"Well, I didn't know then that't was the poem he'd been cryin' over. I didn't know—till this mornin'. Then somethin' he said made me see right off."
"Why, Susan, what was it?"
"It was somethin' about—work. But first you wouldn't understand it, unless you see the poem. An' I can show it to you, 'cause I've got it right here. I'm tryin' to memorialize it, so I keep it with me all the time, an' repeat one line over an' over till I get it. It's right here in my bag. You'll find it's the best I've wrote, Miss Dorothy; I'm sure you will," she went on a bit wistfully. "You see I used a lot of the words that was in the magazine—not that I pleasurized it any, of course. Mine's different, 'cause mine is poetry an' theirs is prosy. There! I guess maybe you can read it, even if't is my writin'," she finished, taking a sheet of note-paper from her bag and carefully spreading it out for Miss Dorothy to read.
And this is what Dorothy read:
CONTENTMENT
Wealth
I asked for the earth—but when in my hands
It shriveled and crumbled away;
And the green of its trees and the blue of its skies
Changed to a somber gray.
Beauty
I asked for the moon—but the shimmering thing
Was only reflected gold,
And vanished away at my glance and touch,
And was then but a tale that is told.
Pleasure
I asked for the stars—and lots of them came,
And twinkled and danced for me;
But the whirling lights soon wearied my gaze—
I squenched their flame in the sea.
Fame
I asked for the sun!—but the fiery ball,
Brought down from its home on high,
Scorched and blistered my finger tips,
As I swirled it back to the sky.
Labor
I asked for a hoe, and I set me to work,
And my red blood danced as I went:
At night I rested, and looking back,
I counted my day well spent.