little
ornament on the peak of one of his statutes might have comforted the
broken heart and kep' alive the starved body and gin him some comfort.
But that hain't the way of the world; the world has always considered
it genteel and fashionable to starve its poets, and stun its prophets,
with different kinds of stuns, but all on 'em hard ones; not that it
has done so in every case, but it has always been the fashionable
way.

Dorothy and Robert talked quite a good deal about the sad poet and his
works, their young hearts feelin' for his woe; mebby sunthin' in their
own hearts translatin' the mournful history; you know plates have to
be fixed jest right or the colors won't strike in. It is jest so in
life. Hearts must be ready to photograph the seens on, or they won't
be took. Some hearts and souls are blank plates and will always
remain so. Arvilly seemed lost in thought as they talked about the
poet (she hain't so well versed in poetry as she is in the license
laws and the disabilities of wimmen), and when she hearn Robert Strong
say, "Camoens will live forever," she sez dreamily:

"I wonder if he'd want to subscribe for the 'Twin Crimes'?" And sez
she, "I am sorry I didn't go over with you and canvass him." Poor
thing! she little knew he had got beyend canvassin' and all other
cares and troubles of life two hundred years ago. But Miss Meechim wuz
dretful worked up about the gambling going on at Maceo, and she sez it
is as bad as at Monte Carlo. (I didn't know who he wuz, but spozed
that he wuz a real out and out gambler and blackleg). And sez she,
"Oh, how bad it makes me feel to see such wickedness carried on. How
it makes my heart yearn for my own dear America!" Miss Meechim is good
in some things; she is as loyal to her own country as a dog to a root,
but Arvilly sez:

"I guess we Americans hadn't better find too much fault with foreign
natives about gambling, when we think of our stock exchanges, huge
gamblin' houses where millions are gambled for daily; thousands of
bushels of wheat put up there that never wuz growed only in the minds
of the gamblers. Why," sez Arvilly, warmin' up with her subject, "we
are a nation of gamblers from Wall Street, where gamblin' is done in
the name of greed, down to meetin' houses, where bed-quilts and tidies
are gambled for in the name of religion. From millionaires who play
the game for fortunes down to poor backwoodsmen who raffle for turkeys
and hens, and children who toss p