"We must all be poets," said Mr. Marley, pulling Artie over backward and tickling him. "For look what we have done to the party—the birds are lucky if they get a few crumbs."
"Tell us your poem, Artie?" coaxed Jess, when the waxed paper and the remains of the picnic—except the food scattered for the birds—had been neatly buried in a hole dug by Mr. Williamson. "Tell us what you wrote?"
"Well, I don't mind," agreed Artie unexpectedly.
He stood up and gazed at them calmly.
"Fred made a pun,
And called it fun.
I took my gun
And made him run,
Which seemed to stun
Him."
"Is that a poem?" asked Fred doubtfully.
"Of course it is," the indignant poet retorted. "Don't you know poetry when you hear it?"
That rather discouraged further criticism, though Jess whispered to Margy as they climbed back into their seats that she thought it "ended queer."
"Lots of poems do," said Margy.