Then the people applauded him, for they saw that he had grown in wisdom and had become a fit king for his people.
[MISS EDITH HELPS THINGS ALONG!]
F. BRET HARTE.
"My sister'll be down in a minute, and says you're to wait, if you please; And says I might stay till she came, if I'd promise her never to tease, Nor speak 'till you spoke to me first, But that's nonsense; for how would you know What she told me to say, if I didn't? Don't you really and truly think so?
"And then you'd feel strange here alone, And you wouldn't know just where to sit; For that chair isn't strong on its legs, and we never use it a bit; We keep it to match with the sofa; but Jack says it would be like you To flop yourself right down upon it, and knock out the very last screw.
"Suppose you try! I won't tell. You're afraid to! Oh! you're afraid they would think it mean! Well, then, there's the album; that's pretty, if you're sure that your fingers are clean. For sister says sometime, I daub it; but she only says that when she's cross. That's her picture. You know it? Its like her; but she ain't good-looking, of course.
"This is me." Its the best of 'em all. Now tell me, you'd never have thought That once I was as little as that? Its the only one that could be bought; For that was the message to pa from the photograph man when I sat,— That he wouldn't print off any more, till he first got his money for that.
"What? Maybe you're tired of waiting. Why, often she's longer than this. There's all her back hair to do up, and all her front curls to friz. But its nice to be sitting here talking like grown people, just you and me! Do you think you'll be coming here often? Oh, do! But don't come like Tom Lee,—
"Tom Lee, her last beau, why, my goodness! he used to be here day and night, Till the folks thought he'd be her husband; and Jack says that gave him a fright. You won't run away then, as he did? for you're not a rich man, they say. Pa says you're as poor as a church-mouse. Now, are you? and how poor are they?
"Ain't you glad that you met me? Well, I am; for I know now your hair isn't red; But what there is left of it's mousy, and not what that naughty Jack said. But there I must go; sister's coming! But I wish I could stay, just to see If she ran up to you, and she kissed you, in the way that she used to kiss Lee."