of all the savages that live."

"Indeed, sir? Could I--could I get it out, sir? Could I compose the
poem, sir, do you think?"

"You?"

I wilted.

Presently my father's face softened somewhat, and he said:

"Go and try. But mind, curb folly. No poetry at the expense of truth.
Keep strictly to the facts."

I said I would, and bowed myself out, and went upstairs.

"Hiawatha" kept droning in my head--and so did my father's remarks about
the sublimity and romance hidden in my subject, and also his injunction
to beware of wasteful and exuberant fancy. I noticed, just here, that I
had heedlessly brought the deed away with me; now at this moment came to
me one of those rare moods of daring recklessness, such as I referred to
a while ago. Without another thought, and in plain defiance of the
fact that I knew my father meant me to write the romantic story of my
half-brother's adventure and subsequent good fortune, I ventured to heed
merely the letter of his remarks and ignore their spirit. I took the
stupid "Warranty Deed" itself and chopped it up into Hiawathian
blank verse without altering or leaving out three words, and without
transposing six. It required loads of courage to go downstairs and face
my father with my performance. I started three or four times before I
finally got my pluck to where it would stick. But at last I said I would
go down and read it to him if he threw me over the church for it. I
stood up to begin, and he told me to come closer. I edged up a little,
but still left as much neutral ground between us as I thought he would
stand. Then I began. It would be useless for me to try to tell what
conflicting emotions expressed themselves upon his face, nor how they
grew more and more intense, as I proceeded; nor how a fell darkness
descended upon his countenance, and he began to gag and swallow, and his
hands began to work and twitch, as I reeled off line after line, with
the strength ebbing out of me, and my legs trembling under me:

THE STORY OF A GALLANT DEED

THIS INDENTURE, made the tenth
Day of November, in the year
Of our Lord one thousand eight
Hundred six-and-fifty,

Between Joanna S. E. Gray
And Philip Gray, her husband,
Of Salem City in the State
Of Texas, of the first part,

And O. B. John