From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Mrs. Martin had a few minutes to spare this afternoon so she came outside and had her lemonade with Alma and me. We talked mostly about birthdays because I wanted to know how old all the animals were. She asked me when my birthday was and I told her that it was on the twelfth of next month and that I would be nine years old. She said that her birthday was on Christmas day and that she would be forty years old. Forty is very old. I thought it was but Mrs. Martin really didn’t seem old. I asked her if she isn’t very sorry that her birthday was on Christmas because she only got one set of presents and she said no, she said that she is pleased that her birthday falls on the same day as Jesus Christ’s. It made her feel proud and happy. Then Alma told us about a little girl in Samoa…

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived on a big island called Samoa and her birthday was on Christmas. She was very sad about it because all the other children got lots of presents on their birthdays and all over again on Christmas too and she only got presents on Christmas. She didn’t know what to do about it and then Robert Louis Stevenson came to live in Samoa and he met this little girl. They became good friends and one day this little girl told him how unhappy she was about her birthday being the same day as Christmas. And then Robert Louis Stevenson did something so unusual and lovely. He said, “Do you know what we’ll do? I shall make you a present of my birthday. It is a whole month before Christmas and it is my very own to do with as I please and if I choose to give it to a sweet little girl, no one can stop me.” Then Robert Louis Stevenson took a piece of paper and he wrote all kinds of important things on it, like the place they were in and the date and that he was doing this of his own free will and that he hereby gave his birthday to this little girl to have and hold forever. Then he dropped heaps of sealing wax all over the paper and dug his seal ring into them. That meant that he had given his birth date to the little girl and it was very official.

I asked Alma if that meant that he didn’t have his birthday for himself anymore. She said that of course he still had his own birthday, and that everything that we give of ourselves we still have and can give more and more. I don’t quite understand that and I was thinking of the time I gave Tante Esther those red roses and I didn’t have any left over for myself, but I think she means not real things but thoughts and ideas, but I am not sure.