"Billy's aged terrible," she said to Maggie, who was still sulking because of the boxed ear.
"I know what's the matter with him." Maggie's lynx-eyes glittered. "I found some po'try he writ on the back of the wood-shed door. He thought nobody but him ever went there. It's grand po'try."
Maggie struck an attitude, and drawled:
My heart feels like a chunk of rock
When I am far from you,
But when you trip acrost my vision
My heart melts same as du.
"I learned that in one morning!" Maggie proudly declared. "I don't care if he is my brother, that's grand."
Peggy dropped helplessly in her chair. She had never looked for glory in her modest dream. That Billy should escape the degradation of the Black Cat, and that Maggie might have a lighter cross than her own to carry, had been the most she had plead for when she had had time to pray; and now—why God had crowned her lot by children who were undoubtedly geniuses! Maggie, too, had a circle of light about her head. And it had all dawned upon Peggy in a flash of an eye.
"You ain't sick to your stomach, are you, mother?"
Peggy repudiated this with scorn.
"Maggie," she said softly, "I want that you should write that out real plain for me, in print. I'm going to take it up to the bungalow."
"Billy'll cuss us." Maggie turned coward.