So she passed Joy some more of the walnut sandwiches, and smiled to see that they were being eaten.
"But I am not satisfied, yet," said Grandfather. If Grandfather had only let well enough—and young girls' whimsies—alone, Joy wouldn't have been tempted. "What made you rush out that way, Joy—just as I was finishing the last stanza of the lyric, 'To Joy in Amber Satin,' too? You couldn't have chosen a worse possible moment. You nearly spoiled the effect."
Joy threw her head back defiantly. She knew that if Grandmother didn't understand her appeal, certainly Grandfather wouldn't.
"Grandfather," she said, "do you remember the anecdote you always tell to small groups of people, the one about the farmer who used to meet your friend, James Russell Lowell, on his afternoon walk every day, and say, 'Waal, Mr. Lowell, had a poem yet today?' I had a poem!"
It was a most amazing fish story. Joy hadn't had any such thing as a poem: nothing at all but a fit of rebellion. But if she wanted to check her grandfather's inquiries she had taken the most perfect way known to civilization. He couldn't possibly blame her for bolting if the poem had to be put down. Nor even for being impolite to Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones.
"You always say, 'The Muse must out,'" continued Joy defiantly. "Or would you rather I didn't have any Muse?"
There was only one thing for Grandfather to say, and he said it.
"My dear, if you are really intending to do serious work along that line nothing should prevent you. I quite understand."
Grandmother looked over at her little girl with a new respect—and perhaps a new apprehension. One poet in a family is supposed to be enough, as a rule. And Joy had always been such a good, dear child to manage.
So no more was said. But Joy wondered if she hadn't let herself in for something dreadful. Grandfather would certainly expect to see that poem some day!