“Then these lines came off his tongue, with no more hesitation about it than the bird has when he sings his song on a bright summer morning and I put them down to go with the feather.  Here they are now: 

     “TO RUTH

     “’Little lady, draw thy will
     With this Golden Robin’s quill—­
     Sun-stained, night-tipped, elfish thing—­
     Symbol of thy magic wing!

     “’Give to me thy fairy lands
     And palaces, on silver sands. 
     Oh will to me, my heart implores,
     Their alabaster walls and floors! 
     Their gates that ope on Paradise
     Or earth, or Eden in a trice. 
     Give me thy title to the hours
     That pass in fair Aladdin towers. 
     But most I’d prize thy heavenly art
     To win and lead the stony heart. 
     Give these to me that solemn day
     Thou’rt done with them, I humbly pray.

     “’Little lady, draw thy will
     With this Golden Robin’s quill.’”

He bowed to our young guest and kissed her hand and sat down in the midst of our cheering.

I remember well the delightful sadness that came into my heart on the musical voice of the reader.  The lines, simple as they were, opened a new gate in my imagination beyond which I heard often the sound of music and flowing fountains and caught glimpses, now and then, of magic towers and walls of alabaster.  There had been no fairies in Lickitysplit.  Two or three times I had come upon fairy footprints in the books which Mr. Wright had sent to us, but neither my aunt nor my uncle could explain whence they came or the nature of their errand.

Mr. Hacket allowed me to write down the lines in my little diary of events and expenses, from which I have just copied them.

We sang and spoke pieces until nine o’clock and then we older members of the party fell to with Mrs. Hacket and washed and dried the dishes and put them away.

Next morning my clothes, which had been hung by the kitchen stove, were damp and wrinkled.  Mr. Racket came to my room before I had risen.

“Michael Henry would rather see his clothes hanging on a good boy than on a nail in the closet,” said he.  “Sure they give no comfort to the nail at all.”

“I guess mine are dry now,” I answered.

“They’re wet and heavy, boy.  No son o’ Baldur could keep a light heart in them.  Sure ye’d be as much out o’ place as a sunbeam in a cave o’ bats.  If ye care not for your own comfort think o’ the poor lad in the green chair.  He’s that proud and pleased to see them on ye it would be a shame to reject his offer.  Sure, if they were dry yer own garments would be good enough, God knows, but Michael Henry loves the look o’ ye in these togs and then the President is in town.”

That evening he discovered a big stain, black as ink, on my coat and trousers.  Mr. Hacket expressed the opinion that it might have come from the umbrella but I am quite sure that he had spotted them to save me from the last home-made suit I ever wore, save in rough work, and keep Michael Henry’s on my back.  In any event I wore them no more save at chore time.