"My turn now," laughed Mrs. Sherman. And the two ladies went up-stairs, once more leaving the girls to the task of providing their own amusement.
"Wasn't that a picture?" said Joyce, when Mrs. Brewster had left the room. "Can't you just see it? that quaint little girl in her old-fashioned dress, going from door to door with her courtesies and her invitations, and, afterward, all the ladies coming down the stiff-bordered path between the rows of hollyhocks. I'd love to draw that picture if I could."
"Try it," urged the girls, so warmly that Joyce went up-stairs for her drawing material. Betty watched her spread her paper on the library table. "I believe that I could put that story into rhyme," she said, after a few minutes of silent thought. "I can feel it humming in my head."
"Oh, I didn't know that you could write poetry," exclaimed Lloyd. "Try it now, and see what you can do. You write the poem, and Joyce will illustrate it."
"I have to be by myself when I write, and I never know how long it will take. It is like making butter. Sometimes it will come in a few minutes, and sometimes I have to churn away for hours."
"Begin, anyhow!" insisted the girls, and in a few minutes Betty slipped away to her room. At lunch-time they teased her to show them what she had written, but she had only a few lines completed, and would not let them see even the paper on which she had been scribbling. After lunch the others went to their rooms to write letters and sleep awhile, but she went back to her task. Joyce's picture did not turn out to her satisfaction, and she tore it up, but Betty did her work over and over, rewriting each line many times. When they were all dressed for dinner, she did not appear. Finally Joyce went to see what kept her so long. She found her bending over the paper, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining.
"It is done," she cried, writing the last word with a flourish, "but I hadn't any idea it was so late. I thought I had been up here only a few minutes. Some of the rhymes just wouldn't twist into shape, but I think they fit now."
"I'm going to take it down and show it to the girls, while you dress," cried Joyce, catching up the paper and running off with it. Although Betty knew the time was short and she ought to hurry, she could not resist stealing to the banister and leaning over to hear how it sounded when her godmother, who was sitting in the lower hall with Lloyd and Eugenia, read it aloud.
| Jemima Araminta knew |
| Whenever company |
| Sat round the frugal board, they had |
| Plum marmalade for tea. |
And spiced buns and toothsome tarts, |
| And divers sweets beside, |
| Were set to tempt the appetite |
| With good housewifely pride. |
While walking out one day, it chanced |
| She fell a-pondering sore. |
| A wicked thought in her small mind |
| Did tempt her more and more. |
At all the neighbours' doors she paused, |
| Demure and shy was she. |
| With downcast eyes, she courtesied, |
| And said, "Please come to tea." |
Next day along the garden path, |
| Just as the sun went down, |
| A score of ladies primly walked, |
| Each in her Sabbath gown. |
Surprised, her mother heard them say, |
| "Dear child! So shy is she! |
| What pretty manners she did have |
| When asking us to tea." |
Jemima now remembers well |
| They once had company, |
| Preserves and buns and toothsome tarts |
| When ne'er a taste had she. |
For, supperless, to bed that night, |
| She went, severely chid; |
| No more the neighbours to invite, |
| Save at her mother's bid. |
"Bravo! little girl," cried Mrs. Sherman, while the girls clapped loudly. "Have you anything else with you that you have written? If you have, bring it down with you when you come."