"Skim, ye're a wonder!" "Ma allus said I were good fer somethin', but she couldn't tell what." "It's story-writin'," declared Peggy "Say, Skim, I put ye onter this deal; don't I git a rake-off on thet fifty dollars ?" "Not a cent!" said Skim indignantly.

"Ye didn't tell me to write a story; I said myself as I could do it.

An' I know where to use the money, Peggy, ev'ry dollar of it, whether it's thirty er fifty." Peggy sighed.
"I writ a pome once," he said.

"Wonder ef they'd pay fer a pome ?" "What were it like ?" asked Skim curiously.
"It went someth'n' this way," said Peggy: "I sigh Ter fly Up high In the sky.
But my Wings is shy, So I mus' cry Good-bye Ter fly- in'." "Shoo!" said Skim disdainfully.

"Thet ain't no real pome, Peggy." "It makes rhymes, don't it?
All but the las' line." "Mebbe it does," replied Skim, with assumption of superior wisdom; "but it don't mean nuth'n'." "It would ef I got paid fer it," observed Peggy.
Skim went home to his mother's tiny "Emporium," took some note paper out of stock, opened a new bottle of ink and sat down at the sitting room table to write his story.