Herbert at once withdrew a few steps, placing his hands behind him.  “Listen here,” he said;—­“you think we got time to read a lot o’ nothin’ in your ole hand-writin’ that nobody can read anyhow, and then go and toil and moil to print it on our printin’-press?  I guess we got work enough printin’ what we write for our newspaper our own selves!  My goodness, Florence, I told you this isn’t any child’s play!”

For the moment, Florence appeared to be somewhat baffled.  “Well,” she said.  “Well, you better put this poem in your ole newspaper if you want to have anyhow one thing in it that won’t make everybody sick that reads it.”

“I won’t do it!” Herbert said decisively.

“What you take us for?” his partner added.

“All right, then,” Florence responded.  “I’ll go and tell Uncle Joseph and he’ll take this printing-press back.”

“He will not take it back.  I already did tell him how you kept pokin’ around, tryin’ to run everything, and how we just worried our lives out tryin’ to keep you away.  He said he bet it was a hard job; that’s what Uncle Joseph said!  So go on, tell him anything you want to.  You don’t get your ole poem in our newspaper!”

“Not if she lived to be two hunderd years old!” Henry Rooter added.  Then he had an afterthought.  “Not unless she pays for it.”

“How do you mean?” Herbert asked, puzzled by this codicil.

Now Henry’s brow had become corrugated with no little professional impressiveness.  “You know what we were talkin’ about this morning?” he said.  “How the right way to run our newspaper, we ought to have some advertisements in it and everything?  Well, we want money, don’t we?  We could put this poem in our newspaper like an advertisement;—­that is, if Florence has got any money, we could.”

Herbert frowned.  “If her ole poem isn’t too long I guess we could.  Here, let’s see it, Florence.”  And, taking the sheet of paper in his hand, he studied the dimensions of the poem, without paining himself to read it.  “Well, I guess, maybe we can do it,” he said.  “How much ought we to charge her?”

This question sent Henry Rooter into a state of calculation, while Florence observed him with veiled anxiety; but after a time he looked up, his brow showing continued strain.  “Do you keep a bank, Florence—­for nickels and dimes and maybe quarters, you know?” he inquired.

It was her cousin who impulsively replied for her.  “No, she don’t,” he said.

“Not since I was about seven years old!” And Florence added sharply, though with dignity:  “Do you still make mud pies in your back yard, pray?”

“Now, see here!” Henry objected.  “Try and be a lady anyway for a few minutes, can’t you?  I got to figure out how much we got to charge you for your ole poem, don’t I?”

“Well, then,” Florence returned, “you better ask me somep’n about that, hadn’t you?”