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A Sappho Of Green Springs
by
Jack Hamlin had closed the magazine, but with one hand thrown over the back of the sofa he was still holding it, his slim forefinger between its leaves to keep the place, and his handsome profile and dark lashes lifted towards the window. The editor, smiling at this unwonted abstraction, said quietly,–
“Well, what do you think of them?”
Jack rose, laid the magazine down, settled his white waistcoat with both hands, and lounged towards his friend with audacious but slightly veiled and shining eyes. “They sort of sing themselves to you,” he said, quietly, leaning beside the editor’s desk, and looking down upon him. After a pause he said, “Then you don’t know what she’s like?”
“That’s what Mr. Bowers asked me,” remarked the editor.
“D–n Bowers!”
“I suppose you also wish me to write and ask for permission to give you her address?” said the editor, with great gravity.
“No,” said Jack, coolly. “I propose to give it to YOU within a week, and you will pay me with a breakfast. I should like to have it said that I was once a paid contributor to literature. If I don’t give it to you, I’ll stand you a dinner, that’s all.”
“Done!” said the editor. “And you know nothing of her now?”
“No,” said Jack, promptly. “Nor you?”
“No more than I have told you.”
“That’ll do. So long!” And Jack, carefully adjusting his glossy hat over his curls at an ominously wicked angle, sauntered lightly from the room. The editor, glancing after his handsome figure and hearing him take up his pretermitted whistle as he passed out, began to think that the contingent dinner was by no means an inevitable prospect.
Howbeit, he plunged once more into his monotonous duties. But the freshness of the day seemed to have departed with Jack, and the later interruptions of foreman and publisher were of a more practical character. It was not until the post arrived that the superscription on one of the letters caught his eye, and revived his former interest. It was the same hand as that of his unknown contributor’s manuscript–ill-formed and boyish. He opened the envelope. It contained another poem with the same signature, but also a note–much longer than the brief lines that accompanied the first contribution–was scrawled upon a separate piece of paper. This the editor opened first, and read the following, with an amazement that for the moment dominated all other sense:
MR. EDITOR,–I see you have got my poetry in. But I don’t see the spondulix that oughter follow. Perhaps you don’t know where to send it. Then I’ll tell you. Send the money to Lock Box 47, Green Springs P. O., per Wells Fargo’s Express, and I’ll get it there, on account of my parents not knowing. We’re very high-toned, and they would think it’s low making poetry for papers. Send amount usually paid for poetry in your papers. Or may be you think I make poetry for nothing? That’s where you slip up!
Yours truly,
WHITE VIOLET.
P. S.–If you don’t pay for poetry, send this back. It’s as good as what you did put in, and is just as hard to make. You hear me? that’s me–all the time.
WHITE VIOLET.
The editor turned quickly to the new contribution for some corroboration of what he felt must be an extraordinary blunder. But no! The few lines that he hurriedly read breathed the same atmosphere of intellectual repose, gentleness, and imagination as the first contribution. And yet they were in the same handwriting as the singular missive, and both were identical with the previous manuscript.
Had he been the victim of a hoax, and were the verses not original? No; they were distinctly original, local in color, and even local in the use of certain old English words that were common in the Southwest. He had before noticed the apparent incongruity of the handwriting and the text, and it was possible that for the purposes of disguise the poet might have employed an amanuensis. But how could he reconcile the incongruity of the mercenary and slangy purport of the missive itself with the mental habit of its author? Was it possible that these inconsistent qualities existed in the one individual? He smiled grimly as he thought of his visitor Bowers and his friend Jack. He was startled as he remembered the purely imaginative picture he had himself given to the seriously interested Bowers of the possible incongruous personality of the poetess.