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Rh (The arrangment made a pleasant sunny cellar.) Her mother's bedroom was her father's still, Where she could watch her mother's picture fading. Once she found for a bookmark in the Bible A maple leaf she thought must have been laid In wait for her there. She read every word Of the two pages it was pressed between As if it was her mother speaking to her. But forgot to put the leaf back in closing And lost the place never to read again. She was sure, though, there had been nothing in it.

So she looked for herself, as everyone Looks for himself, more or less outwardly. And her self-seeking, fitful though it was, May still have been what led her on to read, And think a little, and get some city schooling. She learned shorthand, whatever shorthand may Have had to do with it—she sometimes wondered. So, till she found herself in a strange place For the name Maple to have brought her to, Taking dictation on a paper pad, And in the pauses when she raised her eyes Watching out of a nineteenth story window An airship laboring with unship-like motion And a vague all-disturbing roar above the river Beyond the highest city built with hands. Someone was saying in such natural tones She almost wrote the words down on her knee, "Do you know you remind me of a tree— A maple tree?"