“What a notion! You’ll have to fix it up in poetry now, won’t you?”
Willie shook his head many times and reddened.
“You said the preacher used to sing home from meeting in the dark.”
“Yes, he did,” affirmed Mrs. Harbison. “And Nancy Ellen used to listen for him to go by their place.”
Their talk paused, and Willie looked up at the birds in the mulberry. Having afterward caught his mother’s eye, he wove out slowly:—
“When in the tree above his head
The sap goes tingling through the bark,
She will remember it was dead,
And hear him singing in the dark.”
“Oh, Willie, is that the first verse or the last? Have you written it down?”