In his spare time he continued to write and occasionally he sold something. Whenever he did so there was great rejoicing among the feminine members of the Snow household; his grandmother and Rachel Ellis were enraptured. It was amusing to see Captain Zelotes attempt to join the chorus. He evidently felt that he ought to praise, or at least that praise was expected from him, but it was also evident that he did not approve of what he was praising.
“Your grandma says you got rid of another one of your poetry pieces, Al,” he would say. “Pay you for it, did they?”
“Oh, I don't know. Ten dollars, perhaps.”
“Um-hm . . . I see. . . . Well, that's pretty good, considerin', I suppose. . . . We did first-rate on that Hyannis school-house contract, didn't we. Nigh's I can figger it we cleared over fourteen hundred and eighty dollars on that.”
He invariably followed any reference to the profit from the sale of verses by the casual mention of a much larger sum derived from the sale of lumber or hardware. This was so noticeable that Laban Keeler was impelled to speak of it.
“The old man don't want you to forget that you can get more for hard pine than you can for soft sonnets, sellin' 'em both by the foot,” observed Labe, peering over his spectacles. “More money in shingles than there is in jingles, he cal'lates. . . . Um. . . . Yes, yes. . . . Consider'ble more, consider'ble.”
Albert smiled, but it astonished him to find that Mr. Keeler knew what a sonnet was. The little bookkeeper occasionally surprised him by breaking out unexpectedly in that way.
From the indiscriminate praise at home, or the reluctant praise of his grandfather, he found relief when he discussed his verses with Helen Kendall. Her praise was not indiscriminate, in fact sometimes she did not praise at all, but expressed disapproval. They had some disagreements, marked disagreements, but it did not affect their friendship. Albert was a trifle surprised to find that it did not.
So as the months passed he ground away at the books of Z. Snow and Company during office hours and at the poetry mill between times. The seeing of his name in print was no longer a novelty and he poetized not quite as steadily. Occasionally he attempted prose, but the two or three short stories of his composition failed to sell. Helen, however, urged him to try again and keep trying. “I know you can write a good story and some day you are going to,” she said.