"You are late, Allee." Peace had watched the little figure ever since it had turned the corner a block further down the street, and noted with increasing anxiety that the usually swift feet tonight were lagging and slow. Indeed, so abstracted was the belated scholar that she almost forgot to turn in at her own gate, and in Peace's mind this could mean only one thing,—Allee had fallen below grade in her arithmetic that afternoon and had been kept after school to make it up. As a further indication that this was the case, she was intently studying the front page of a scratch-tablet, and when Peace called to her, she hastily hid the paper under her apron, while her rosy cheeks grew rosier still, and a look of guilty alarm flew into her blue eyes.

"Am I?" She tried to speak naturally, but suspicious Peace detected the strained note in her voice, and demanded, "Were you kept after school?"

"Yes,—no,—not really school."

"What do you mean by that? Cherry's been home for more'n half an hour."

"That long?" Allee's amazement was too genuine to doubt.

"Yes, and you said you'd come home the minute school was out so's we could finish that puzzle and send it off."

"I didn't mean to stay so long. It seemed only a minute, Peace, truly." Allee was deeply penitent.

"Where have you been? To see Miss Edith?"

"No—o—"

"And what's that you are hiding under your apron? Allee Greenfield, you've got a secret from me!" cried Peace, much aggrieved.

Poor Allee's face flushed crimson, the frank eyes wavered and fell, and a meek voice stammered, "I—I—'tisn't really a secret, Peace."

"What is it then?"

"I was afraid you would laugh at me—"

"Why? What is there to laugh at?"

"My—my rhymes."

"Rhymes?"

"Yes. You know Hope has to write 'em in High School, and even Cherry's teacher took a notion to make her scholars try thinking up poetry."

"Has your teacher?"

"O, no, but at recess we play school and one of our games is making up rhymes. The leader says anything she wants to, and we have to answer so it will make a jingle. It's like spelling down. If we miss we have to go to the foot of the class."

"Mercy me! the whole house will be talking poetry next," ejaculated Peace. "Gail's just written one that the—the—what is the name of that paper?—has printed with her name at the bottom of it, and Cherry came home tonight with her head so big that she can hardly lug it, 'cause her verses were the best in her room. But I didn't think it would hit you. Why, there's getting to be a reg'lar emetic of poetry 'round here."

Allee looked crestfallen. "It's fun when you know how," she ventured, apologetically. "Gussie showed me, and helps me get the feet straight."

"Feet! Gussie! Is she at it, too?"

"Gussie writes perfectly elegant rhymes," Allee defended. "You haven't forgotten those dishes she cooked for you and rhymed over, have you?"

"I guess not! They were so funny. I pasted 'em into my 'Glimmers of Gladness.'"

"And I stuck mine into my album," confessed Allee.

"Your album? What album?"

"A little book Gussie gave me to write my jingles in. The name on the cover is 'Album,' so that's what I call it."

"Would—would you let me see it?"

Allee hesitated. "You won't laugh?"

"Not a single snicker."

"Well, then,—I don't mind."

She darted away to the house, returning almost immediately with a small, thick note-book in her hand, partly filled with round, even writing, which Peace instantly recognized as Gussie's. "That ain't—" she began, but Allee forestalled her.

"Gussie copies 'em all for me, 'cause my letters are so dreadfully big the pages won't hold all I want to write," she explained.

"Why don't you get a bigger book and write your own poems in it? The pages are too small in this. I'll tell you,—Grandma gave me a big, fat book a long time ago to keep a dairy in."—Peace never could remember the proper place for the words 'dairy' and 'diary.'—"But I wrote only one day. It wasn't at all int'resting to scribble all by myself, but if you'll use my book we'll both write. How'd you like that?"

Allee's eyes were shining happily. "I think it would be fine. I—I really wanted your book, 'cause it is so nice and wide, but I thought likely you would find some use for it yourself some day."

"Well, I have. We'll use it for a scrap album."

"A scrap album?"

"Yes. I mean, we can each of us write in it whenever we feel poetry, but we needn't have to do it at any time."

"And I can paste my 'lustrations in it between leaves, can't I?"

"What kind of 'lustrations?"

"Why, like Hope's note-book. She has to draw pictures of plants and flowers in her botany, and just for fun she makes skitches to picture out the stories they study in some of her other classes."

"But her skitches are nice," Peace remarked skeptically. "Why, Grandpa thinks some day she will make a good 'lustrator for magazines and books."

"My pictures are nice, too," Allee contended. "Here is a sunset I painted a long time ago—"

"It looks like a prairie fire," murmured the older sister, gravely eyeing the highly-colored sheet upside down.

"It just matches a lullaby I made up yesterday," continued Allee, unmindful of Peace's criticism. Rapidly her fingers turned the pages until she had found the lines she wanted, and with a heart filled with pride, she passed the book to her companion, who read,

"You haven't got any baby," the reader interrupted.

"It don't need babies to write lullabies," Allee scornfully retorted. "A real poet can write about anything."

"Well, anyway, I like this one better." Peace's eyes had travelled rapidly through the lines, and lingered over some stanzas on the opposite page:

"Yes, Gussie liked that, too," said Allee, much pleased.

"Did you write it all yourself?" Peace was incredulous.

"Well, Gussie showed me how to fix it up so it didn't limp, but it's almost like I wrote it."

"I don't see how you can think of the things to say."

"They think themselves, I guess," replied Allee after a moment's study. "Teacher last year used to read us stories and make us tell them ourselves, just as pretty as we could; and you and I 'magine so many things about the moon lady and the mountain elves and water sprites. It's easy to tell them like stories, so I just tried writing them out. That ain't so easy, 'cause I can't always spell the words, but it's fun now that I'm used to it. Then Gussie showed me how rhymes were made into real poetry, so I tried that, too. It's just fitting words into a tune like you used to do, only you don't need a tune either. The poems in our Readers are what I go by."

Peace was very much interested. In her "Glimmers of Gladness" she had essayed a poem or two, as she was pleased to call them; but Allee's were far superior to any of her attempts, and Allee was two years younger. "Bring me all the old Readers in the library," she abruptly commanded, "and while you are copying your poems in my book, I'll write a few of my own."

Allee ran to do her bidding, and soon the two embryo poets were so busy with pen and pencil that they were amazed when Jud appeared to carry the invalid into the house.

"It's surely not dinner time yet!" Allee protested. "Why, I've got only one poem and half of a story copied."

"That's better'n me," Peace dolefully sighed, closing the First Reader with reluctant hands and laying it aside. "I haven't done a line yet. I haven't even found a poem to pattern after, though I guess I'll take 'Long Time Ago' for my first one. That's easy, and when I get onto the hang of it, I'll try something harder. If it's dinner time already the days must be getting lots shorter again."

"You are right, they are," Jud agreed. "Soon it will be too cold out here for you—"

"I shan't mind," Peace interrupted. "I'm going to write a good deal this winter. Gussie'll teach me to be a poet, and I always could write better inside the house. There's too much to look at out-of-doors."

Jud heaved a gusty sigh. "You all think a heap of Gussie, don't you?" he asked with a jealous pang, for he found it almost impossible to get a quiet word with that busy and important member of the household, and now that winter was coming on, it would be harder than ever, for even the little after-dinner chats in the garden would have to be discontinued.

"I sh'd say we do!" both girls chorused. "She is worth thinking a lot of—"

"That's where you are right again," the man agreed heartily.

"She can do anything" said Peace, who was never tired of singing Gussie's praises.

"Even to making poets," he teased.

"Yes, sir, even to making poets, and some day you will see for yourself."

"I hope I may," he sighed again, and the little group slowly trundled up the walk into the house.

Jud's prophecy of cold weather came true sooner than he had expected, and as if to make up for the long, lovely autumn of the year before, wintry winds descended early upon Martindale. Heavy frosts wrought havoc in the gardens, the yellow and crimson leaves fell in showers, September died in a blaze of glory, and October found the trees naked and vines shivering in the keen, sharp air. It was too cold to spend the hours out-of-doors any longer, and the Campbells dreaded the long days of confinement that stretched out in such an appalling array before the crippled child. So they were amazed and agreeably surprised to hear no word of lament from the small maid herself, who was suddenly seized with such a studious fit that she found hardly time to eat her meals.

"I'm learning to be a poet," she told them by way of explanation. "Gussie's teaching me, and some day maybe you can read our poems,—Allee's and mine."

"God bless Gussie," they smiled tenderly, and went their way content, leaving the young student to toil with inky fingers over pages of impossible rhymes, for they knew that when this new play should have lost its attraction, they must have something else to hold the patient's interest.

Perhaps it was Gussie's teaching, perhaps Allee's unflagging enthusiasm which kept restless Peace pouring over the ancient Readers unearthed from obscure corners of the President's great library; but however that may be, more ink was used in the big house during those early Fall days than had ever been used before, and the fat notebook was filled at an alarming rate with contributions from its two owners, and an occasional skit, by way of encouragement, from Gussie, the cook.

As neither Peace nor Allee ever offered to share their secrets with their elders, the sisters soon lost interest in the new amusement; but one night when both scribes were fast asleep in their beds, Hope chanced to find the precious volume on the couch by the fireplace where Allee had carelessly dropped it when the dinner hour had been announced. Picking it up, she opened it idly, before she recognized what book she had in her hand. Then, just as she was about to lay it aside, one of Allee's contributions caught her eye, and 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:

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 grandmother apologetically, brushing a tear from her cheek as she finished reading some incomplete lines penned by the brown-eyed maid:—

Hope's eyes, too, had seen the pathetic lines, and closing the book, she softly said, "Let's all write something in it as a surprise,—something of our own, I mean."

"And you make little margin pictures like Mrs. Strong did in Peace's Brownie Book," suggested Cherry.

"You mean her 'Glimmers of Gladness,'" Faith corrected, smiling a little in remembrance of the brown and gold volume which had helped while away the rainy days at the parsonage more than a year before.

"And paint the name in fancy letters on the front cover," Gail added.

"What shall you call it?" asked the grandmother, already searching for pen and paper that she might make a first draft of some lines running through her mind.

"The same title they have given it," Gail answered. "'Allee's Album.'"

"And God bless 'Allee's Album,'" reverently whispered the deeply-touched President, blowing his nose like a trumpet to relieve his feelings.