Red Letter Bays 77 



couple, **for Grandma showed them to me. She 

 keeps them in the big Bible and all tied up with 

 blue ribbons, '* continued the little girl, **and she 

 said, too, they were just the nicest verses that 

 anybody ever wrote." 



''Now, now, Gracie, don't you say another 

 word. I told you that was a secret, didn't I, and 

 there you go telling," said the old lady with a 

 look on her face which was not altogether one of 

 displeasure. 



"Oh, then you've tried yer hand at poetry, 

 Jo," said the visitor, with a beaming face. 



"Well, that was nigh half-a-century ago, Jim, 

 an' ye see a fellow '11 do things when he's young 

 that sort o' seems foolish later on. I did write 

 some verses one spring 'way back, but I didn't 

 know they'd be preserved an' rise up in judgment 

 against me. That was the spring Mary an' me 

 was married. She was kind o' literary an' I jest 

 wanted to show her that I could spill out words 

 that seemed rhymy-like. I'd most forgotten 'bout 

 'em." 



' ' Grandma looks at them often yet and she can 

 say them without looking," broke in the grand- 

 child. 



"It's well you didn't deny it, Joseph, because 

 if you had, just as sure as sure, I'd fetched those 

 lines of yours and had Gracie read them out," said 

 the country belle of bygone years. 



"Tut! Tut! Mother, I'm not denyin' 'em. 

 Ain't forgot the occasion either 'at dragged 'em 



