"Thanks, but it would try my nerve," said Mickey, "and I must help
Peter move in the pump!"
CHAPTER XX
Mickey's Miracle
That night Mickey's voice, shrill in exuberant rejoicing, preceded him down the highway, so the Hardings, all busy working out their new plans for comfort, understood that something unusually joyous had happened. Peaches sat straighter in her big pillow-piled chair, leaned forward, and smilingly waited.
"Ain't he happy soundin'?" she said to Mrs. Harding, who sat near her sewing. "I guess he has thought out the best po'try piece yet. Mebby this time it will be good enough for the first page of the Herald."
"Young as he is, that's not likely," said the literal woman. "There's no manner of doubt in my mind but that he can do great newspaper work when he finishes his education and makes his start; but I think Mr. Bruce will use all his influence to turn him toward law."
"Mr. Douglas Bruce is a swell gentl'man," said Peaches, "and me and Mickey just loves him for his niceness to us; but we got that all settled. Mickey is going to write the po'try piece for the first page of the Herald—that's our paper—and then we are going to make all my pieces into a bu'ful book, like I got it started here."
Peaches picked up a small notebook, scrupulously kept, and lovingly glanced over the pages, on each of which she had induced Mickey to write in his plainest script one section of her nightly doggerel; and if he failed from the intense affairs of the day, she left a blank page for him to fill later. Taken together, the remainder of her possessions were as nothing to Peaches compared with that book. Not an hour of the day passed that it was not in her fingers, every line of it she knew by heart, and she learned more from it than all Mickey's other educational efforts. Peter scraped a piece of fine black walnut furniture free from the accumulated varnish of years, and ran an approving hand over the smooth dark surface, seasoned with long use. He smiled at her. She smiled back, falling into a little chant that had been on her lips much of the time of late: "You know, Peter! You know, Peter! We know somepin' we won't tell!"
Peter nodded, beaming on her.
"Just listen to that boy, Peter, he must be perfectly possessed!" said
Nancy.