"Are you going to have it printed?" asked Molly.
"Not yet," said Polly. "I thought at first I would send it to the News, but I've a better plan. I'm going to copy it all out, and write my name on it and my age and how I came to write it, and put it away. After I'm dead and famous, somebody will find it, and it will be printed. Then people will make a fuss over it and call me a child prodigy and all sorts of nice things."
"But what's the use?" queried Molly. "When you're all nicely dead and buried, it can't do you any good."
"But just think how proud my children and grandchildren will be!" exclaimed Polly enthusiastically.
"Maybe you won't have any," suggested Molly sceptically. "People that write are generally old maids, unless they are men."
Polly's face fell. Here was a flaw in her plans.
"Well, go on," said Molly. "Aren't you going to read it?"
Polly looked at the paper in her hand, cleared her throat nervously, drew a long breath, and cleared her throat again.
"What's the matter?" asked Molly unsympathetically. She had never written a poem, and had no idea of the mingled fear and pride that were waging war in Polly's mind. She spoke as the calm critic who waits to sit in judgment.
"I'm just going to begin now," said Polly faintly. Then, nerving herself to the task, she read aloud,—