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the adopted mother of us all, asked me Friday night when my birthday was, having remembered that I had once told her that it occurred in the first week of February. She wanted to have a cake made in honor of the event. And there I was! I wanted the cake, Oh! so badly! yet if I had told her "on the morrow" every mother's son of the ones gathered around that supper table would have visited my room bright and early Saturday morning and would have conferred upon me many "honorable mentions" in the form of various, vigorous blows upon the said right arm. So I complacently told her that it would occur on the 23d. of February - and thereby saved my life - and lost my cake!!

Yesterday morning I studied and after dinner did a little