"And I’ll be glad too," cried Nelly; “and then dear Miss Elinor need not teach, but can read books all day, if she likes, and be happy. Oh, kitty, kitty! will not that be nice?” and in the delight of her heart, the little girl caught up the cat from the hearth, and began to caress her in a joyful manner, that the sober puss must have considered rather indecorous, for she sat still in her lap, looking as grave as a judge, and never winked or purred once at her young mistress.
Here the clock struck nine.
“Dear, dear!” said Nelly; “and I haven’t finished my poetry yet! and very soon I must go to bed.” Back she went with renewed vigor. “What were you saying, Comfort, when that young man knocked? Oh, I know,—to tell Johnny to write to me; I remember now. Don’t you think it will seem strange to Johnny to be with his mother all the time, instead of sending her letters from school? eh, Comfort?”
But the old woman was lost in her thoughts and her smoking, and did not reply. Nelly bent over her paper, read, and re-read the two lines already accomplished, and after musing in some perplexity what should come next, asked,
“Comfort, what rhymes with B?”
"Stingin’ bee, Nell?"
"Oh, that’s it, is it? Well, let me think. I haven’t made poetry this ever so long. There’s ‘ragin’ sea,’—how’s that?" said Comfort, beginning to show symptoms of getting deeply interested. “Now take to ’flectin’ on that ar, Nell.”
Nell did reflect some time, but to no purpose. Some way she could not fit in Comfort’s “ragin’ sea.” It was no use, it would not go! She wrote and erased, and erased and wrote, for a full quarter of an hour. After much anxious labor, she produced finally this verse, and bidding Comfort listen, read it aloud, in a very happy, triumphant way. Then she copied it neatly on a piece of paper, in a large, uneven, childish handwriting, which she had only lately acquired. It was now ready to be presented on the morrow.
TO JOHNNY BIXBY.