put the cake carefully into a small basket, which she told the little girl she was to carry home, Berry and Mollie went back to the sitting-room; and Berry brought out her own two fine dolls, which had heads of china with black curls painted on them, and were dressed in56 white muslin and wore sashes of blue silk. Berry had brought these dolls from Vermont, and one was named Josephine Maria, for Berry’s Grandmother Arnold, who had given the dolls to Berry, and the other was called Maria Josephine. “Then, you see, neither one can be the favorite,”     Berry explained, as she set the dolls side by side in her father’s big chair. “Now let’s play it’s a real party; my dolls and your doll can be ‘real’ girls, and we’ll talk for them,” she continued.   

56

     Mollie nodded with smiling delight, and for an hour or more the two     little friends and their dolls played happily. But as the clock struck three Mollie announced that she must start for home.   

     “It gets shadowy and kinder fearsome in the woods come late afternoon,” she said, “and my Pa says that niggers are runnin’ off every little while, and maybe are hid up in the woods; so I’d be skeered to go home late.”   

     “Don’t be afraid of any poor colored man or woman who might be coming over the ridge, Mollie,” said Mrs. Arnold gently.   

     “You mean niggers?” questioned the little girl; and then added quickly, “Oh, Mrs. Arnold! I never knew how grand it would be to be eleven years old, and have a birthday cake, and a doll,57 and a dress!”     And she looked from one gift to another with so radiant a face that Mrs. Arnold felt well rewarded for her friendly efforts for her small neighbor’s happiness. Berry had slipped on her cap and coat and was ready to go part of the way home with Mollie. Just as they had started Mollie suddenly turned back, and running to Mrs. Arnold she looked up at her and said earnestly, “I been tryin’ to say ‘thank you.’ But     ’tain’t enough to say, fer all you give me. ’Tain’t enuff jes’ ter say, ‘Thank you!’”   

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