n.

"Oh you merry, God-blessed people," he said. "Michael Henry has bade me
speak for him."

The schoolmaster took out of his pocketbook a folded sheet of paper. As
he opened it a little, golden, black-tipped feather fell upon the table.

"Look! here is a plume o' the golden robin," the schoolmaster went on.
"He dropped it in our garden yesterday to lighten ship, I fancied,
before he left, the summer's work and play being ended. Ye should 'a'
seen Michael Henry when he looked at the feather. How it tickled his
fancy! I gave him my thought about it.

"'Nay, father,' he answered. 'Have ye forgotten that to-morrow is the
birthday o' our little Ruth? The bird knew it and brought this gift to
her. It is out o' the great gold mines o' the sky which are the richest
in the world.'

"Then these lines came off his tongue, with no more hesitation about it
than the bird has when he sings his song on a bright summer morning and
I put them down to go with the feather. Here they are now:

"TO RUTH

"'Little lady, draw thy will
With this Golden Robin's quill--
Sun-stained, night-tipped, elfish thing--
Symbol of thy magic wing!

"'Give to me thy fairy lands
And palaces, on silver sands.
Oh will to me, my heart implores,
Their alabaster walls and floors!
Their gates that ope on Paradise
Or earth, or Eden in a trice.
Give me thy title to the hours
That pass in fair Aladdin towers.
But most I'd prize thy heavenly art
To win and lead the stony heart.
Give these to me that solemn day
Thou'rt done with them, I humbly pray.

"'Little lady, draw thy will
With this Golden Robin's quill.'"

He bowed to our young guest and kissed her hand and sat down in the
midst of our cheering.

I remember well the delightful sadness that came into my heart on the
musical voice of the reader. The lines, simple as they were, opened a
new gate in my imagination beyond which I heard often the sound of music
and flowing fountains and caught glimpses, now and then, of magic towers
and walls of alabaster. There had been no fairies in Lickitysplit. Two
or three times I had come upon fairy footprints in the books which Mr.
Wright had sent to us, but neither my aunt nor my uncle could explain
whence they came or the nature of their errand.

Mr. Hacket allowed me to write down the lines in my little diary of
events and expenses, from which I have just copi