nd with amazement she read the
little story, retouched and polished up by Gussie, but breathing the
small sister's winsomeness in every word.

"Why, the little mouse!" she exclaimed in her astonishment. "If that
isn't just like her!"

"Where's the mouse?" demanded Cherry, curling her feet up under her and
searching wildly about the floor with eyes full of fear and loathing.

"In bed," promptly answered Hope. "I've got her stories here in my hand.
Grandma, do you know what the youngsters have been doing all this
while?"

Mrs. Campbell glanced at the book on Hope's knee, and smilingly
answered, "Learning to be poets under Gussie's instruction."

"But Allee really does write splendidly," Hope insisted very seriously.
"I can hardly believe she wrote all this; yet it sounds just like her.
She always did have such a beautiful way of saying things." Then she
burst out laughing.

"What is it?" demanded the sisters, scenting something unusual, and
laying aside their lessons to listen.

"A poem by Peace," gasped Hope. "O, it's too funny!" Wiping her eyes,
she dramatically read:

"'In the yard the little chicklets
Ran to and fro,
Digging up the worms and buglets
Squirming down below.

Came a hawk and grabbed a chicklet,
Right by the toe,
And the little chicklet hollered,
"O, let me go."

But the hawklet hugged him tighter,
Wouldn't turn him loose,
Cause he thought he'd make good dinner
When there was no goose.

So the hawklet went a-flying
Up in the sky,
With the chicklet still a-crying,
"I don't want to die."'"

By the time she had finished reading the queer stanzas, five heads were
clustered about hers, for even the President cast aside his paper to
listen; and five pair of eager eyes were striving to read the uneven
scrawls with which the pages were filled.

"Well, I declare!" ejaculated the learned Doctor of Laws, rubbing his
spectacles vigorously, and bending over the ink-blotted book again. "I
had no idea that Allee was far enough advanced in school to write
compositions and--and--rhymes.'

"She is nearly up with Peace," said Gail proudly. "I predict that she
will be a poet yet."

"Wouldn't be at all surprised," replied the doctor. "Her grandfather
might have shone in literature if he had chosen that field instead of
the ministry."

"I like Peace's contributions almost the best," murmured the grandm