“There’s boun’ ter be boys in it, Dumps; you can’t write a book without’n boys;” and Diddie seated herself, and opened the book before her, while Dumps, with her elbows on the table and face in her hands, looked on anxiously.  “I’m not goin’ ter write jes one straight book,” said Diddie; “I’m goin’ ter have little short stories, an’ little pieces of poetry, an’ all kin’ of things; an’ I’ll name one of the stories ‘Nettie Herbert:’  don’t you think that’s a pretty name, Dumps?”

“Jes’ beautiful,” replied Dumps; and Diddie wrote the name at the beginning of the book.

“Don’t you think two pages on this big paper will be long enough for one story?” asked Diddie.

“Plenty,” answered Dumps.  So at the bottom of the second page Diddie wrote “The END of Nettie Herbert.”

“Now, what would you name the second story?” asked Diddie, biting her pencil thoughtfully.

“I’d name it ‘The Bad Little Girl,’” answered Dumps.

“Yes, that will do,” said Diddie, and she wrote “The Bad Little Girl” at the top of the third page; and, allowing two pages for the story, she wrote “The END of The Bad Little Girl” at the bottom of the next page.

“And now it’s time for some poetry,” said Diddie, and she wrote “Poetry” at the top of the fifth page, and so on until she had divided all of her book into places for stories and poetry.  She had three stories—­“Nettie Herbert,” “The Bad Little Girl,” and “Annie’s Visit to her Grandma.”  She had one place for poetry, and two places she had marked “History;” for, as she told Dumps, she wasn’t going to write anything unless it was useful; she wasn’t going to write just trash.

The titles being all decided upon, Dumps and Chris went back to their dolls, and Diddie began to write her first story.

“Nettie Herbert.”

“Nettie Herbert was a poor little girl;” and then she stopped and asked,

“Dumps, would you have Nettie Herbert a po’ little girl?”

“No, I wouldn’t have nobody er po’ little girl,” said Dumps, conclusively, and Diddie drew a line through what she had written, and began again.

“Nettie Herbert was a rich little girl, and she lived with her pa and ma in a big house in Nu Orlins; and one time her father give her a gold dollar, and she went down town, and bort a grate big wax doll with open and shet eyes, and a little cooking stove with pots and kittles, and a wuck box, and lots uv pieces uv clorf to make doll cloes, and a bu-te-ful gold ring, and a lockit with her pas hare in it, and a big box full uv all kinds uv candy and nuts and razens and ornges and things, and a little git-ar to play chunes on, and two little tubs and some little iuns to wash her doll cloes with; then she bort a little wheelbarrer, and put all the things in it, and started fur home.  When she was going a long, presently she herd sumbody cryin and jes a sobbin himself most to deaf; and twas a poor little boy all barefooted