The Portygee Part 22

She was pleased, that was plain, but she shook her head.

"Not to-night, Albert," she said. "To-night, after the picnic, is Father's reception at the church. Of course you'll come to that."

"Of course I won't. Look here, you've called me lazy and indifferent and a hundred other pet names this afternoon. Well, this evening I'll make you take some of 'em back. Reception be hanged! I'm going to write to-night."

That evening both Mrs. Snow and Rachel Ellis were much disturbed because Albert, pleading a headache, begged off from attendance at the reception to the Reverend Mr. Kendall. Either, or both ladies would have been only too willing to remain at home and nurse the sufferer through his attack, but he refused to permit the sacrifice on their part. After they had gone his headache disappeared and, supplied with an abundance of paper, pens and ink, he sat down at the table in his room to invoke the Muse.

The invocation lasted until three A. M. At that hour, with a genuine headache, but a sense of triumph which conquered pain, Albert climbed into bed. Upon the table lay a poem, a six stanza poem, having these words at its head:

TO MY LADY'S SPRING HAT By A. M. Speranza.

The following forenoon he posted that poem to the editor of The Cape Cod Item. And three weeks later it appeared in the pages of that journal.

Of course there was no pecuniary recompense for its author, and the fact was indisputable that the Item was generally only too glad to publish contributions which helped to fill its columns. But, nevertheless, Albert Speranza had written a poem and that poem had been published.

CHAPTER VII

It was Rachel who first discovered "To My Lady's Spring Hat" in the Item three weeks later. She came rus.h.i.+ng into the sitting room brandis.h.i.+ng the paper.

"My soul! My soul! My soul!" she cried.

Olive, sitting sewing by the window, was, naturally, somewhat startled.

"Mercy on us, Rachel!" she exclaimed. "What IS it?"

"Look!" cried the housekeeper, pointing to the contribution in the "Poets' Corner" as Queen Isabella may have pointed at the evidence of her proteges discovery of a new world. "LOOK!"

Mrs. Snow looked, read the verses to herself, and then aloud.

"Why, I declare, they're real sort of pretty, ain't they?" she exclaimed, in astonished admiration.

"Pretty! They're perfectly elegant! And right here in the paper for all hands to see. Ain't you PROUD of him, Mrs. Snow?"

Olive had been growing more and more proud of her handsome grandson ever since his arrival. She was prouder still now and said so. Rachel nodded, triumphantly.

"He'll be a Robert Penfold afore he dies, or I miss MY guess!" she declared.

She showed it to feminine acquaintances all over town, and Olive, when callers came, took pains to see that a copy of the Item, folded with the "Poets' Corner" uppermost, lay on the center table. Customers, dropping in at the office, occasionally mentioned the poem to its author.

"See you had a piece in the Item, Al," was their usual way of referring to it. "Pretty cute piece 'twas, too, seemed to me. Say, that girl of yours must have SOME spring bunnit. Ho, ho!"

Issachar deigned to express approval, approval qualified with discerning criticism of course, but approval nevertheless.

"Pretty good piece, Al," he observed. "Pretty good. Glad to see you done so well. Course you made one little mistake, but 'twan't a very big one.

That part where you said--What was it, now? Where'd I put that piece of poetry? Oh, yes, here 'tis! Where you said--er--er--

'It floats upon her golden curls As froth upon the wave.'

Now of course nothin'--a hat or nothin' else--is goin' to float on top of a person's head. Froth floatin', that's all right, you understand; but even if you took froth right out of the water and slapped it up onto anybody's hair 'twouldn't FLOAT up there. If you'd said,

'It SETS up onto her golden curls, Same as froth sets on top of a wave.'

that would have been all right and true. But there, don't feel bad about it. It's only a little mistake, same as anybody's liable to make. Nine persons out of ten wouldn't have noticed it. I'm extry partic'lar, I presume likely. I'm findin' mistakes like that all the time."

Laban's comment was less critical, perhaps, but more reserved.

"It's pretty good, Al," he said. "Yes--er--yes, sir, it's pretty good.

It ain't all new, there's some of it that's been written before, but I rather guess that might have been said about Shakespeare's poetry when he fust commenced. It's pretty good, Al. Yes--yes, yes. It is so."

Albert was inclined to resent the qualified strain in the bookkeeper's praise. He was tempted to be sarcastic.

"Well," he observed, "of course you've read so much real poetry that you ought to know."

Laban nodded, slowly. "I've read a good deal," he said quietly. "Readin'

is one of the few things I ain't made a failure of in this life. Um-hm.

One of the few. Yes yes--yes."

He dipped his pen in the inkwell and carefully made an entry in the ledger. His a.s.sistant felt a sudden pang of compunction.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Keeler," he said. "That was pretty fresh of me.

I'm sorry."

Laban looked up in mild surprise. "Sorry?" he repeated. "What for? ...

Oh, that's all right, Al, that's all right. Lord knows I'm the last one on earth who'd ought to criticize anybody. All I had in mind in sayin'

what I did was to--well, to kind of keep you from bein' too well satisfied and not try harder on the next one. It don't pay to be too well satisfied... . Years ago, I can remember, _I_ was pretty well satisfied--with myself and my work. Sounds like a joke, I know, but 'twas so... . Well, I've had a nice long chance to get over it. Um-hm.

Yes--yes. So I have, so I have."

Only Captain Zelotes at first said nothing about the poem. He read it, his wife saw to that, but his comment even to her was a non-committal grunt.

"But don't you think it's real sort of pretty, Zelotes?" she asked.

The captain grunted again. "Why, I guess likely 'tis if you say so, Mother. I don't know much about such things."

"But everybody says it is."

"Want to know! Well, then 'twon't make much difference whether I say it or not."

"But ain't you goin' to say a word to Albert about it, Zelotes?"

"Humph! I don't know's I know what to say."

"Why, say you like it."