“Thirty dollars!” he cried; “thirty to fifty fer a short story!  Great Snakes, Peggy, I’m goin’ into it.”

“Heh?  Goin’ into what?” asked Peggy, raising his eyes from the paper.

“I kin write a story,” declared Skim confidently.

“Ye kin, Skim?”

“It’s a cinch, Peggy.  Mother keeps all the magazines an’ paper novils, an’ we allus reads ’em afore we sells ’em.  I’ve read the gol-durndest lot o’ truck ye ever heard of, so I’m posted on stories in gen’ral.  I’ll write one an’ sell it to the Millville Tribune.  Do ye s’pose they’ll give me the thirty, er the fifty, Peggy?”

“Anywheres between, they says.  But one feller gits ten cents a word.  Whew!”

“I know; but he’s a big one, which I ain’t—­just now.  I’ll take even the thirty, if I hev to.”

“I would, Skim,” advised Peggy, nodding approval.  “But make ’em put yer photygraf in the paper, besides.  Say, it’ll be a big thing fer Millville to turn out a author.  I didn’t think it were in you, Skim.”

“Why, it hadn’t struck me afore,” replied the youth, modestly.  “I’ve ben hankerin’ to make money, without knowin’ how to do it.  I tell ye, Peggy, it pays to read the newspapers.  This one’s give me a hint how to carve out a future career, an’ I’ll write a story as’ll make them girl edyturs set up an’ take notice.”

“Make it someth’n’ ’bout Injuns,” suggested Peggy.  “I ain’t read a Injun story fer years.”

“No; they’re out o’ fashion,” observed Skim loftily.  “What folks want now is a detective story.  Feller sees a hole in a fence an’ says, ’Ha! there’s ben a murder!’ Somebody asks what makes him think so, an’ the detective feller says, takin’ out a magnifie-in’ glass, ’Thet hole’s a bullet-hole, an’ the traces o’ blood aroun’ the edges shows the bullet went through a human body afore it went through the fence.’  ‘Then,’ says some one, ‘where’s the body?’ ‘That,’ says the detective, ’is what we mus’ diskiver.’  So the story goes on to show how the body were diskivered an’ who did the murderin’.”

“By Jupe, thet’s great!” cried Peggy admiringly.  “Skim, ye’re a wonder!”

“Ma allus said I were good fer somethin’, but she couldn’t tell what.”

“It’s story-writin’,” declared Peggy “Say, Skim, I put ye onter this deal; don’t I git a rake-off on thet fifty dollars?”

“Not a cent!” said Skim indignantly.  “Ye didn’t tell me to write a story; I said myself as I could do it.  An’ I know where to use the money, Peggy, ev’ry dollar of it, whether it’s thirty er fifty.”

Peggy sighed.

“I writ a pome once,” he said.  “Wonder ef they’d pay fer a pome?”

“What were it like?” asked Skim curiously.

“It went someth’n’ this way,” said Peggy: 

“I sigh
Ter fly
Up high
In the sky. 
But my
Wings is shy,
So I mus’ cry
Good-bye
Ter fly-

        in’.”