Peggy sighed.
"I writ a pome once," he said. "Wonder ef they'd pay fer a pome?"
"What were it like?" asked Skim curiously.
"It went someth'n' this way," said Peggy:
"I sigh
Ter fly
Up high
In the sky.
But my
Wings is shy,
So I mus' cry
Good-bye
Ter fly-
in'."
"Shoo!" said Skim disdainfully. "Thet ain't no real pome, Peggy."
"It makes rhymes, don't it? All but the las' line."
"Mebbe it does," replied Skim, with assumption of superior wisdom; "but it don't mean nuth'n'."
"It would ef I got paid fer it," observed Peggy.
Skim went home to his mother's tiny "Emporium," took some note paper out of stock, opened a new bottle of ink and sat down at the sitting room table to write his story. The Widow Clark looked in and asked what he meant by "squanderin' profits that way."