“Oh,” said Parker. “Is that the end of that item? It is! You want to get out of Plattville, my friend; it's too small for you; you go to Rouen and you'll be city editor of the 'Journal' inside of a week. Let's have another.”
Mr. Schofield looked up blankly; however, he felt that there was enough live, legitimate news in his other items to redeem the somewhat tame quality of the first, and so, after having crossed out several of the extra words which had met so poor a reception, he proceeded:
“'Whit Upton's pigs broke out last Wednesday and rooted up a fine patch of garden truck. Hard luck, Whit.'
“'Jerusalem Hawkins took a drive yesterday afternoon. He had the bay to his side-bar. Jee's buggy has been recently washed. Congratulations, Jee.'”
“There's thrilling information!” shouted the foreman. “That'll touch the gentle reader to the marrow. The boss had to use some pretty rotten copy himself, but he never got as low as that. But we'll use it; oh, we'll use it! If we don't get her out he'll have a set-back, but if they show her to him it'll kill him. If it doesn't, and he gets well, he'll kill us. But we'll use it, Ross. Don't read any more to us, though; I feel weaker than I did, and I wasn't strong before. Go down and set it all up.”
Mr. Schofield rejoined with an injured air, and yet hopefully: “I'd like to see what you think of the poetry—it seemed all right to me, but I reckon you ain't ever the best judge of your own work. Shall I read it?” The foreman only glanced at him in silence, and the young man took this for assent. “I haven't made up any name for it yet.”
“'O, the orphan boy stood on the hill,
The wind blew cold and very chill—'”
Glancing at his auditors, he was a trifle abashed to observe a glaze upon the eyes of Mr. Parker, while a purple tide rose above his neck-band and unnaturally distended his throat and temples. With a placative little laugh, Mr. Schofield remarked: “I git the swing to her all right, I reckon, but somehow it doesn't sound so kind of good as when I was writing it.” There was no response, and he went on hurriedly:
“'But there he saw the little rill—'”
The poet paused to say, with another amiable laugh: “It's sort of hard to git out of them ill, hill, chill rhymes once you strike 'em. It runs on like this: