He stood up, straining his eyes in his smiling eagerness to see.

Nearer and nearer the hoof-beats came in the starlight.

"_Bookity book! Bookity book!_" The horseman paused a moment in front of Uncle Billy's.
John Jay hopped from one foot to the other in his impatient gladness.
Then his heart sank as the hoof-beats went on down the road, _Bookity book! Bookity book!_ growing fainter and fainter, until at last they were drowned by the voices of the noisy katydids.
He stood still a moment, so bitterly disappointed that it seemed to him he could not possibly bear it.

Then he went in and shut the door,--shut the door on all his bright hopes, on all his fond dreams, on the day that was to have held such happiness, but that had brought instead the cruelest disappointment of his life.
The tears ran down his little black face as he undressed himself.

He sat on the edge of the trundle-bed a moment, whispering brokenly, "They wasn't anybody livin' that cared 'bout it's bein' my buthday!" Then throwing himself face downward on his pillow, he cried softly with long choking sobs, until he fell asleep..