“Humph! Well, I must say—See here, Helen Kendall, what is it you expect me to do; sail in and write two or three sonnets and a 'Come Into the Garden, Maud,' some time next week? You're terribly keen about Grandfather, but he has rather got the edge on me so far as age goes. He's in the sixties, and I'm just about nineteen.”
“When he was nineteen he was first mate of a ship.”
“Yes, so I've heard him say. Maybe first-mating is a little bit easier than writing poetry.”
“And maybe it isn't. At any rate, he didn't know whether it was easy or not until he tried. Oh, THAT'S what I would like to see you do—TRY to do something. You could do it, too, almost anything you tried, I do believe. I am confident you could. But—Oh, well, as you said at the beginning, it isn't my business at all, and I've said ever and ever so much more than I meant to. Please forgive me, if you can. I think my tumble and all the rest must have made me silly. I'm sorry, Albert. There are the steps up to the pavilion. See them!”
He was tramping on beside her, his hands in his pockets. He did not look at the long flight of steps which had suddenly come into view around the curve of the bluff. When he did look up and speak it was in a different tone, some such tone as she had heard him use during her rescue.
“All right,” he said, with decision, “I'll show you whether I can try or not. I know you think I won't, but I will. I'm going up to my room to-night and I'm going to try to write something or other. It may be the rottenest poem that ever was ground out, but I'll grind it if it kills me.”
She was pleased, that was plain, but she shook her head.
“Not to-night, Albert,” she said. “To-night, after the picnic, is Father's reception at the church. Of course you'll come to that.”
“Of course I won't. Look here, you've called me lazy and indifferent and a hundred other pet names this afternoon. Well, this evening I'll make you take some of 'em back. Reception be hanged! I'm going to write to-night.”
That evening both Mrs. Snow and Rachel Ellis were much disturbed because Albert, pleading a headache, begged off from attendance at the reception to the Reverend Mr. Kendall. Either, or both ladies would have been only too willing to remain at home and nurse the sufferer through his attack, but he refused to permit the sacrifice on their part. After they had gone his headache disappeared and, supplied with an abundance of paper, pens and ink, he sat down at the table in his room to invoke the Muse. The invocation lasted until three A. M. At that hour, with a genuine headache, but a sense of triumph which conquered pain, Albert climbed into bed. Upon the table lay a poem, a six stanza poem, having these words at its head: