od, and Kitty Silver and two
or three other coloured people besides. They're going to charge
twenty-five cents a year, collect-in-advance because they want the money
first; and even papa gave 'em a quarter last night; he told me so."

"How often do they intend to publish their paper, Florence?" Mrs.
Atwater inquired absently, having resumed her sewing.

"Every week; and they're goin' to have the first one a week from
to-day."

"What do they call it?"

"The North End Daily Oriole. It's the silliest name I ever heard for a
newspaper; and I told 'em so. I told 'em what _I_ thought of it, I
guess!"

"Was that the reason?" Mrs. Atwater asked.

"Was it what reason, mamma?"

"Was it the reason they wouldn't let you be a reporter with them?"

"Poot!" Florence exclaimed airily. "_I_ didn't want anything to do with
their ole paper. But anyway I didn't make fun o' their callin' it 'The
North End Daily Oriole' till after they said I couldn't be in it. _Then_
I did, you bet!"

"Florence, don't say----"

"Mamma, I got to say somep'n! Well, I told 'em I wouldn't be in their
ole paper if they begged me on their bented knees; and I said if they
begged me a thousand years I wouldn't be in any paper with such a crazy
name and I wouldn't tell 'em any news if I knew the President of the
United States had the scarlet fever! I just politely informed 'em they
could say what they liked, if they was dying _I_ declined so much as
wipe the oldest shoes I got on 'em!"

"But why _wouldn't_ they let you be on the paper?" her mother insisted.

Upon this Florence became analytical. "Just so's they could act so
important." And she added, as a consequence, "They ought to be
arrested!"

Mrs. Atwater murmured absently, but forbore to press her inquiry; and
Florence was silent, in a brooding mood. The journalists upon the fence
had disappeared from view, during her conversation with her mother; and
presently she sighed, and quietly left the room. She went to her own
apartment, where, at a small and rather battered little white desk,
after a period of earnest reverie, she took up a pen, wet the point in
purple ink, and without great effort or any critical delayings, produced
a poem.

It was in a sense an original poem, though like the greater number of
all literary projections, it was so strongly inspirational that the
source of its inspiration might easily become manifest to a cold-blooded
reader. Nevertheless, to the poetess herself, as