The Birthday He Gave Away

A Poetry Tale about Robert Louis Stevenson, told by Hello Doggo.

Imagine being born on Christmas Day. Every year, your birthday gets swallowed whole by somebody else’s.

That was the trouble for Annie Ide, daughter of the American Land Commissioner in Samoa. And in June eighteen ninety-one, a family friend came to the rescue: Robert Louis Stevenson.

He gave her his birthday. Properly. In a deed.

“I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar, author of The Master of Ballantrae and Moral Emblems, stuck civil engineer…”

It goes on. Annie, it explains, was born out of all reason upon Christmas Day, and was therefore out of all justice denied the consolation and profit of a proper birthday. Whereas he had reached an age when he had no further use for one.

So he handed over the thirteenth of November, to be enjoyed “by the sporting of fine raiment, eating of rich meats, and receipt of gifts, compliments, and copies of verse”.

There were conditions. She was to use it with moderation and humanity, the birthday not being so young as it once was. And if she broke the terms, it would pass to the President of the United States.

Who would then have had two.

Stevenson died in eighteen ninety-four. But here’s the lovely bit. In nineteen thirty-eight, Time magazine reported that Annie, by then Missus Cockran, had held the rights to his birthday for forty-seven years.

The man who wrote The Swing and The Moon knew that children take their games very seriously.

So, it turns out, did she.