did you know I had written any
story?" she asked.

"Oh, a little bird told me," replied Nyoda lightly. "Cheer up. All the
famous authors had their first work rejected. You have achieved the
first mark of fame." Migwan smiled wanly. Her tragedies always seemed to
lose their sting in the light of Nyoda's optimism. She told her about
the necessity for a typewriter. "I could have told you that to begin
with, if you had asked my humble advice," replied Nyoda. "But if a
miserable writing machine is all that stands between you and fame and
fortune, your fortune is already made. The woman whose rooms I am living
in has one in her possession. It belongs to her son, I believe, but as
he is at present in China there is no danger of his wanting it for some
time. She has offered to let me use it on several occasions, and I don't
doubt but what we can make some arrangement to accommodate you."

The world seemed a pretty good place of habitation after all to Migwan
that day when she went home from school, in spite of the fact that she
had no dress to wear to the party. The situation began to appear faintly
humorous to her. Here was all the interest centered on what Gladys was
going to wear, when all the time the real, vital question was what _she_
was going to wear! What a commotion there would be if the other
Winnebagos knew the truth! Her thoughts began to beat themselves, into
rhythm as she walked home through the crunching snow:

"Broke, broke, broke,
And such clothes in the windows I see!
And I would that my purse could answer
The demands that are made on she!

"O well for the millionaire's wife,
Who can pay eighty bones for a shawl,
And well for the African maids,
Who don't need any clothes at all!

"And the pennies, they all go
To the grocer, and so do the dimes,
But, O, for the little crepe meteor dress
I saw down in Oppenheim's!

"Broke, broke, broke,
And such styles in the windows I see!
What would I not give for the rest of the month
For the salary of John D!"

"Would you just as soon run up to the attic and get the blanket sheets
out of the trunk?" asked her mother when she had finished her dinner. "I
was cold in bed last night." Migwan went up promptly. She found the
sheets and laid them out, and was then seized with a desire to rummage
among the things in the trunk. She pawed over old valentines, bonnets of
a by-gone day, lace mitts, and all the useless relics that are usually