"Longfellow, probably," said Millicent ""When day is done, and darkness comes shadowing down the way," is suggestive of him."
"All except the "shadowing,"" said Peggy.
"No; I made that word up," returned Millicent, with complacency. "Poets are obliged to coin words sometimes. What do you think of the poem, Peggy?"
"Wonderful!" replied her cousin, in a stifled voice. "How did you think of asking a mosquito to be like a lamb?"
She turned away again, and her shoulders shook convulsively.
"Do read the other!" cried Joan, enthusiastically. "I don"t see how you ever make them rhyme so beautifully."
"Oh, that is easy enough," said Millicent, much pleased. "Whenever I don"t know just what to put I look in my rhyming dictionary for a word."
"Rhyming dictionary?" repeated Peggy, at last uncovering a crimson face.
"Do poets use rhyming dictionaries?"
"Of course. They are obliged to very often, and it saves so much time and thought, you know. Now this is a sonnet. It is my favorite form of verse. I suppose you both know that a sonnet must be just fourteen lines?"
"Oh, I know," agreed Peggy, amiably, "and there are other rules about it, too."
"Well, that one is the most important, about the fourteen lines. I don"t pay much attention to the other rules. I think rules hamper you when you are composing."
"Oh!" said Peggy.
"This is Called "A Sonnet to the Moth Miller,"" continued Millicent:
"Oh, little creature, made so fair, so white, What seekest thou about my closet door?
To see thee fills no soul with deep delight, Thy coming almost all men do deplore.
So silent and so fatal is thy task We haste to catch thee, bring the camphor forth, To kill thee quite stone-dead is all we ask, Thou little quiet woollen-loving moth!
We crush thee, cast the atoms to the wind, Stamp underfoot, and tread thee with the heel.
Oh, tell me! Dost thou really truly mind?
Can little frail white creatures like thee feel?
What are thy thoughts, and what emotions thine?
To know thy feelings, dear white moth, I pine!"
When Millicent"s pathetic voice ceased there was silence in the room, and then from the table upon which Peggy"s head was resting came peal after peal of laughter.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PEGGY FAIRLY SHRIEKED WITH LAUGHTER OVER THE POEM.]
"Oh, do excuse me, Milly!" she cried, as soon as she could speak. "I didn"t mean to laugh, but it struck me as so awfully funny, don"t you know. "About your closet door," and bringing the--the--camphor forth.
Oh, oh, moth-b.a.l.l.s are better, and you might have put in something about the smell! Ha, ha, ha!" and Peggy fairly shrieked with laughter as she held her side and rocked to and fro. "Oh, do excuse me! But--but-- I can"t h--help it! It"s--the funniest thing I ever heard! At least it isn"t really, but it just struck me so. And--and--if you can tread a moth under your--your heel, you"re terribly smart. Oh, Mill, Mill!"
"There!" said Millicent, rising, and thrusting her papers into a drawer in her desk, and turning the key with an angry snap. "I knew just how it would be. I believe you would laugh at my funeral."
"Oh no, indeed, I wouldn"t. Milly--not at your funeral. But really, you know, it just struck me. I think the rhymes are perfectly splendid.
Don"t you, Joan?"
"Indeed I do," cried Joanna; "and I don"t see what you saw to laugh at.
I think they are beautiful, Millicent. Aren"t you going to read some more?"
"No, indeed. Never!"
"I wish you would write a poem about Cousin Appolina," said Peggy.
"Hateful thing! She might take at least one of us abroad with her, if not all three. She has such loads of money, and no one to spend it on but herself."
"Probably she _will_ take one of us," observed Joan.
"It won"t be me, then," said her cousin, positively, but ungrammatically; "she hates me like fury. It will be one of you. Well, it wouldn"t be much fun to dance attendance on Cousin Appolina if she should happen to have a cranky fit. Mill, I know you are mad, for you haven"t spoken a word since I laughed. Do forgive me. And, tell me, what are you going to send to the fair?"
"I have nothing to send," replied Millicent, rather shortly.
"Send your poems! Brilliant idea!" exclaimed the incorrigible Peggy.
"Have them printed on separate slips of paper, and sign some queer name, and say a member of the congregation wrote them, and see how they take."
"I don"t care to have you make any more fun of me and my writings," said Millicent, with great dignity.
"No fun, honor bright! Only I wish you would put in one about Cousin Appolina Briggs. If you don"t, I believe I will. You could lend me your rhyming dictionary to do it with, and I believe I could write a poem as well as--anybody. But haven"t you got anything on hand that you don"t want, in the way of fancy-work, that you might send?"
"I have those worsted slippers Cousin Appolina gave me for Christmas.
They are in the box, just as she sent them."
"The very thing! Who wants her old worsted slippers? And fairs are always full of them. And you will have your poems printed and send them, won"t you, dear child?"
Her cousin did not see the gleam of mischief which came into Peggy"s eyes as she said this. Millicent was pondering the situation too deeply.
Peggy had never dreamed until now that she would take the proposition seriously.
"I believe I will," said the poetess, after some minutes" pause, interrupted only by the admiring Joanna, who urged her sister to act upon Peggy"s suggestion. "It would give me the recognition I want. They can be sold at five cents a copy, and if I see people buying I shall know that they are liked, and then some day I might have some published in a book. Thank you ever so much, Peggy, for thinking of it. I will sign them "Pearl Proctor," just as I do those that I send to the magazines, and no one will ever know who it is. I will have them type-written on attractive paper. And I will send Cousin Appolina"s shoes. She won"t be home from Washington until after the fair, and she will never know. They had really better be doing some good."
"She wouldn"t recognize them, anyhow; she is so near-sighted that even that gold lorgnette wouldn"t discover her own st.i.tches. Well, good-by, girls. I"m going."
Unknown to her cousins, Peggy slipped away with the rhyming dictionary under her arm. She had discovered it on the table, and the opportunity was too good to be wasted.
She crossed the street to her own home and retired to her own room, from which she did not emerge for an hour or more. At dinner that night her family, had they looked at her with attention, might have discovered an additional expression of mischief in her eyes and a satisfied look on her face. But fortunately one"s family are not apt to notice.
"If I thought there was the least chance of Cousin Appolina choosing me to go abroad, I might not run the risk," she said to herself; "but she wouldn"t take me on any account. Besides, she"ll never hear of this, and it will be such fun to paralyze Milly. Just fancy her taking me in earnest, and sending her poems to the fair! Oh, oh! What a dear old innocent she is! It is a shame to tease her, but I just can"t help it.
Pearl Proctor! Pearl Proctor! what naughty deed is about to be perpetrated in thy name!"
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES.
A Sequel to "The Fur-Seal"s Tooth."
BY KIRK MUNROE,
AUTHOR OF "DORYMATES," "CAMPMATES," "RAFTMATES," "CANOEMATES," ETC.