Maudie, and the uplifted look on her pure young face brought on a strange, sinking, sick feeling. Maudie was staring at Adeline as if her eyes would drop out. She had never looked at me like that—not even when Sister Irmingarde was reading one of my stories aloud to the class. So I knew she admired Adeline's poetry more than she did my stories. I will now describe what was in my heart.
You see, up to this time I had been the only Author at St. Catharine's, and of course it was a great thing for the girls to have one of their classmates a real story-teller. I have tried to keep humble and to remember that I am only the stove in which the sacred fire burns, as it were, but it was nice to have the girls make so much of me, and it was nice, too—kind of nice, anyhow—to know that some of them were jealous. And it was nice to have the younger girls ask if they might introduce their mothers and fathers to me when they came to visit them, and to see the little minims swell with pride when I remembered to nod to them. And now there was another Author at St. Catharine's—and a poetess at that—and she would get all the attention, I knew.
So my heart kept sinking down more and more, till I was afraid something might happen if I stayed there, and I turned and left as quietly as we had come. Maudie followed me. When we got a long distance from the poetess Maudie grabbed my arm and asked me if I didn't think it was wonderful. Her eyes were shining and she was very much excited still. Then suddenly I remembered something and I felt a little better. I asked Maudie if Adeline had ever really written any poems, or if she just stood round like that and thought about them all to herself.
Maudie put her hand in her pocket without a word and drew out—well, I wouldn't dare to say how many poems of Adeline Thurston's she drew out, because you would surely think I was exaggerating. But there were so many of them that Maudie had to carry her pocket-handkerchief in the front of her shirt-waist. We sat down and read them then and there; and if I felt sick before, you can believe I felt sicker as I read the outpourings of that gifted soul of fire. Maudie wouldn't let me keep any of them even long enough to copy, but I remember one or two, and the first one went something like this:
THE SONG OF THE SEA
The song of the sea is in my ear,
Its lonely; dreary cry I hear.
It calls to me, would I could go
And leave this world of friend and foe.
Oh, would that on the drifting sea
My body would float along so free,
My heart still back in life with Maude,
My soul in heaven, near to God.
I didn't like it very well—that one. There seemed to me to be something the matter with it, somehow, though it was certainly sad and tragic. Maudie thought it was beautiful—especially the last two lines. I learned it by heart and recited it to Mabel Blossom later, after Maudie said I might, and Mabel thought there was something the matter with it, too; and she said the poetess seemed to be so kind of scattered toward the end of the poem that it made her (Mabel) feel nervous. I felt better right away when Mabel said that, for the child has an unerring literary instinct and likes all my stories. I remembered another poem and said it, and we didn't like that very much, either. It went like this:
WHEN I AM GONE
Oh, bury me deep 'neath the starlit sky,
Oh, bury me deep and long,
Where I can hear the whippoorwill's twilight cry
And list to the robin's song.
And drop no tear on my new-made mound,
Nor moan o'er my lifeless clay.
'Tis true that my body is underground,
But my soul will be far away.
Mabel said she never knew any one who seemed so anxious to have her body and soul in different places, but I reminded her that all poets were like that. It goes with the artistic temperament, and I said I had often felt it myself. Then Mabel giggled, and I didn't mind a bit. She said she was giggling at the poetry, and I laughed, too, and I cannot tell you the strange relief I felt all of a sudden. Sister Irmingarde says the artistic temperament is mercurial, and I guess she is right. My nature is very buoyant except when I'm writing stories. Then I most always feel sad and life seems terrible. Mabel Blossom says she
