but with pleasure—“as the sayin’goes, mighty big talk for poor folks!” said his mother. “Well, now,” she said in a thoughtful and hopeful tone, after a moment’s pause, “you may do it, sure enough. Stranger things than that have happened. Other people have been able to make a success of their writings—and there’s one thing sure!” His mother cried out strongly with the loose, powerful and manlike gesture of her hand and index finger which was characteristic of all her family—“there’s one thing sure!—what one man has done another can do if he’s got grit and determination enough!” His mother said, putting the full strength of her formidable will into these words—“Why, yes, now!” she now said, with a recollective start, “Here, now! Say!” she cried—“wasn’t I reading?—didn’t I see? Why, pshaw!—yes! just the other day—that all these big writers—yes, sir! Irvin S. Cobb—there was the very feller!” cried his mother in a triumphant tone—“Why, you know,” she continued, pursing her lips in a meditative way, “—that he had the very same trials and tribulations—as the sayin’goes—as everyone else! Why, yes!—here he told it on himself—admitted it, you know—that he kept writin’these stories for years, sendin’them out, I reckon, to all the editors and magazines—and having them all sent back to him. That’s the way it was,” she said, “and now—look at him! Why, I reckon they’d pay him hundreds of dollars for a single piece—yes! and be glad of the chance to get it,” said his mother.
Then for a space his mother sat looking at the fire, while she slowly and reflectively pursed her lips.
“Well,” she said slowly at length, “you may do it. I hope you do. Stranger things than that have happened.—Now, there’s one thing sure,” she said strongly, “you have certainly had a good education—there’s been more money spent upon your schoolin’than on all the rest of us put together—and you certainly ought to know enough to write a story or a play!—Why, yes, boy! I tell you what,” his mother now cried in the old playful and bantering tone, as if she were speaking to a child, “if I had your education I believe I’d try to be a writer, too! Why, yes! I wouldn’t mind getting out of all this drudgery and house-work for a while—and if I could earn my living doin’some light easy work like that, why, you can bet your bottom dollar, I’d do it!” cried his mother. “But, say, now! See here!” his mother cried with a kind of jocose seriousness—“maybe that’d be a good idea, after all! Suppose you write the stories,” she said, winking at him, —“and I tell, you what I’ll do!—Why, I’ll tell’em to you! Now, if
