"Well, I'll tell you. 'Twas because I couldn't write a poem on it."
"Sure enough, Susan! I don't believe I've heard you make a rhyme to-day," smiled Miss Dorothy.
Susan sighed and shook her head.
"Yes, I know. I don't make 'em much now. Somehow they don't sing all the time in my heart, an' burst out natural-like, as they used to. I think them days when I tried so hard to sell my poems, an' couldn't, kinder took the jest out of poetizin' for me. Somehow, when you find out somethin' is invaluable to other folks, it gets so it's invaluable to you, I s'pose. Still, even now, when I set right down to it, I can 'most always write 'em right off 'most as quick as I used to. But I couldn't on this war. I tried it. But it jest wouldn't do. I begun it:
Oh, woe is me, said the bayonet,
Oh, woe is me, said the sword.
Then the whole awful frightfulness of it an' the bigness of it seemed to swallow me up, an' I felt like a little pigment overtopped an' surrounded by great tall mountains of horror that were tumblin' down one after another on my head, an' bury in' me down so far an' deep that I couldn't say anything, only to moan, 'Oh, Lord, how long, oh, Lord, how long?' An' I knew then't was too big for me. I didn't try to write no more."
"I can see how you couldn't," faltered the girl, as she turned away.
"I'm afraid—we're all going to find it—too big for us."
CHAPTER XXV
KEITH TO THE RESCUE
John McGuire had not been home twenty-four hours before it was known that he "took it powerful hard."