Kirk clapped his hands suddenly.
"_I_ know what it was!" he cried. "Don't you? Oh, _don't_ you, Phil?"
"No, I don't. What was it?"
"Shall I finish?" Kirk asked.
"Please do."
"And the person said, 'Thank you,' to the organ," Kirk proceeded
gleefully; "and then in the door what should stand but a beautiful lady.
And _she_ said: 'I'm your sister Felicia--Happiness.' And _that_ was the
most best gift of _all_!"
"Naughty person!" said Felicia. "After all those really nice gifts!
But--but if you will have it that, she said, 'Take my kiss upon your
heart of hearts.' Oh, Kirk--darling--I love you!"
Flowers twined Kirk's chair at the breakfast table--golden honeysuckle,
a sweet, second blooming, and clematis from the Maestro's hedge. Kirk
hung above it, touching, admiring, breathing the sweetness of the
honeysuckle; aware, also, of many others of the Nine Gifts already
perceptible about the room. But his fingers encountered, as he reached
for his spoon, a number of more substantial presents stacked beside his
plate. There was the green jersey which Felicia had been knitting at
privately for some time. He hauled it on over his head at once, and
emerged from its embrace into his sister's. There was, too, a model
boat, quite beautifully rigged and fitted, the painstaking care with
which it was fashioned testifying to the fact that Ken had not been
quite so forgetful of his brother's approaching birthday as he had
seemed to be. "She's called the _Celestine_," said Ken, as Kirk's
fingers sought out rapturously the details of the schooner. "It's
painted on her stern. She's not rigged according to Hoyle, I'm afraid; I
was rather shaky about some of it."
"She has a flag," Kirk crowed delightedly. "Two of 'em! And a little
anchor--and--" he became more excited as he found each thing: "oh, Ken!"
There was another gift--a flat one. A book of five or six short stories
and poems that Kirk had loved best to hear his sister read--all written
out in Braille for him in many of Felicia's spare hours. Now he could
read them himself, when Phil had no time to give him. Breakfast was
quite neglected; the cereal grew cold. Kirk, who had not, indeed,
expected so much as the nine gifts of Phil's tale, was quite overcome by
these things, which his brother and sister had feared were little
enough. There was one thing more--some sheets of paper covered with
Braille characters, tucked beside Kirk's plate.
"That's Ken's handiwork," Felicia said, hastily disclaiming any finger
in the enterprise. "I don't know _what_ you may find!"
"It's perfectly all right, now," Ken protested. "You'll see! You can
read it, can't you, Kirk?"
Kirk was frowning and laughing at once.
"It's a little bit funny," he said. "But I didn't know you could do it
at all. Oh, listen to it!"
He declaimed this, with some pauses:
"TO MY RELATIVE, K. S.
"While I am at my watery work
All up and down the bay,
I think about my brother Kirk
A million times a day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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