And yet your hair is still pure gold.
Stella they tell me your name in Latin means a star
And to me that is what you are
With your eyes and your hair so yellow
I rate myself a lucky fellow Stella.
You know I cannot afford a costly gift
As you know it costs us all I make to live
And as you know we are already in debt,
But if you will stay well and healthy
Until I am rich and wealthy
Maybe I will be more able then to give you a present
Better than I can at present.
So now Stella goodbye for the present
And I hope next year I can make things more pleasant.
May you live to be old and ripe and mellow
Is my kind birthday wish for you Stella.
“Do you mean to tell me,” said Roberts, “that it was no trouble to write that?”
“It only took me less than a half-hour,” said Stephen.
“Listen,” said Roberts. “Let me have it.”
“What do you want with it?”
“I can get it published for you.”
“Where at?”
“In the New York Standard. I’ve got a friend, George Balch, who would run it in his column. He doesn’t pay anything, but if this was printed and your name signed to it, it might attract attention from people who do pay for poetry. Then you could make a lot of money on the side.”
“How much do they pay?”
“Well, some of the big magazines pay as high as a dollar a line.”
“I forget how many lines there is in that.”
Roberts counted them.
“Seventeen,” he said. “And from what I’ve seen of old Townsend, I bet he doesn’t pay you much more a week.”
“And it only took me less than a half-hour to write,” said Stephen.
“Will you let me send it to Balch?”
“I don’t know if I’ve got another copy.”
“Your wife must have a copy.”
“I guess maybe she has.”
He wasn’t just guessing.
“I’ll mail this to Balch tonight, along with a note. If he prints it, I’ll send you the paper.”
“I’ve got one that’s even longer than that,” said Stephen.
“Well, let’s have it.”
“No, I guess I’d better hang onto it—if your friend don’t pay for them.”
“You’re absolutely right. A man’s a sucker to work for nothing. You keep your other stuff till this is published and you hear from some magazine editor, as I’m sure you will. Then you can sell what you’ve already written, and write more, till you’re making so much dough that you can buy the Maysville Gas Company from that old skinflint.”
“I don’t want any gas company. I want to get out of it. I just want to write.”
“Why shouldn’t you!”
“I’ve got to be sure of a living.”
“Living! If you can make seventeen dollars in half an hour, that’s thirty-four dollars an hour, or—How many hours do you put in here?”
“Ten.”
“Three hundred and forty dollars a day! If that isn’t a living, I’m selling manicure sets to fish.”
“I couldn’t keep up no such a pace. I have to wait for inspiration,” said Stephen.
“A dollar a line would be enough inspiration for me. But the times when you didn’t feel like doing it yourself, you could hire somebody to do it for you.”
“That wouldn’t be square, and people would know the difference anyway. It’s hard to imitate another man’s style. I tried once to write like Edgar Guest, but it wouldn’t have fooled people that was familiar with his works.”
“Nobody can write like Guest. And you don’t need to. Your own style is just as good as his and maybe better. And speaking of Guest, do you think he’s starving to death? He gives away dimes to the Fords.”
Stephen was wild to tell Stella what had happened, but he was afraid this Balch might not like the poem as well as Roberts had; might not think it worth publishing, and she would be disappointed.
He would wait until he actually had it in print, if ever, and then show it to her.
He didn’t have to wait long. In less than a week he received by mail from New York a copy of the Standard, and in George Balch’s column was his verse with his name signed to it and a caption reading “To Stella—A Maysville Minstrel Gives His Mrs. a Birthday Treat.”
For the first time in his career at the gas office, Stephen quit five minutes early and almost ran home. His wife was as excited as he had hoped she would be.
“But why does he call you a minstrel?” she asked. “He must have heard some way about that night at the Elks.”
Stephen told her the rest of the story—how Roberts had predicted that the poem would attract the attention of magazine editors and create a demand for his verses at a dollar a line. And he confessed that he had other poems all ready to send when the call came.
He had brought two of them home from the office and he read them aloud for her approval:
1. The Lackawanna Railroad.
The Lackawanna Railroad where does it go?
It goes from Jersey City to Buffalo.
Some of the trains stop at Maysville but they are few
Most of them go right through
Except the 8:22
Going west but the 10:12 bound for Jersey City
That is the train we like the best
As it takes you to Jersey City
Where you can take a ferry or tube for New York City.
The Lackawanna runs many freights
Sometimes they run late
But that does not make so much difference with a freight
Except the people who have to wait for their freight.
Maysville people patronize the Interurban a specially the farmers
So the Interurban cuts into the business of the Lackawanna,
But if you are going to New York City or Buffalo
The Lackawanna is the way to go.
Will say in conclusion that we consider it an honor
That the City of Maysville is on the Lackawanna.
2. The Gas Business.
The Maysville Gas Co. has eight hundred meters
The biggest consumer in town is Mrs. Arnold Peters
Who owns the big house on Taylor Hill
And is always giving parties come who will.
Our collections amount to about
