Once hunted the highways and furrows
For a moccasin snake.
What he found was a fake
More frequent in bureaus than burrows.”
“I know who it was!” shouted Beverly. “You’ve told now! That great man! How dared you do it, Nancy? I call it disrespectful!”
“Sh!” warned Nancy. “You mustn’t say his name, if the others can’t guess. Dear Uncle John! It must have been the rebellious southern air that led me into mischief,” she answered Beverly’s reproach.
“What are you girls quarreling about?” demanded Dick Reed, swinging himself onto the piazza. “What’s the joke?”
“Only one of Nancy’s foolish stories, in which she is always the heroine,” drawled Beverly.
“And a poem, which I do not understand,” said the bewildered Gilda.
“Nobody ever understands a poet, except himself. Isn’t that so, Nancy?” Dick teased her.