"You read it, Ross," I said. "I don't believe I feel hearty enough to-day.
Read the items first--we can bear the waiting."
"What waiting?" inquired Mr. Schofield.
"For the poem," replied Parker, grimly.
With a vague but not fleeting smile, Ross settled the sheets in order, and
exhibited tokens of that pleasant nevousness incident to appearing before
a critical audience, armed with literature whose merits should delight
them out of the critical attitude. "I run across a great scheme down
there," he volunteered amiably, by way of preface; "I described everything
in full, in as many words as I could think up; it's mighty filling, and
it'll please the public, too; it gives 'em a lot more information than
they us'ally git. I reckon there's two sticks of jest them extry words
alone."
"Go on," said the foreman, rather ominously.
Ross began to read, a matter necessitating a puckered brow and at times an
amount of hesitancy and ruminating, as his results had already cooled a
little, and he found his hand difficult to decipher. "Here's the first,"
he said: "'The large and handsome, fawn-colored, two years and one-half year old
Jersey of Frederick Bibshaw Jones, Esquire----'"
The foreman interrupted him: "Every reader of the 'Herald' will be glad to
know that Jersey's age and color! But go on."
"'--Frederick Bibshaw Jones, Esquire,'" pursued his assistant, with some
discomfiture, "'--Esquire, our popular and well-dressed fellow-citizen----
'"
"You're right; Bib Jones is a heavy swell," said Parker in a breaking
voice.
"'--Citizen, can be daily seen wandering from the far end of his pasture-
lot to the other far end of it.'"
"'His!'" exclaimed Parker. "'His pasture-lot?' The Jersey's?"
"No," returned the other, meekly, "Bib Jones's."
"Oh," said Parker. "Is that the end of that item? It is! You want to get
out of Plattville, my friend; it's too small for you; you go to Rouen and
you'll be city editor of the 'Journal' inside of a week. Let's have
another."
Mr. Schofield looked up blankly; however, he felt that there was enough
live, legitimate news in his other items to redeem the somewhat tame
quality of the first, and so, after having crossed out several of the
extra words which had met so poor a reception, he proceeded:
"'Whit Upton's pigs broke out last Wednesday and rooted up a fine patch of
garden truck. Hard luck, Whit.'