The Hidden Children Part 44

"I must decline!

The Muses nine No sisters are of mine.

Must I repine Because I'm not divine, And may not versify some pretty story To prove to you my own immortal glory?

Make no mistake. Accept; don't offer verses.

Kisses received are mercies--given, curses!"

Said Boyd instantly:

"A thousand poems for your couplets! Do you trade with me, Miss Helmer?"

"Let me hear your thousand first," retorted the coquette disdainfully, "ere I make up my mind to be d.a.m.ned."

Major Parr said grimly:

"With what are we others to trade, who can make no verses? Is there not some more common form of wampum that you might consider?"

"A kind and unselfish heart is sound currency," said Lana smiling and turning her back on Boyd; which brought her to face Lois.

"Do make a toast in verse for these importunate gentlemen," she said, "and bring the last laggard to your feet."

"I?" exclaimed Lois in laughing surprise. Then her face altered subtly.

"I may not dream to rival you in beauty. Why should I challenge you in wit?"

"Why not? Your very name implies a nationality in which elegance, graceful wit, and taste are all inherent." And she curtsied very low to Lois.

For a moment the girl stood motionless, her slender forefinger crook'd in thought across her lips. Then she glanced at me; the pink spots on her cheeks deepened, and her lips parted in a breathless smile.

"It will give me a pleasure to do honour to any wish expressed by anybody," she said. "Am I to compose a toast, Euan?"

I gazed at her in surprise; Major Parr said loudly: "That's the proper spirit!"

And, "Write for us a toast to love!" cried Boyd.

But Lana coolly proposed a toast to please all, which, she explained, a toast to love would not by any means.

"And surely that is easy for you," she added sweetly, "who of your proper self please all who ever knew you."

"Write us a patriotic toast!" suggested Captain Simpson, "----A jolly toast that all true Americans can drink under the nose of the British King himself."

"That's it!" cried Captain Franklin. "A toast so cunningly devised that our poor fellows in the Provost below, and on that floating h.e.l.l, the 'Jersey,' may offer it boldly and unrebuked in the very teeth of their jailors! Lord! But that would be a rare bit o' verse--if it could be accomplished," he added dubiously.

Lois stood there smiling, thinking, the tint of excitement still brilliant in her cheeks.

"No, I could not hope to contrive such a verse----" she mused aloud.

"Yet--I might try----" She lifted her grey eyes to mine as though awaiting my decision.

"Try," said I--I don't know why, because I never dreamed she had a talent for such trifles.

For a second, as her eyes met mine, I had the sensation of standing there entirely alone with her. Then the clamour around us grew on my ears, and the figures of the others again took shape on every side.

And "Try!" they cried. "Try! Try!"

"Yes," she said slowly. "I will try----" She looked up at me. "----If you wish it."

"Try," I said.

Very quietly she turned and pa.s.sed behind the punch bowl and into the next room, but did not close the door. And anybody could see her there, seated at the rough pine table, quill in hand, and sometimes motionless, absorbed in her own thoughts, sometimes scratching away at the sheet of paper under her nose with all the proper frenzy of a very poet.

We had emptied the punch bowl before she reappeared, holding out to me the paper which was still wet with ink. And they welcomed her l.u.s.tily, gla.s.ses aloft, but I was in a cold fright for fear she had writ nothing extraordinary, and they might think meanly of her mind, which, after all, I myself knew little of save that it was sweet and generous.

But she seemed in no manner perturbed, waiting smilingly for the noise to quiet. Then she said:

"This is a toast that our poor tyrant-ridden countrymen may dare to offer at any banquet under any flag, and under the very cannon of New York."

She stood still, absent-eyed, thinking for a moment; then, looking up at us:

"It is really two poems in one. If you read it straight across the page as it is written, then does it seem to be a boastful, hateful Tory verse, vilifying all patriots, even His Excellency--G.o.d forgive the thought!

"But in the middle of every line there is a comma, splitting the line into two parts. And if you draw a line down through every one of these commas, dividing the written verse into two halves, each separate half will be a poem of itself, and the secret and concealed meaning of the whole will then be apparent."

She laid the paper in my hands; instantly everybody, a-tiptoe with curiosity, cl.u.s.tered around to see. And this is what we all read--the prettiest and most cunningly devised and disguised verse that ever was writ--or so it seems to me:

"Hark--hark the trumpet sounds, the din of war's alarms O'er seas and solid grounds, doth call us all to arms, Who for King George doth stand, their honour soon shall shine, Their ruin is at hand, who with the Congress join.

The acts of Parliament, in them I much delight, I hate their cursed intent, who for the Congress fight.

The Tories of the day, they are my daily toast, They soon will sneak away, who independence boast, Who non-resistant hold, they have my hand and heart, May they for slaves be sold, who act the Whiggish part.

On Mansfield, North and Bute, may daily blessings pour Confusions and dispute, on Congress evermore, To North and British lord, may honours still be done, I wish a block and cord, to General Washington."

Then Major Parr took the paper, and raising one hand, and with a strange solemnity on his war-scarred visage, he p.r.o.nounced aloud the lines of the two halves, reading first a couplet from the left hand side of the dividing commas, then a couplet from the right, and so down the double column, revealing the hidden and patriotic poem:

"Hark--hark the trumpet sounds O'er seas and solid grounds!

The din of war's alarms Doth call us all to arms!

Who for King George doth stand Their ruin is at hand: Their honour soon shall shine Who with the Congress join: The acts of Parliament I hate their cursed intent!

In them I much delight Who for the Congress fight.

The Tories of the day They soon will sneak away: They are my daily toast Who independence boast.

Who non-resistant hold May they for slaves be sold.

They have my hand and heart Who act the Whiggish part.

On Mansfield, North, and Bute, Confusion and dispute.

May daily blessings pour On Congress evermore.

To North and British lord, I wish a block and cord!

May honours still be done To General Washington!"

As his ringing voice subsided, there fell a perfect silence, then a very roar of cheering filled it, and the hemlock rafters rang. And I saw the colour fly to Lois's face like a bright ensign breaking from its staff and opening in flower-like beauty.

Then every one must needs drink her health and praise her skill and wit and address--save I alone, who seemed to have no words for her, or even to tell myself of my astonishment at her accomplishment, somehow so unexpected.

Yet, why might I not have expected accomplishments from such a pliant intelligence--from a young and flexible mind that had not lacked schooling, irregular as it was? Far by her own confession to me, her education had been obtained, while it lasted, in schools as good as any in the land, if, indeed, all were as excellent as Mrs. Pardee's Young Ladies' Seminary in Albany, or the school kept by the Misses Primrose.

And Major Parr, the senior officer present, must have a gla.s.s of wine with her all alone, and offer her his arm to the threshold, where Lana and Boyd were busily plaiting a wreath of green maple-leaves for her, which they presently placed around her chip-straw hat. And we all acclaimed her.

As for Major Parr, that campaign-battered veteran had out his tablets and was painfully copying the verses--he being no scholar--while Boyd read them aloud to us all again in most excellent taste, and Lois laughed and blushed, protesting that her modest effort was not worthy such consideration.