So he wrote the first of stories with his little fingernail.


THE THREE-CORNERED LOT

Said the farmer to his daughter: “When I die, as like as not,

I’ll leave to you the title to the old three-cornered lot.

“’Tis the vale beyond the pastures, never any good to me,

With the huckleberry bushes and the silver maple-tree.

“Fair scenery for song birds, but too small to cultivate;

Yet there’s a wall around it, like a foolish man’s estate.”