When Skim went to bed his story had got into an aggravating muddle, but during the next forenoon he managed to bring it to a triumphant ending.
"When I git used to the thing, mar," he said, "I kin do one a day, easy.
I had to be pertickler over this one, it bein' the first." The widow read the story carefully, guessing at the words that were hopelessly indistinct.
"My! but it's a thriller, Skim," she said with maternal enthusiasm; "but ye don't say why he killed the girl." "That don't matter, so long's he did it." "The spellin' don't allus seem quite right," she added doubtfully.
"I guess the spellin's as good as the readin'll be," he retorted, with evident irritation.

"I bet I spell as well as any o' the folks thet takes the paper." "And some words I can't make out." "Oh, the edytur'll fix that.

Say, air ye tryin' to queer my story, mar?
Do ye set up to know more'n I do about story writin' ?" "No," she said; "I ain't talented, Skim, an' you be." "What I orter hev," he continued, reflectively, "is a typewriter.

When I git two er three hunderd ahead perhaps I'll buy one--secondhand." "Kin ye buy one thet'll spell, Skim ?" she asked, as she made a neat roll of the manuscript and tied a pink hair ribbon around it.
Skim put on a collar and necktie and took his story across to the newspaper office.
"I got a conter-bution fer the paper," he said to Patsy, who asked him his business.
"What, something original, Skim ?" she asked in surprise.
"Ye've hit it right, Miss Doyle; it's a story." "Oh!" "A detective story." "Dear me! Then you'll have to see Mrs.Weldon, who is our literary editor." Louise, who was sitting close by, looked up and held out her hand for the beribboned roll.
"I don't jes' know," remarked Skim, as he handed it across the table, "whether it's a thirty dollar deal, er a fifty." Having forgotten Beth's editorial, Louise did not understand this remark, but she calmly unrolled Skim's manuscript and glanced at the scrawled heading with an amused smile.
"'Suspecting Algernon,'" she read aloud.
"'It were a dark and teedjus night in the erly springtime while the snow were falling soft over the moon litt lanskape.' Why, Skim, how came you to write this ?" "It were the money," he said boldly.

"I kin do one a day like this, at thirty dollers apiece, an' never feel the wear an' tear." Patsy giggled, but Louise stared with a wondering, puzzled expression at the crabbed writing, the misspelled words and dreadful grammar.