"Don't be a goose, Polly," she said provokingly. "You're no more
able to write a poem than Job is."
"What do you mean?" demanded Polly, facing her friend with
gleaming eyes and frowning brow.
"What do I mean!" echoed Molly mercilessly, "I mean just this:
your old poem isn't any poem at all. It doesn't rhyme more than
half way, and there's no more poetry about it than there is about
one of your freckles. Poetry is all about spring and clouds and
butterflies, or else death or--" Molly paused for an idea. Not
finding it, she hastily concluded, "Besides, I've heard something
just like that before."
Polly choked down her rising sobs.
"Very well," she said, through her clenched teeth. "This is all I
want of you, Molly Hapgood."
Deliberately she pulled off her mittens and put them into her
pocket; then, with shaking hands and with her face drawn as if in
pain, but with her eyes steadily fixed on Molly's face, she slowly
tore the paper into long, narrow strips, gathered the strips
together and tore them into tiny squares, and defiantly threw them
away over the side of the bridge into the swift blue stream below.
But even before the first floating square had touched the surface
of the water, the reaction had set in, and Polly could have cried
for the loss of her first and only poem.
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