"And I stuck mine into my alb.u.m," confessed Allee.

"Your alb.u.m? What alb.u.m?"

"A little book Gussie gave me to write my jingles in. The name on the cover is 'Alb.u.m,' so that's what I call it."

"Would--would you let me see it?"

Allee hesitated. "You won't laugh?"

"Not a single snicker."

"Well, then,--I don't mind."

She darted away to the house, returning almost immediately with a small, thick note-book in her hand, partly filled with round, even writing, which Peace instantly recognized as Gussie's. "That ain't--" she began, but Allee forestalled her.

"Gussie copies 'em all for me, 'cause my letters are so dreadfully big the pages won't hold all I want to write," she explained.

"Why don't you get a bigger book and write your own poems in it? The pages are too small in this. I'll tell you,--Grandma gave me a big, fat book a long time ago to keep a _dairy_ in."--Peace never could remember the proper place for the words 'dairy' and 'diary.'--"But I wrote only one day. It wasn't at all int'resting to scribble all by myself, but if you'll use my book we'll both write. How'd you like that?"

Allee's eyes were shining happily. "I think it would be fine. I--I really wanted your book, 'cause it is so nice and wide, but I thought likely you would find some use for it yourself some day."

"Well, I have. We'll use it for a sc.r.a.p alb.u.m."

"A sc.r.a.p alb.u.m?"

"Yes. I mean, we can each of us write in it whenever we feel poetry, but we needn't _have_ to do it at any time."

"And I can paste my 'l.u.s.trations in it between leaves, can't I?"

"What kind of 'l.u.s.trations?"

"Why, like Hope's note-book. She _has_ to draw pictures of plants and flowers in her botany, and just for fun she makes _skitches_ to picture out the stories they study in some of her other cla.s.ses."

"But her _skitches_ are nice," Peace remarked skeptically. "Why, Grandpa thinks some day she will make a good 'l.u.s.trator for magazines and books."

"My pictures are nice, too," Allee contended. "Here is a sunset I painted a long time ago--"

"It looks like a prairie fire," murmured the older sister, gravely eyeing the highly-colored sheet upside down.

"It just matches a lullaby I made up yesterday," continued Allee, unmindful of Peace's criticism. Rapidly her fingers turned the pages until she had found the lines she wanted, and with a heart filled with pride, she pa.s.sed the book to her companion, who read,

"The sun is sinking in the west, 'Tis time my baby dear should rest,-- Sleep, baby, sleep."

"You haven't got any baby," the reader interrupted.

"It don't need babies to write lullabies," Allee scornfully retorted. "A real poet can write about _anything_."

"Well, anyway, I like this one better." Peace's eyes had travelled rapidly through the lines, and lingered over some stanzas on the opposite page:

"I wonder why the fairies hide?

I'm sure I'd like to see them dance, But though my very best I've tried, I never yet have had a chance.

I wonder why, don't you?

I wonder why the birdies fly, While I alone can cry and talk; But though I often try and try, I cannot do a thing but walk.

I wonder why, don't you?"

"Yes, Gussie liked that, too," said Allee, much pleased.

"Did you write it all yourself?" Peace was incredulous.

"Well, Gussie showed me how to fix it up so it didn't limp, but it's almost like I wrote it."

"I don't see how you can think of the things to say."

"They think themselves, I guess," replied Allee after a moment's study.

"Teacher last year used to read us stories and make us tell them ourselves, just as pretty as we could; and you and I 'magine so many things about the moon lady and the mountain elves and water sprites.

It's easy to _tell_ them like stories, so I just tried writing them out.

That ain't so easy, 'cause I can't always spell the words, but it's fun now that I'm used to it. Then Gussie showed me how rhymes were made into real poetry, so I tried that, too. It's just fitting words into a tune like you used to do, only you don't need a tune either. The poems in our Readers are what I go by."

Peace was very much interested. In her "Glimmers of Gladness" she had essayed a poem or two, as she was pleased to call them; but Allee's were far superior to any of her attempts, and Allee was two years younger.

"Bring me all the old Readers in the library," she abruptly commanded, "and while you are copying your poems in my book, I'll write a few of my own."

Allee ran to do her bidding, and soon the two embryo poets were so busy with pen and pencil that they were amazed when Jud appeared to carry the invalid into the house.

"It's surely not dinner time yet!" Allee protested. "Why, I've got only one poem and half of a story copied."

"That's better'n me," Peace dolefully sighed, closing the First Reader with reluctant hands and laying it aside. "I haven't done a line yet. I haven't even found a poem to pattern after, though I guess I'll take 'Long Time Ago' for my first one. That's easy, and when I get onto the hang of it, I'll try something harder. If it's dinner time already the days must be getting lots shorter again."

"You are right, they are," Jud agreed. "Soon it will be too cold out here for you--"

"I shan't mind," Peace interrupted. "I'm going to write a good deal this winter. Gussie'll teach me to be a poet, and I always could write better inside the house. There's too much to look at out-of-doors."

Jud heaved a gusty sigh. "You all think a heap of Gussie, don't you?" he asked with a jealous pang, for he found it almost impossible to get a quiet word with that busy and important member of the household, and now that winter was coming on, it would be harder than ever, for even the little after-dinner chats in the garden would have to be discontinued.

"I sh'd say we do!" both girls chorused. "She is worth thinking a lot of--"

"That's where you are right again," the man agreed heartily.

"She can do _anything_" said Peace, who was never tired of singing Gussie's praises.

"Even to making poets," he teased.

"Yes, sir, even to making poets, and some day you will see for yourself."