that. Come and sit down on the steps, Mrs. Flaharty, and I'll tell a
story I made up for this special 'casion."

"It's troo wid the white does I am, an' I reckin I can sit and take me
breath before I begin on the colored; besides, I'd have to be takin'
away the foine costumes ye has roun' your waists, if I wint now." So
Mrs. Flaharty sat down ponderously.

"I've a poem, too," said Ethelwyn, taking her place in the audience, and
Elizabeth began:

"Once there was a little boy whose father was cross to him, and kept him
home all the while, and when he let him go anywhere, he said he
'mustn't' and 'don't' so much, it spoiled all his fun. Once the boy went
in the woods where lived a fairy prince. 'Go not near the fairy prince,'
had said the boy's father so much that the boy thought he'd die if he
did. So the fairy prince looked over the back fence and said, 'Avast
there,' so the boy avasted as fast as he could. 'I'm in trouble,' said
the fairy prince. 'What about?' said the boy. 'I can walk only on one
foot till somebody cuts off my little toe,' said the prince.

"So the boy did it with his father's razor, and it thundered and
lightened, and his father came and scolded over the back fence, but the
prince waved his magic cut toe; then they all banged and went up on a
Fourth of July sky rocket, till the father fell off and bumped all his
crossness out of him, and like birds of a fevver, they all lived
togevver afterwards."

"The saints be praised," said Mrs. Flaharty, fanning herself with her
apron.

Then Ethelwyn came forward. "This is my poem," she said, bowing to the
audience.

"A little girl lived way down East,
She rose and rose, like bread with yeast,
She rose above the tallest people,
And far above the highest steeple.
She kept right on till by and by
She took a peek into the sky--"

"Oh, what did she see?" asked Elizabeth, interested at once.

"That you can guess," replied the poet with dignity. "Mother says she
likes poems and pictures that you can put something into from your own
something or other, I forget what--you let folks guess about it."

"My sister is smart," complacently remarked Elizabeth to Nan, who had
just come over.

"So am I, then," said Nan, not to be outdone. "I can make up beautiful
poems."

"Let's hear one."

So Nan came forward, bowed profoundly and began:

"I have a little kitty,
Who is so very pretty,
Tho' growing large and fat,
I