“THE CITY IN SPRING.

“It is not much that makes me glad: 
I hold more than I ever had. 
The empty hand may farther reach,
And small, sweet signs all beauty teach.

“I like the city in the spring,
It has a hint of everything. 
Down in the yard I like to see
The budding of that single tree.

“The little sparrows on the shed;
The scrap of soft sky overhead;
The cat upon the sunny wall;
There’s so much meant among them all.

“The dandelion in the cleft
A broken pavement may have left,
Is like the star that, still and sweet,
Shines where the house-tops almost meet.

“I like a little; all the rest
Is somewhere; and our Lord knows best
How the whole robe hath grace for them
Who only touch the garment’s hem.”

At the bottom, in small capitals, was the signature,—­BEL BREE.

“I don’t understand,” said Bel, bewildered.  “What is it?  Who did it?”

“It is a proof,” said Mrs. Scherman.  “A proof-sheet.  And here is another kind of proof that came with it.  Your spring song is going into the May number of ‘First and Last.’”

Mrs. Scherman reached out a slip of paper, printed and filled in.

It was a publisher’s check for fifteen dollars.

“You see I’m very unselfish, Bel,” she said.  “I’m going to work the very way to lose you.”

Bel’s eyes flashed up wide at her.

The way to lose her!  Why, nobody had ever got such a hold upon her before!  The printed verses and the money were wonderful surprises, but they were not the surprise that had gone straight into her heart, and dropped a grapple there.  Mrs. Scherman had believed in her; and she had kissed her.  Bel Bree would never forget that, though she should live to sing songs of all the years.

“When you can earn money like this, of course I cannot expect to keep you in my kitchen,” said Mrs. Scherman, answering her look.

“I might never do it again in all my life,” sensible Bel replied.  “And I hope you’ll keep me somewhere.  It wouldn’t be any reason, I think, because one little green leaf has budded out, for a plant to say that it would not be kept growing in the ground any longer.  I couldn’t go and set up a poem-factory, without a home and a living for the poems to grow up out of.  I’m pleased I can write!” she exclaimed, brimming up suddenly with the pleasure she had but half stopped to realize.  “I thought I could.  But I know very well that the best and brightest things I’ve ever thought have come into my head over the ironing-board or the bread-making.  Even at home.  And here,—­why, Mrs. Scherman, it’s living in a poem here!  And if you can be in the very foundation part of such living, you’re in the realest place of all, I think.  I don’t believe poetry can be skimmed off the top, till it has risen up from the bottom!”