"I don't see why not," the daughter promptly objected. "They're a lot
more refined than the expressions they used on me!"
"Then I'm very glad you didn't play with them."
But at this, Florence once more gave way to filial despair. "Mamma, you
just _can't_ see through anything! I've said anyhow fifty times they
ain't--aren't--playing! They're getting up a _real_ newspaper, and have
people _buy_ it and everything. They been all over this part of town and
got every aunt and uncle they have besides their own fathers and
mothers, and some people in the neighbourhood, and Kitty Silver and two
or three other coloured people besides. They're going to charge
twenty-five cents a year, collect-in-advance because they want the money
first; and even papa gave 'em a quarter last night; he told me so."
"How often do they intend to publish their paper, Florence?" Mrs.
Atwater inquired absently, having resumed her sewing.
"Every week; and they're goin' to have the first one a week from
to-day."
"What do they call it?"
"The North End Daily Oriole. It's the silliest name I ever heard for a
newspaper; and I told 'em so. I told 'em what _I_ thought of it, I
guess!"
"Was that the reason?" Mrs. Atwater asked.
"Was it what reason, mamma?"
"Was it the reason they wouldn't let you be a reporter with them?"
"Poot!" Florence exclaimed airily. "_I_ didn't want anything to do with
their ole paper. But anyway I didn't make fun o' their callin' it 'The
North End Daily Oriole' till after they said I couldn't be in it. _Then_
I did, you bet!"
"Florence, don't say----"
"Mamma, I got to say somep'n! Well, I told 'em I wouldn't be in their
ole paper if they begged me on their bented knees; and I said if they
begged me a thousand years I wouldn't be in any paper with such a crazy
name and I wouldn't tell 'em any news if I knew the President of the
United States had the scarlet fever! I just politely informed 'em they
could say what they liked, if they was dying _I_ declined so much as
wipe the oldest shoes I got on 'em!"
"But why _wouldn't_ they let you be on the paper?" her mother insisted.
Upon this Florence became analytical. "Just so's they could act so
important." And she added, as a consequence, "They ought to be
arrested!"
Mrs. Atwater murmured absently, but forbore to press her inquiry; and
Florence was silent, in a brooding mood. The journalists upon the fence
had disappeared from view, during her conversation with her mother; and
presently she sighed, and quietly left the room. She went to her own
apartment, where, at a small and rather battered little white desk,
after a period of earnest reverie, she took up a pen, wet the point in
purple ink, and without great effort or any critical delayings, produced
a poem.
It was in a sense an original poem, though like the greater number of
all literary projections, it was so strongly inspirational that the
source of its inspiration might easily become manifest to a cold-blooded
reader. Nevertheless, to the poetess herself, as she explained later in
good faith, the words just seemed to _come to_ her;--doubtless with
either genius or some form of miracle implied; for sources of
inspiration are seldom recognized by inspired writers themselves. She
had not long ago been party to a musical Sunday afternoon at her
Great-Uncle Joseph's house, where Mr. Clairdyce sang some of his songs
again and again, and her poem may have begun to coagulate within her
then.