It had been years since Susan first called them to dinner with her
"poem"; but Keith could remember just how pleased she had been, and
how gayly she had repeated it over and over, so as not to forget it.

"Oh, of course I know that 'ate' ain't good etiquette in that place,"
she had admitted at the time. "It should be 'eat.' But 'eat' don't
rhyme, an' 'ate' does. So I'm goin' to use it. An' I can, anyhow. It's
poem license; an' that'll let you do anything."

Since then she had used the verse for every meal--except when she was
out of temper--and by substituting breakfast or supper for dinner, she
had a call that was conveniently universal.

The fact that she used it ONLY when she was good-natured constituted
an unfailing barometer of the atmospheric condition of the kitchen,
and was really, in a way, no small convenience--especially for little
boys in quest of cookies or bread-and-jam. As for the master of the
house--this was not the first time he had threatened an energetic
warfare against that "absurd doggerel" (which he had cordially
abhorred from the very first); neither would it probably be the last
time that Susan's calm "Well, sir?" should send him into ignominious
defeat before the battle was even begun. And, really, after all was
said and done, there was still that one unfailing refuge for his
discomforted recollection: he could be thankful, when he heard it,
that she was good-natured; and with Susan that was no small thing to
be thankful for, as everybody knew--who knew Susan.

To-day, therefore, the defeat was not so bitter as to take all the
sweetness out of the "red-flannel" hash, and the frown on Daniel
Burton's face was quite gone when Susan brought in the dessert. Nor