Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation Part 22

Skim stared at her in utter dismay.

"Ye mean ye won't take it?" he asked with trembling lips.

"We have so much material on hand, just now, that we cannot possibly purchase more," she said firmly, but feeling intensely sorry for the boy. "It may be a good story--"

"It's the bes' story I ever heard of!" declared Skim.

"But we have no place for it in the _Millville Tribune,_" she added, handing him back the roll.

Skim was terribly disappointed. Never, for a single moment, had he expected "sech a throwdown as this."

"Seems to me like a bunco game," he muttered savagely. "First ye say in yer blamed ol' paper a story's wuth thirty to fifty dollars, an' then when I bring ye a story ye won't pay a red cent fer it!"

"Stories," suggested Louise, "are of various qualities, depending on the experience and talent of the author. An excellent story is often refused because the periodical to which it is offered is overstocked with similar material. Such conditions are often trying, Skim; I've had a good many ma.n.u.scripts rejected myself."

But the boy would not be conciliated.

"I'll send it to Munsey's, thet's what I'll do; an' then you'll be durn sorry," he said, almost ready to cry.

"Do," urged Louise sweetly. "And if they print it, Mr. Clark, I'll agree to purchase your next story for fifty dollars."

"All right; the fifty's mine. I got witnesses, mind ye!" and he flounced out of the room like an angry schoolboy.

"Oh, Louise," exclaimed Patsy, reproachfully, "why didn't you let me see the thing? It would have been better than a circus."

"Poor boy!" said the literary editor, with a sigh. "I didn't want to humiliate him more than I could help. I wonder if he really will have the audacity to send it to Munsey's?"

And now the door opened to admit Peggy Mc.n.u.tt, who had been watching his chance to stump across to the printing office as soon as Skim left there. For Peggy had reasoned, not unjustly, that if Skim Clark could make a fortune as an author he, Marshall McMahon Mc.n.u.tt, had a show to corral a few dollars in literature himself. After lying awake half the night thinking it over, he arose this morning with the firm intention of competing with Skim for the village laurels. He well knew he could not write a shuddery detective story, such as Skim had outlined, but that early poem of his, which the boy had seemed to regard so disdainfully, was considered by Peggy a rather clever production. He repeated it over and over to himself, dwelling joyously on its perfect rhyme, until he was convinced it was a good poem and that Skim had enviously slandered it. So he wrote it out in big letters on a sheet of foolscap and determined to offer it to "them newspaper gals."

"I got a pome, Miss Patsy," he said, with unusual diffidence, for he was by no means sure the "gals" would not agree with Skim's criticism.

"What! Another contributor?" she exclaimed playfully. "Has the whole town suddenly turned literary, Peggy?"

"No; jest me 'n' Skim. Skim says my pome's no good; but I sort o' like it, myself."

"Let me see it," said Patsy, ignoring this time the literary editor, who was glad to be relieved of the responsibility of disappointing another budding author.

Peggy handed over the foolscap, and Patsy eagerly read the "pome."

"Listen, Louise! Listen, Beth!" she called, delightedly. "Here is certainly a real 'pome,' and on aviation--the latest fad:

"'SKY HIGH BY MARSHALL MCMAHON Mc.n.u.tT of Millville dealer in Real Estate Spring Chickens &c.

1.

I sigh Too fly Up high In the sky.

2.

But my Wings air shy And so I cry A sad goodby Too fly- Ing.'"

A chorus of hilarious laughter followed the reading, and then Patsy wiped her eyes and exclaimed:

"Peggy, you are not only a poet but a humorist. This is one of the best short poems I ever read."

"It's short 'cause I run out o' rhymes," admitted Peggy.

"But it's a gem, what there is of it."

"Don't, dear," remonstrated Louise; "don't poke fun at the poor man."

"Poke fun? Why, I'm going to print that poem in the _Tribune_, as sure as my name's Patricia Doyle! It's too good for oblivion."

"I dunno," remarked Peggy, uncertainly, "whether it's wuth fifty dollars, er about--"

"About forty-nine less," said Patsy. "A poem of that length brings about fifty cents in open market, but I'll be liberal. You shall have a whole dollar--and there it is, solid cash."

"Thank ye," returned Peggy, pocketing the silver. "It ain't what I expected, but--"

"But what, sir?"

"But it's like findin' it, for I didn't expect nuth'n'. I wish I could do more of 'em at the same price; but I did thet pome when I were young an' hed more ambition. I couldn't think of another like it to save my neck."

"I am glad of that, Peggy. One of this kind is all a paper dare print.

We mustn't get too popular, you know."

"I s'pose you'll print my name as the one what did it?" he inquired anxiously.

"I shall print it just as it's written, advertis.e.m.e.nt and all."

She did, and Peggy bought two extra copies, at a cent apiece. He framed all three and hung one in his office, one in the sitting room and a third in his bedroom, where he could see it the first thing when he wakened each morning. His fellow villagers were very proud of him, in spite of the "knocking" of the Clarks. Skim was deeply mortified that Peggy's "b.u.m pome" had been accepted and his own masterly composition "turned down cold." The widow backed her son and told all the neighbors that "Peggy never hed the brains to write thet pome, an' the chances air he stole it from the 'Malvern Weekly Journal.' Them gal edyturs wouldn't know," she added scornfully; "they's as ignerunt as Peggy is, mostly."

A few days later Mc.n.u.tt entered the printing office with an air of great importance.

"Goodness me! I hope you haven't done it again, Peggy," cried Patsy, in alarm.

"No; I got fame enough. What I want is to hev the wordin' on my business cards changed," said he. "What'll it cost?"

"What change do you wish made?" asked Patsy, examining the sample card.

"Instead of 'Marshall McMahon Mc.n.u.tt, dealer in Real Estate an' Spring Chickens,' I want to make it read: 'dealer in Real Estate, Spring Chickens an' Poetry.' What'll it cost. Miss Patsy?"

"Nothing," she said, her eyes dancing; "We'll do that job free of charge, Peggy!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE PENALTIES OF JOURNALISM