“Don’t you see,” argued Nathan, “you’ve said the very same thing, only this is smooth and dreamy. You have a feeling old Mr. Abbot, the music teacher, might play it on his ‘cello, maybe. That’s the meaning of real poetry, Mr. Gridley—at least as I see it—to say the common thing uncommon, sweet and soft and low, so it lurks in your mind like music.” “I guess I understand, bub,” replied the old man huskily. “That’s a dam’ good piece we’ve writ here. If Sam Hod, o’ the _Daily Telegraph_, can’t make space for it, I’ll call his notes. Bub, what the plunkin’-hell does your old man be thinkin’ of, settin’ you to skinning cows? Want to make you at my age what I am, maybe?” Nathan was silent for a moment. Then he answered sadly: “It’s the money I can earn. He needs it.” “Money? Money? Dam’ money! Once I might o’ writ pieces like this, bub—dam’ good pieces. But my dad put his foot down and said that I should make money too. An’ look at me! I ain’t worth nothin’ else. And all this town knows it.” The tanner’s voice broke and he began to chew furiously. He turned away. “I can’t help myself,” lamented Nathan. “He makes me work and so I must. I’m only waiting to grow. And then I’ll go away, I guess, where he can never get trace of me again.” “Bub, what say you and me be partners—in poetry?” “Partners—in _poetry_?” “I’d like to write more pieces like this, with you, bub. B’dam, I ain’t had such a soul-satisfyin’ afternoon in thirty year! S’pose you quit the yard and come up here and see to things about the office. The brains o’ that redheaded girl rattle round in her head like a peanut in a wash boiler. And now and then we’ll fool with hexy—hexy——” “Hexameters,” said Nathan gravely. “Hexy-whatever you-call-’em,” said Caleb. “You mean you aren’t going to fire me for fighting? You’ll give me a job up here in the office, instead?” “That’s it, bub. You and me! Cow hides for bread and butter. Poems for dessert. Saturday afternoons and Sundays? What say?—what?” “Th-Th-Thank you, Mr. Gridley,” was all that Nathan could call up. He felt a sudden grim affection for the old tanner who had been keeping the heart of a poet locked under his tough hide for two or three decades. “The wages,” said Caleb, “will be two dollars more a week. I guess a poet oughta be worth it. But the real reason for the raise is keepin’ your mouth shut. The minute you go tellin’ what you and me’s mutually interested in—you’re fired!” “I understand, Mr. Gridley. I’m much obliged.” Overwhelmed with this sudden turn in his affairs, the boy began blindly picking up the scratch papers strewn about which they had spoiled. Carelessly he ripped them in strips until he came to the asinine lines of Caleb’s in 1871. “You won’t need these any more, will you,” he asked, “now that we’ve written them better?” The tanner rescued the sheet from the boy’s hand, however. Carefully folding it, he laid it away in the worn, brown wallet and locked it up in the old green safe.