CHAPTER IV

DEAD SEA FRUIT


"Why don't I never have no fav-ver?"

Often David asked that question; upon awakening and upon going to
bed he was pretty sure to make inquiries that were never
satisfactorily answered. And now, one morning, it was a decided
relief to Mother to have him ask something else. With eager
questioning he said:

"Am I?"

Early, very early, he had awakened her to ask her that, for he
had been told, on going to bed, that when the day should come
again he would be four years old. Twice in the night he had
asked if he was It; so when the dawn at last showed with a
lovely pinkness in the lacy folds of the curtains, and the note
of a far-away meadow-lark called him into the glory of birthday
happiness, he wanted to be very certain that this famous period
of his life had actually come.

Before demanding if it were quite true, he lay still awhile and
thought about it. He looked at Mother's face, and snuggled his
fingers into the fairy foam of her nightgown, but the face and
the fairy foam at her throat had not changed in the least. They
were just the same as they had been yesterday and the day before