Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/262
“Would I dare to show the above sentence to Mr. Carpenter? I would not. Therefore there is something fearfully wrong with it.
“I know what’s wrong with it, now that I’ve written it in cold blood. It’s ‘fine writing.’ And yet it’s just what I felt when I stood on the hill beyond the Land of Uprightness tonight and looked across the harbour. And who cares what this old journal thinks?
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“December 2, 19—
“The results of the prize poem competition were announced today. Evelyn Blake is the winner with a poem entitled A Legend of Abegweit.
“There isn’t anything to say—so I say it.
“Besides, Aunt Ruth has said everything!
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“December 15, 19—
“Evelyn’s prize poem was printed in the Times this week with her photograph and a biographical sketch. The set of Parkman is on exhibition in the windows of the Booke Shoppe.
“A Legend of Abegweit is a fairly good poem. It is in ballad style, and rhythm and rhyme are correct—which could not be said of any other poem of Evelyn’s I’ve ever seen.
“Evelyn Blake has said of everything of mine she ever saw in print that she was sure I copied it from somewhere. I hate to imitate her—but I know that she never wrote that poem. It isn’t any expression of her at all. She might as well have imitated Dr. Hardy’s handwriting and claimed it as her own. Her mincing, copperplate script is as much like Dr. Hardy’s black, forcible scrawl as that poem is like her.
“Besides, though A Legend of Abegweit is fairly good it is not as good as Wild Grapes.
“I am not going to say so to any one but down it goes in this journal. Because it’s true.
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