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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Story-Tell Lib, by Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Story-Tell Lib
+
+Author: Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2006 [EBook #19989]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORY-TELL LIB ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Story-Tell Lib
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+[Illustration]
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Story-Tell Lib
+
+By
+Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
+Author of "Fishin' Jimmy"
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+NEW YORK . . . . . 1908
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+_Copyright, 1900_
+BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+_All rights reserved_
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       CONTENTS
+
+                                                 PAGE
+
+    I. STORY-TELL LIB                               3
+   II. THE SHET-UP POSY                            13
+  III. THE HORSE THAT B'LEEVED HE'D GET THERE      25
+   IV. THE PLANT THAT LOST ITS BERRY               37
+    V. THE STONY HEAD                              47
+   VI. DIFF'ENT KIND O' BUNDLES                    57
+  VII. THE BOY THAT WAS SCARET O' DYIN'            71
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+STORY-TELL LIB
+
+I
+
+Story-Tell Lib
+
+
+That was what everybody in the little mountain village called her. Her
+real name, as she often told me, ringing out each syllable proudly in
+her shrill sweet voice, was Elizabeth Rowena Marietta York. A stately
+name, indeed, for the little crippled, stunted, helpless creature, and I
+myself could never think of her by any name but the one the village
+people used, Story-tell Lib. I had heard of her for two or three summers
+in my visits to Greenhills. The village folk had talked to me of the
+little lame girl who told such pretty stories out of her own head, "kind
+o' fables that learnt folks things, and helped 'em without bein' too
+preachy." But I had no definite idea of what the child was till I saw
+and heard her myself. She was about thirteen years of age, but very
+small and fragile. She was lame, and could walk only with the aid of a
+crutch. Indeed, she could but hobble painfully, a few steps at a time,
+with that assistance. Her little white face was not an attractive one,
+her features being sharp and pinched, and her eyes faded, dull, and
+almost expressionless. Only the full, prominent, rounding brow spoke of
+a mind out of the common. She was an orphan, and lived with her aunt,
+Miss Jane York, in an old-fashioned farmhouse on the upper road.
+
+Miss Jane was a good woman. She kept the child neatly clothed and
+comfortably fed, but I do not think she lavished many caresses or loving
+words on little Lib, it was not her way, and the girl led a lonesome,
+quiet, unchildlike life. Aunt Jane tried to teach her to read and write,
+but, whether from the teacher's inability to impart knowledge, or from
+some strange lack in the child's odd brain, Lib never learned the
+lesson. She could not read a word, she did not even know her alphabet. I
+cannot explain to myself or to you the one gift which gave her her
+homely village name. She told stories. I listened to many of them, and I
+took down from her lips several of these. They are, as you will see if
+you read them, "kind o' fables," as the country folk said. They were all
+simple little tales in the dialect of the hill country in which she
+lived. But each held some lesson, suggested some truth, which, strangely
+enough, the child herself did not seem to see; at least, she never
+admitted that she saw or intended any hidden meaning.
+
+I often questioned her as to this after we became friends. After
+listening to some tale in which I could discern just the lovely truth
+which would best help some troubled soul in her audience, I have
+questioned her as to its meaning. I can see now, in memory, the
+short-sighted, expressionless eyes of faded blue which met mine as she
+said, "Don't mean anything,--it don't. It's jest a story. Stories don't
+have to mean things; they're stories, and I tells 'em." That was all she
+would say, and the mystery remained. What did it mean? Whence came that
+strange power of giving to the people who came to her something to help
+and cheer, both help and cheer hidden in a simple little story? Was it,
+as I like to think, God-given, a treasure sent from above? Or would you
+rather think it an inheritance from some ancestor, a writer, a teller of
+tales? Or perhaps you believe in the transmigration of souls, and think
+that the spirit of some Ęsop of old, who spoke in parables, had entered
+the frail crippled body of our little Lib, and spoke through her pinched
+pale lips. I leave you your theories, I keep my own.
+
+But one thing which I find I have omitted thus far may seem to you to
+throw a little light on this matter. It does not help me much. Lib was a
+wonderful listener, as well as a narrator. Miss Jane sometimes took an
+occasional boarder. Teachers, clergymen, learned professors, had from
+time to time tarried under her roof. And while these talked to one
+another, or to some visitor from neighboring hotels, little Lib would
+sit motionless and silent by the hour. One would scarcely call it
+listening; to listen seems too active a verb in this case. The girl's
+face wore no eager look of interest, the faded, short-sighted eyes did
+not light up with intelligence, nor the features quiver with varied
+emotions. If she received ideas from what fell upon her ears, it must
+have been by a sort of unconscious absorption. She took it in as the
+earth does the rain or the flower the sunshine. And so it was with any
+reading aloud from book or paper. She would sit, utterly quiet, while
+the reader's voice went on, and nothing could draw her away till it was
+ended. Question her later as to what was read or spoken of, and you
+gained no satisfaction. If she had any idea of what she had heard, she
+had not the power of putting it into words. "I like it. I like it lots,"
+she would say; that was all.
+
+Throughout the whole summer in which I knew the child, the summer which
+came so quickly, so sadly, to an end, little Lib sat, on bright, fair
+days, in a low wooden chair under the maples in front of the farmhouse.
+And it had grown to be the custom of her many friends, both young and
+old, to gather there, and listen to her stories, if she had any to tell.
+I often joined the group of listeners. On many, many days, as the season
+advanced, Lib had no words for us. She had always been a fragile, puny
+little creature, and this year she seemed to grow weaker, thinner, more
+waxen white, each day. She had a wonderful voice, shrill, far-reaching,
+but strangely sweet and clear, with a certain vibrating, reedy,
+bird-like quality, which even yet thrills me as I recall it.
+
+I am going to tell you a few of the little stories, pictures, fables,
+parables, allegories,--I scarcely know what to call them,--which I heard
+Story-tell Lib relate. The words are her own, but I cannot give you the
+sweet tones, the quaint manner, the weird, strange personality, of the
+little narrator. Let me say here that often the little parables seemed
+meant to cheer and lift up Lib's own trembling soul, shut up in the
+frail, crippled body. Meant, I say; perhaps that is not the right word.
+For did she mean anything by these tales, at least consciously? Be that
+as it may, certain of these little stories seemed to touch her own case
+strangely.
+
+
+
+
+The Shet-up Posy
+
+II
+
+
+The first story I ever heard the child tell was one of those which
+seemed to hold comfort and cheer for herself or for humble little souls
+like her. It was a story of the closed gentian, the title of which she
+announced, as she always did, loudly, and with an amusing little air of
+self-satisfaction.
+
+
+The Shet-up Posy
+
+Once there was a posy. 'T wa'n't a common kind o' posy, that blows out
+wide open, so's everybody can see its outsides and its insides too.
+But 't was one of them posies like what grows down the road, back o' your
+pa's sugar-house, Danny, and don't come till way towards fall. They're
+sort o' blue, but real dark, and they look 's if they was buds 'stead
+o' posies,--only buds opens out, and these doesn't They're all shet up
+close and tight, and they never, never, never opens. Never mind how much
+sun they get, never mind how much rain or how much drouth, whether it's
+cold or hot, them posies stay shet up tight, kind o' buddy, and not
+finished and humly. But if you pick 'em open, real careful, with a
+pin,--I've done it,--you find they're dreadful pretty inside.
+
+You couldn't see a posy that was finished off better, soft and nice,
+with pretty little stripes painted on 'em, and all the little things
+like threads in the middle, sech as the open posies has, standing up,
+with little knots on their tops, oh, so pretty,--you never did! Makes
+you think real hard, that does; leastways, makes me. What's they that
+way for? If they ain't never goin' to open out, what's the use o' havin'
+the shet-up part so slicked up and nice, with nobody never seem' it?
+Folks has different names for 'em, dumb foxgloves, blind genshuns, and
+all that, but I allers call 'em the shet-up posies.
+
+Well, 't was one o' that kind o' posy I was goin' to tell you about.
+'Twas one o' the shet-uppest and the buddiest of all on 'em, all
+blacky-blue and straight up and down, and shet up fast and tight.
+Nobody'd ever dream't was pretty inside. And the funniest thing, it
+didn't know 'twas so itself! It thought 'twas a mistake somehow, thought
+it had oughter been a posy, and was begun for one, but wa'n't finished,
+and 'twas terr'ble unhappy. It knew there was pretty posies all 'round
+there, goldenrod and purple daisies and all; and their inside was the
+right side, and they was proud of it, and held it open, and showed the
+pretty lining, all soft and nice with the little fuzzy yeller threads
+standin' up, with little balls on their tip ends. And the shet-up posy
+felt real bad; not mean and hateful and begrudgin', you know, and
+wantin' to take away the nice part from the other posies, but sorry, and
+kind o' 'shamed.
+
+"Oh, deary me!" she says,--I most forgot to say 'twas a girl
+posy,--"deary me, what a humly, skimpy, awk'ard thing I be! I ain't
+more 'n half made; there ain't no nice, pretty lining inside o' me, like
+them other posies; and on'y my wrong side shows, and that's jest plain
+and common. I can't chirk up folks like the goldenrod and daisies does.
+Nobody won't want to pick me and carry me home. I ain't no good to
+anybody, and I never shall be."
+
+So she kep' on, thinkin' these dreadful sorry thinkin's, and most
+wishin' she'd never been made at all. You know 't wa'n't jest at fust
+she felt this way. Fust she thought she was a bud, like lots o' buds all
+'round her, and she lotted on openin' like they did. But when the days
+kep' passin' by, and all the other buds opened out, and showed how
+pretty they was, and she didn't open, why, then she got terr'ble
+discouraged; and I don't wonder a mite.
+
+She'd see the dew a-layin' soft and cool on the other posies' faces, and
+the sun a-shinin' warm on 'em as they held 'em up, and sometimes she'd
+see a butterfly come down and light on 'em real soft, and kind o' put
+his head down to 'em, 's if he was kissin' 'em, and she thought 'twould
+be powerful nice to hold her face up to all them pleasant things. But
+she couldn't.
+
+But one day, afore she'd got very old, 'fore she'd dried up or fell
+off, or anything like that, she see somebody comin' along her way. 'Twas
+a man, and he was lookin' at all the posies real hard and partic'lar,
+but he wasn't pickin' any of 'em. Seems 's if he was lookin' for
+somethin' diff'rent from what he see, and the poor little shet-up posy
+begun to wonder what he was arter. Bimeby she braced up, and she asked
+him about it in her shet-up, whisp'rin' voice. And says he, the man
+says: "I'm a-pickin' posies. That's what I work at most o' the time. 'T
+ain't for myself," he says, "but the one I work for. I'm on'y his help.
+I run errands and do chores for him, and it's a partic'lar kind o' posy
+he's sent me for to-day." "What for does he want 'em?" says the shet-up
+posy. "Why, to set out in his gardin," the man says. "He's got the
+beautif'lest gardin you never see, and I pick posies for 't." "Deary
+me," thinks she to herself, "I jest wish he'd pick me. But I ain't the
+kind, I know." And then she says, so soft he can't hardly hear her,
+"What sort o' posies is it you're arter this time?" "Well," says the
+man, "it's a dreadful sing'lar order I've got to-day. I got to find a
+posy that's handsomer inside than 't is outside, one that folks ain't
+took no notice of here, 'cause 'twas kind o' humly and queer to look at,
+not knowin' that inside 'twas as handsome as any posy on the airth. Seen
+any o' that kind?" says the man.
+
+Well, the shet-up posy was dreadful worked up. "Deary dear!" she says to
+herself, "now if they'd on'y finished me off inside! I'm the right kind
+outside, humly and queer enough, but there's nothin' worth lookin' at
+inside,--I'm certin sure o' that." But she didn't say this nor anything
+else out loud, and bimeby, when the man had waited, and didn't get any
+answer, he begun to look at the shet-up posy more partic'lar, to see why
+she was so mum. And all of a suddent he says, the man did, "Looks to
+me's if you was somethin' that kind yourself, ain't ye?" "Oh, no, no,
+no!" whispers the shet-up posy. "I wish I was, I wish I was. I'm all
+right outside, humly and awk'ard, queer's I can be, but I ain't pretty
+inside,--oh! I most know I ain't." "I ain't so sure o' that myself,"
+says the man, "but I can tell in a jiffy." "Will you have to pick me to
+pieces?" says the shet-up posy. "No, ma'am," says the man; "I've got a
+way o' tellin', the one I work for showed me." The shet-up posy never
+knowed what he done to her. I don't know myself, but 'twas somethin'
+soft and pleasant, that didn't hurt a mite, and then the man he says,
+"Well, well, well!" That's all he said, but he took her up real gentle,
+and begun to carry her away. "Where be ye takin' me?" says the shet-up
+posy. "Where ye belong," says the man; "to the gardin o' the one I work
+for," he says. "I didn't know I was nice enough inside," says the
+shet-up posy, very soft and still. "They most gen'ally don't," says the
+man.
+
+
+
+
+The Horse that B'leeved he'd Get there
+
+III
+
+
+Among those who sometimes came to listen to little Lib's allegories was
+Mary Ann Sherman, a tall, dark, gloomy woman of whom I had heard much.
+She was the daughter of old Deacon Sherman, a native of the village, who
+had, some years before I came to Greenhills, died by his own hand, after
+suffering many years from a sort of religious melancholia. Whether the
+trouble was hereditary and his daughter was born with a tendency
+inherited from her father, or whether she was influenced by what she
+had heard of his life, and death, I do not know. But she was a dreary
+creature with never a smile or a hopeful look upon her dark face.
+Nothing to her was right or good; this world was a desert, her friends
+had all left her, strangers looked coldly upon her. As for the future,
+there was nothing to look forward to in this world or the next. As Dave
+Moony, the village cynic, said, "Mary Ann wa'n't proud or set up about
+nothin' but bein' the darter of a man that had c'mitted the onpar'nable
+sin." Poor woman! her eyes were blinded to all the beauty and brightness
+of this world, to the hope and love and joy of the next. What wonder
+that one day, as she paused in passing the little group gathered around
+Lib, and the child began the little story I give below, I thought it
+well fitted to the gloomy woman's case!
+
+
+The Horse that B'leeved he'd Get there
+
+You've seen them thrashin' machines they're usin' round here. The sort,
+you know, where the horses keep steppin' up a board thing 's if they was
+climbin' up-hill or goin' up a pair o' stairs, only they don't never get
+along a mite; they keep right in the same place all the time, steppin'
+and steppin', but never gittin' on.
+
+Well, I knew a horse once, that worked on one o' them things. His name
+was Jack, and he was a nice horse. First time they put him on to thrash,
+he didn't know what the machine was, and he walked along and up the
+boards quick and lively, and he didn't see why he didn't get on faster.
+There was a horse side of him named Billy, a kind o' frettin', cross
+feller, and he see through it right off.
+
+"Don't you go along," he says to Jack; "'t ain't no use; you won't never
+get on, they're foolin' us, and I won't give in to 'em." So Billy he
+hung back and shook his head, and tried to get away, and to kick, and
+the man whipped him, and hollered at him. But Jack, he went on quiet and
+quick and pleasant, steppin' away, and he says softly to Billy, "Come
+along," he says; "it's all right, we'll be there bimeby. Don't you see
+how I'm gittin' on a'ready?" And that was the ways things went every
+day.
+
+Jack never gin up; he climbed and climbed, and walked and walked, jest's
+if he see the place he was goin' to, and 's if it got nearer and nearer.
+And every night, when they took him off, he was as pleased with his
+day's journey 's if he'd gone twenty mile. "I've done first-rate
+to-day," he says to cross, kickin' Billy. "The roads was good, and I
+never picked up a stone nor dropped a shoe, and I got on a long piece.
+I'll be there pretty soon," says he. "Why," says Billy, "what a foolish
+fellow you be! You've been in the same place all day, and ain't got on
+one mite. What do you mean by _there_? Where is it you think you're
+goin', anyway?"
+
+"Well, I don't 'zackly know," says Jack, "but I'm gittin' there real
+spry. I 'most see it one time to-day." He didn't mind Billy's laughin'
+at him, and tryin' to keep him from bein' sat'sfied. He jest went on
+tryin' and tryin' to get there, and hopin' and believin' he would after
+a spell. He was always peart and comfortable, took his work real easy,
+relished his victuals and drink, and slept first rate nights. But Billy
+he fretted and scolded and kicked and bit, and that made him hot and
+tired, and got him whipped, and hollered at, and pulled, and yanked. You
+see, he hadn't got anything in his mind to chirk him up, for he didn't
+believe anything good was comin', as Jack did; he 'most knowed it
+wasn't, but Jack 'most knowed it was. And Jack took notice of things
+that Billy never see at all. He see the trees a-growin', and heered the
+birds a-singin', and Injun Brook a-gugglin' along over the stones, and
+he watched the butterflies a-flyin', and sometimes a big yeller 'n black
+one would light right on his back. Jack took notice of 'em all, and he'd
+say, "I'm gettin' along now, certin sure, for there's birds and posies
+and flyin' things here I never see back along. I guess I'm most there."
+"'There, there!'" Billy'd say. "Where is it, anyway? I ain't never seen
+any o' them posies and creaturs you talk about, and I'm right side of
+you on these old boards the whole time."
+
+And all the children round there liked Jack. They'd watch the two horses
+workin', and they see Billy all cross and skittish, holdin' back and
+shakin' his head and tryin' to kick, never takin' no notice o' them nor
+anything. And, again, they see Jack steppin' along peart and spry,
+pleasant and willin', turnin' his head when they come up to him, and
+lookin' friendly at 'em out of his kind brown eyes, and they'd say, the
+boys and girls would, "Good Jack! nice old Jack!" and they'd pat him,
+and give him an apple, or a carrot, or suthin' good. But they didn't
+give Billy any. They didn't like his ways, and they was 'most afraid
+he'd bite their fingers. And Jack would say, come evenin', "It's gittin'
+nicer and nicer we get further on the road,--ain't it? Folks is
+pleasanter speakin', and the victuals 'pears better flavored, and
+things is comfortabler every way, seems 's if, and I jedge by that we're
+'most there." But Billy'd say, a-grumblin' away, "It's worse'n
+worse,--young ones a-botherin' my life out o' me, and the birds
+a-jabberin' and the posies a-smellin' till my head aches. Oh, deary me!
+I'm 'most dead." So 't went on and kep' on. Jack had every mite as hard
+work as Billy, but he didn't mind it, he was so full o' what was comin'
+and how good 't would be to get there. And 'cause he was pleasant and
+willin' and worked so good, and 'cause he took notice o' all the nice
+things round him, and see new ones every day, he was treated real kind,
+and never got tired and used up and low in his mind like Billy. Even the
+flies didn't pester him's they done Billy, for he on'y said, when he
+felt 'em bitin' and crawlin', "Dog-days is come," says he, "for here's
+the flies worse and worse. So the summer's most over, and I'll get there
+in a jiffy now."
+
+"What am I stoppin' for," do you say, 'Miry? 'Cause that's all. You
+needn't make sech a fuss, child'en. It's done, this story is, I tell ye.
+Leastways I don't know any more on it. I told you all about them two
+horses, and which had a good time and which didn't, and what 'twas made
+the differ'nce 'twixt 'em. But you want to know whether Jack got there.
+Well, I don't know no more 'n the horses did what _there_ was, but in my
+own mind I b'leeve he got it. Mebbe 't was jest dyin' peaceful and quiet,
+and restin' after all that steppin' and climbin'. He'd a-liked that,
+partic'lar when he knowed the folks was sorry to have him go, and would
+allus rec'lect him. Mebbe 't was jest livin' on and on, int'rested and
+enjoyin', and liked by folks, and then bein' took away from the hard
+work and put out to pastur' for the rest o' his days. Mebbe 'twas--Oh! I
+d'know. Might 'a' been lots o' things, but I feel pretty certin sure he
+got it, and he was glad he hadn't gi'n up b'leevin' 't would come. For
+you 'member, all the time when Billy 'most knowed it wasn't, Jack 'most
+knowed 'twas.
+
+
+
+
+The Plant that Lost its Berry
+
+IV
+
+
+It was a sad day in Greenhills when we knew that Susan Holcomb's little
+Jerusha was dead. We all loved the child, and she was her mother's
+dearest treasure. Susan was a widow, and this was her only child. A
+pretty little creature she was, with yellow curls and dark-blue eyes,
+rosy and plump and sturdy. But a sudden, sharp attack of croup seized
+the child, and in a few hours she fell asleep. I need not tell you of
+the mother's grief. She could not be comforted because her child was
+not. One day a little neighbor, a boy with great faith--not wholly
+misplaced--in the helpfulness of Story-tell Lib's little parables,
+succeeded, with a child's art, in bringing the sad mother to the group
+of listeners. And it was that day that Lib told this new story.
+
+
+The Plant that Lost its Berry
+
+Once there was a plant, and it had jest one little berry. And the berry
+was real pretty to look at. It was sort o' blue, with a kind o' whitey,
+foggy look all over the blue, and it wa'n't round like huckleberries and
+cramb'ries, but longish, and a little p'inted to each end. And the stem
+it growed on, the little bit of a stem, you know, comin' out o' the
+plant's big stem, like a little neck to the berry, was pinky and real
+pretty. And this berry didn't have a lot o' teenty little seeds inside
+on it, like most berries, but it jest had one pretty white stone in it,
+with raised up streaks on it.
+
+The plant set everything by her little berry. She thought there never
+was in all the airth sech a beautiful berry as hern,--so pretty shaped
+and so whitey blue, with sech a soft skin and pinky neck, and more
+partic'lar with that nice, white, striped stone inside of it. She held
+it all day and all night tight and fast. When it rained real hard, and
+the wind blowed, she kind o' stretched out some of her leaves, and
+covered her little berry up, and she done the same when the sun was too
+hot. And the berry growed and growed, and was so fat and smooth and
+pretty! And the plant was jest wropped up in her little berry, lovin' it
+terr'ble hard, and bein' dreadful proud on it, too.
+
+Well, one day, real suddent, when the plant wasn't thinkin' of any storm
+comin', a little wind riz up. 'T wa'n't a gale, 't wa'n't half as hard a
+blow as the berry'd seen lots o' times and never got hurt nor nothin'.
+And the plant wa'n't lookin' out for any danger, when all of a suddent
+there come a little bit of a snap, and the slimsy little pink stem
+broke, and the little berry fell and rolled away, and, 'fore you could
+say "Jack Robinson," 't was clean gone out o' sight. I can't begin to
+tell ye how that plant took on. Seem 's if she'd die, or go ravin'
+crazy. It's only folks that has lost jest what they set most by on airth
+that can understand about it, I s'pose. She wouldn't b'leeve it fust
+off; she 'most knowed she'd wake up and feel her little berry a-holdin'
+close to her, hangin' on her, snugglin' up to her under the shady
+leaves. The other plants 'round there tried to chirk her up and help
+her. One on 'em told her how it had lost all its little berries itself,
+a long spell back, and how it had some ways stood it and got over it.
+"But they wa'n't like mine," thinks the poor plant. "There never, never
+was no berry like mine, with its pretty figger, its pinky, slim little
+neck, and its soft, smooth-feelin' skin." And another plant told her
+mebbe her berry was saved from growin' up a trouble to her, gettin' bad
+and hard, with mebbe a worm inside on it, to make her ashamed and sorry.
+"Oh, no, no!" thinks the mother plant. "My berry'd never got bad and
+hard, and I'd 'a' kep' any worm from touchin' its little white heart."
+Not a single thing the plant-folks said to her done a mite o' good.
+Their talk only worried her and pestered her, when she jest wanted to be
+let alone, so's she could think about her little berry all to herself.
+
+Just where the berry used to hang, and where the little pinky stem broke
+off, there was a sore place, a sort o' scar, that ached and smarted all
+day and all night, and never, never healed up. And bimeby the poor plant
+got all wore out with the achin' and the mournin' and the missin' and
+she 'peared to feel her heart all a-dryin' up and stoppin', and her
+leaves turned yeller and wrinkled, and--she was dead. She couldn't live
+on, ye see, without her little berry.
+
+They called it bein' dead, folks did, and it looked like it, for there
+she lay without a sign of life for a long, long, long spell. 'Twas for
+days and weeks and months anyway. But it didn't seem so long to the
+mother plant. She shet up her eyes, feelin' powerful tired and lonesome,
+and the next thing she knowed she opened 'em again, and she was wide
+awoke. She hardly knowed herself, though, she was so fresh and juicy and
+'live, so kind o' young every way. Fust off she didn't think o' anything
+but that, how good and well she felt, and how beautiful things was all
+'round her. Then all of a suddent she rec'lected her little berry, and
+she says to herself, "Oh, dear, dear me! If only my own little berry
+was here to see me now, and know how I feel!" She thought she said it to
+herself, but mebbe she talked out loud, for, jest as she said it,
+somebody answered her. 'T was a Angel, and he says, "Why your little
+berry does see you,--look there." And she looked, and she see he was
+p'intin' to the beautif'lest little plant you never see,--straight and
+nice, with little bits o' soft green leaves, with the sun a-shinin'
+through 'em, and,--well, somehow, you never can get it through your head
+how mothers take in things,--she knowed cert'in sure that was her little
+berry.
+
+The Angel begun to speak. He was goin' to explain how, if she hadn't
+never lost her berry, 'twouldn't never 'a' growed into this pretty
+plant, but, he see, all of a suddent, that he needn't take the trouble.
+She showed in her face she knowed all about it,--every blessed thing. I
+tell ye, even angels ain't much use explainin' when there's mothers, and
+it's got to do with their own child'en. Yes, the mother plant see it
+all, without tellin'. She was jest a mite 'shamed but she was terr'ble
+pleased.
+
+
+
+
+The Stony Head
+
+V
+
+
+When little Lib told the story I give below, Deacon Zenas Welcome was
+one of the listeners. The deacon was a son of old Elder Welcome who had
+been many years before the pastor of the little church in a neighboring
+village. Elder Welcome was one of the old-fashioned sort not so common
+in these days, a good man, but stern and somewhat harsh. He preached
+only the terrors of the law, dwelt much upon the doctrines, the decrees,
+election, predestination, and eternal punishment, and rarely lingered
+over such themes as the fatherhood of God, his love to mankind, and his
+wonderful gift to a lost world. The son followed in his father's
+footsteps. He was a hard, austere, melancholy man, undemonstrative and
+reticent, shutting out all brightness from his own life, and clouding
+many an existence going on around him. I have always thought that his
+unwonted presence among us that day had a purpose, and that he had come
+to spy out some taint of heterodoxy in Lib's tales, to reprove and
+condemn. He went away quietly, however, when the story was ended, and we
+heard nothing of reproof or condemnation.
+
+
+The Stony Head
+
+Once there was somethin' way up on the side of a mountain that looked
+like a man's head. The rocks up there'd got fixed so's they jest made a
+great big head and face, and everybody could see it as plain as could
+be. Folks called it the Stony Head, and they come to see it from miles
+away. There was a man lived round there jest where he could see the
+head from his winder. He was a man that things had gone wrong with all
+along; he'd had lots o' trouble, and he didn't take it very easy. He
+fretted and complained, and blamed it on other folks, and more
+partic'lar on--God. And one day--he'd jest come to live in them
+parts--he looked out of his winder, and he see, standin' out plain ag'in
+the sky, he see that Stony Head. It looked real ha'sh and hard and stony
+and dark, and all of a suddent the man thought it was--God.
+
+"Yes," he says to hisself, "that's jest the way I 'most knowed he
+looked, ha'sh and hard and stony and dark, and that's him." The man was
+dreadful scaret of it, but some ways he couldn't stop lookin' at it. And
+bimeby he shet hisself up there all alone, and spent his whole time jest
+a-lookin' at that hard, stony face, and thinkin' who't was, and who'd
+brought all his trouble on him. There was poor folks all 'round that
+deestrict, but he never done nothin' to help 'em; let 'em be hungry or
+thirsty or ailin', or shet up in jail, or anything, he never helped 'em
+or done a thing for 'em, 'cause he was a-lookin' every single minute at
+that head, and seein' how stony and hard it was, and bein' scaret of it
+and the One he thought it looked like.
+
+Folks that was in trouble come along and knocked at his door, and he
+never opened it a mite, even to see who was there. Sheep and lambs that
+had got lost come a-strayin' into his yard, but he never took 'em in,
+nor showed 'em the way home. He wa'n't no good to nobody, not even to
+hisself, for he was terr'ble unhappy and scaret and angry. So 't went on,
+oh! I d'know how long, years and years, I guess likely, and there the
+man was shet up all alone, lookin' and lookin', and scaret at lookin' at
+that ha'sh, hard, stony face and head. But one day, as he was settin'
+there by the winder lookin', he heerd a little sound. I d'know what made
+him hear it jest then. There'd been sech sounds as that time and time
+ag'in, and he never took no notice. 'Twas like a child a-cryin', and
+that's common enough.
+
+But this time it seemed diff'ent, and he couldn't help takin' notice. He
+tried not to hear it, but he had to. 'T was a little child a-cryin' as
+if it had lost its way and was scaret, and the man found he couldn't
+stand it somehow. Mebbe the reason was he'd had a little boy of his own
+once, and he lost him. Now I think on 't, that was one o' the things he
+blamed on God, and thought about when he looked at the Stone Head.
+Anyway, he couldn't stand this cryin' that time, and he started up, and,
+fust thing he knowed, he'd opened the door and gone out. He hadn't been
+out in the sunshine and the air for a long spell, and it made his head
+swimmy at fust. But he heerd the little cryin' ag'in, and he run along
+on to find the child. But he couldn't find it; every time he'd think he
+was close to it, he'd hear the cryin' a little further off. And he'd go
+on and on, a-stumblin' over stones and fallin' over logs and a-steppin'
+into holes, but stickin' to it, and forgettin' everything only that
+little cryin' voice ahead of him. Seems 's if he jest must find that
+little lost boy or girl, 's if he'd be more 'n willin' to give up his own
+poor lonesome old life to save that child. And, jest 's he come to
+thinkin' that, he see somethin' ahead of him movin' and in a minute he
+knowed he'd found the lost child.
+
+'Fore he thought what he was a-doin', he got down on his knees jest's he
+used to do 'fore he got angry at God, and was goin' to thank him for
+helpin' him to save that child. Then he rec'lected. It come back to him
+who God was, and how he'd seed his head, with the ha'sh stony face up on
+the mountain, and that made him look up to see it ag'in.
+
+And oh! what do you think he see? There was the same head up there,--he
+couldn't make a mistake about that,--but the face, oh! the face was so
+diff'ent. It wasn't ha'sh nor hard nor dark any more. There was such a
+lovin', beautiful, kind sort o' look on it now. Some ways it made the
+man think a mite of the way his father, that had died ever so long ago,
+used to look at him when he was a boy, and had been bad, and then was
+sorry and 'shamed. Oh, 't was the beautif'lest face you never see! "Oh!
+what ever does it mean?" says the man out loud. "What's changed that
+face so? Oh! what in the world's made it so diff'ent?" And jest that
+minute a Angel come up close to him. 'T was a little young Angel, and I
+guess mebbe 't was what he'd took for a lost child, and that he'd been
+follerin' so fur. And the Angel says, "The face ain't changed a mite.
+'Twas jest like that all the time, only you're lookin' at it from a
+diff'ent p'int." And 'twas so, and he see it right off. He'd been
+follerin' that cryin' so fur and so long that he'd got into a diff'ent
+section o' country, and he'd got a diff'ent view, oh! a terr'ble
+diff'ent view, and he never went back.
+
+
+
+
+Diff'ent Kind o' Bundles
+
+VI
+
+
+Everybody in Greenhills knew "Stoopin' Jacob," the little humpbacked boy
+who lived at the north end of the village. From babyhood he had suffered
+from a grievous deformity which rounded his little shoulders and bowed
+the frail form. It was characteristic of the kindly folk of the
+neighborhood, that, instead of calling the boy Hump-backed or
+Crooked-backed Jacob, they gave him the name of Stoopin' Jacob, as if
+the bowed and bent posture was voluntary, and not enforced.
+
+A lovely soul dwelt in that crooked, pain-racked body, and looked out
+of the gentle brown eyes shining in the pale, thin little face. Every
+one loved the boy, most of all the dogs, cats, horses, cows of the
+little farms, the birds and animals of forest and brookside. He knew
+them all, and they knew, loved, and trusted him. The tinier creatures,
+such as butterflies, bees, ants, beetles, even caterpillars, downy or
+smooth, were his friends, or seemed so. He knew them, watched them,
+studied their habits, and was the little naturalist of Greenhills
+village, consulted by all, even by older and wiser people.
+
+A close friendship existed between the boy and Story-tell Lib, and we
+all understood the tale she told us one day when Stoopin' Jacob was one
+of the listeners.
+
+
+Diff'ent Kind o' Bundles
+
+Once there was a lot o' folks, and every single one on 'em had bundles
+on their backs. But they was all diff'ent, oh! jest as diff'ent as--as
+anything, the bundles was. And these folks all b'longed to one person,
+that they called the Head Man. They was his folks, and nobody else's,
+and he had the whole say, and could do anything he wanted to. But he was
+real nice, and always done jest the best thing,--yes, sir, the bestest
+thing, whatever folks might say against it.
+
+Well, I was tellin' ye about how these folks had diff'ent kind o'
+bundles on their backs. 'Twas this way. One on 'em was a man that had a
+real hefty bundle on his back, that he'd put on there hisself,--not all
+to onct, but a mite to time, for years 'n' years. 'Twas a real cur'us
+bundle, made up out o' little things in the road that'd got in his way,
+or hurt him, or put him back. Some on 'em was jest little stones that
+had hurt his feet, and some was little stingin' weeds that smarted him
+as he went by 'em, and some was jest mites o' dirt somebody'd throwed at
+him, not meanin' no great o' harm. He'd picked 'em all up, every bit o'
+worryin', prickin', hurtin' little thing, and he'd piled 'em up on his
+back till he had a big bundle that he allers carried about and never
+forgot for a minute.
+
+He was f'rever lookin' out for sech troublin' things, too, and he'd see
+'em way ahead on him in his road, and sometimes he'd think he see 'em
+when there wa'n't any there't all. And, 'stead o' lettin' 'em lay where
+they was, and goin' right ahead and forgettin' 'em, he'd pick every
+single one on 'em up and pile 'em on that bundle, and carry 'em wherever
+he went.
+
+And he was allers talkin' about 'em to folks, p'intin' out that little
+stone that he'd stubbed his toe on, and this pesky weed that stung him,
+and t'other little mite o' mud he'd conceited somebody'd throwed at him.
+He fretted and scolded and complained 'bout 'em, and made out that
+nobody never had so many tryin' things gettin' in his way as he had. He
+never took into 'count, ye see, that he'd picked 'em up hisself and
+piled 'em on his own back. If he'd jest let 'em lay, and gone along,
+he'd 'a' forgot 'em all, I guess, after a spell.
+
+Then there was another man with a bundle, a cur'us one too, for 't was
+all made out o' money, dreadful heavy and cold and hard to carry. Every
+speck o' money he could scrape together he'd put in that bundle, till he
+couldn't scursely heft it, 'twas that big and weighed so much. He had
+plenty o' chances to make it lighter, for there was folks all along the
+road that needed it bad,--little child'en that hadn't no clo'es nor no
+victuals, and sick folks and old folks, every one on 'em needin' money
+dreadful bad. But the man never gin 'em a mite. He kep' it all on his
+back, a-hurtin' and weighin' him down.
+
+Then ag'in there was another man. He had a bundle that he didn't put on
+his back hisself, nor the Head Man didn't nuther. Folks did it to him.
+He hadn't done nothin' to deserve it, 't was jest put on him by other
+people, and so 't was powerful hard to bear. But, ye see, the Head Man
+had pervided partic'lar for them kind, and he'd said in public, so 't
+everybody knowed about it, that he'd help folks like that,--said he'd
+help 'em carry sech bundles hisself, or mebbe take 'em off, if it
+'peared to be best.
+
+But this man disremembered that,--or, worse still, p'r'aps he didn't
+'zackly believe it. So he went along all scrunched down with that hefty
+bundle other folks had piled up on him, not scoldin' nor complainin'
+nor gittin' mad about it, but jest thinkin' it had got to be, and nobody
+could help him. But ye see it hadn't got to be, and somebody could 'a'
+helped him.
+
+And then bimeby along come a man that had sech a hefty, hefty bundle!
+'Twas right 'tween his shoulders, and it sort o' scrooched him down, and
+it hurt him in his back and in his feelin's. The Head Man had put that
+bundle on the man hisself when he was a little bit of a feller. He'd
+made it out o' flesh and skin and things. It was jest ezackly like the
+man's body, so 't when it ached he ached hisself. And he'd had to carry
+that thing about all his born days.
+
+I don't know why the Head Man done it, I'm sure, but I know how good and
+pleasant he was, and how he liked his folks and meant well to 'em, and
+how he knowed jest what oughter be and what hadn't oughter be, so 't
+stands to reason he'd done this thing a-purpose, and not careless like,
+and he hadn't made no mistake.
+
+I've guessed a lot o' reasons why he done it. Mebbe he see the man
+wouldn't 'a' done so well without the bundle,--might 'a' run off, 'way,
+'way off from the Head Man and the work he had to do. Or, ag'in, p'r'aps
+he wanted to make a 'zample of the man, and show folks how patient and
+nice a body could be, even though he had a big, hefty bundle to carry
+all his born days, one made out o' flesh and skin and things, and that
+hurt dreadful.
+
+But my other guess is the one I b'leeve in most,--that the Head Man done
+it to scrooch him down, so's he'd take notice o' little teenty things,
+down below, that most folks never see, things that needed him to watch
+'em, and do for 'em, and tell about 'em. That's my fav'rite guess. 'Tany
+rate, the Head Man done right,--I'm cert'in sure o' that.
+
+And it _had_ made the man nicer, and pleasanter spoken, and kinder to
+folks, and partic'lar to creaturs. It had made him sort o' bend down,
+'twas so hefty, and so he'd got to takin' notice o' teenty little things
+nobody else scursely'd see,--mites o' posies, and cunnin' little bugs,
+and creepin', crawlin' things. He took a heap o' comfort in 'em. And he
+told other folks 'bout them little things and their little ways, and
+what they was made for, and things they could learn us; and 'twas real
+int'restin', and done folks good too.
+
+And, deary me, he was that patient and good and uncomplainin', you never
+see! No, I ain't a-cryin'. This was a stranger, this man, you know, and
+I make a p'int o' never cryin' about strangers.
+
+There was a lot and a lot more kinds o' folks with bundles, but I'm only
+goin' to tell ye about them four,--this time, any way.
+
+Well, come pay day, these folks all come up afore the Head Man to be
+settled with. And fust he called up the man that had the bundle all made
+out o' things that had pricked him, and tripped him up, and scratched
+him, and put him back on the road. And then he had up the man with the
+money weighin' him down,--the money he'd kep' away from poor folks and
+piled up on his own back. And then come the feller that was carryin' the
+heavy bundle folks had put on him when 't wa'n't no fault o' his'n, and
+that he might 'a' got red of a long spell back, if he'd only rec'lected
+what the Head Man had said 'bout sech cases, and how they could be
+helped.
+
+I ain't a-goin' to tell ye what he said to them folks, 'cause 't ain't
+my business, seems to me. Whether he punished either on 'em, or scolded
+'em, or sent 'em off to try ag'in, or what all, never mind. Knowin' 's
+much as I do about the ways o' that Head Man, I bet he made 'em feel
+terrible ashamed, any way.
+
+But when he came to the man with the bundle made out o' flesh and skin
+and things, he looks at him a minute, and then says he, the Head Man
+does, "Why," he says, "that's my own work! I made that bundle, and I
+fixed it on your back all myself. I hefted and I sized it, and I hefted
+you and sized you. A mite of a young one you was then. I made it jest
+hefty enough for you to carry, not a bit heftier, no more nor less. I
+rec'lect it well," he says. "I ain't forgot it. I never forgot it one
+minute sence I fitted in on, though mebbe you kind o' thought by spells
+that I had. And now," he says--No, I can't tell ye what he says. It's a
+secret, that is. But I don't mind lettin' ye know that the man was
+sat'sfied, perfec'ly sat'sfied. A Angel told me he was, and went on to
+say the man was dreadful pleased to find he'd been wearin' a bundle the
+Head Man hisself had made and fixed on him, heftin' it and sizin' it,
+and heftin' him and sizin' him too, so's 'twa'n't too much for him to
+carry. But he ain't carryin' it no more. The Angel said so.
+
+
+
+
+The Boy that was Scaret o' Dyin'
+
+VII
+
+
+I have told you that little Lib was a delicate child, and that she grew
+more and more fragile and weak as the summer went on. In the hot, dry
+days of August she drooped like a thirsty flower, and her strength
+failed very fast. Her voice, though still sweet and clear, lost its
+shrillness, and one had to draw very close to the little speaker that he
+might not lose a word of the stories she told. Aunt Jane York often came
+out to us now, anxious and fussy, talking fretfully of and to little
+Lib, feeling the small hands and feet to see if they were cold, and
+drawing the shawl closer around the wasted form. I know she loved the
+little girl, and perhaps she wished now that she had shown that love
+more tenderly. She talked freely, in the very presence of the child, of
+her rapid decline and the probability that she would not "last long."
+Lib said nothing concerning her own condition, and showed no sign of
+having heard her aunt's comments. But one day, when Miss York, after
+speaking very freely and plainly of the child's approaching end, had
+gone indoors, Lib announced, in a low, sweet voice, a new story.
+
+
+The Boy that was Scaret o' Dyin'
+
+Once there was a boy that was dreadful scaret o' dyin'. Some folks is
+that way, you know; they ain't never done it to know how it feels, and
+they're scaret. And this boy was that way. He wa'n't very rugged, his
+health was sort o' slim, and mebbe that made him think about sech things
+more. 'Tany rate, he was terr'ble scaret o' dyin'. 'Twas a long time
+ago this was,--the times when posies and creaturs could talk so's folks
+could know what they was sayin'.
+
+And one day, as this boy, his name was Reuben,--I forget his other
+name,--as Reuben was settin' under a tree, an ellum tree, cryin', he
+heerd a little, little bit of a voice,--not squeaky, you know, but small
+and thin and soft like,--and he see 'twas a posy talkin'. 'Twas one o'
+them posies they call Benjamins, with three-cornered whitey blowths with
+a mite o' pink on 'em, and it talked in a kind o' pinky-white voice, and
+it says, "What you cryin' for, Reuben?" And he says, "'Cause I'm scaret
+o' dyin'," says he; "I'm dreadful scaret o' dyin'." Well, what do you
+think? That posy jest laughed,--the most cur'us little pinky-white laugh
+'t was,--and it says, the Benjamin says: "Dyin'! Scaret o' dyin'? Why, I
+die myself every single year o' my life." "Die yourself!" says Reuben.
+"You 're foolin'; you're alive this minute." "'Course I be," says the
+Benjamin; "but that's neither here nor there,--I've died every year
+sence I can remember." "Don't it hurt?" says the boy. "No, it don't,"
+says the posy; "it's real nice. You see, you get kind o' tired a-holdin'
+up your head straight and lookin' peart and wide awake, and tired o' the
+sun shinin' so hot, and the winds blowin' you to pieces, and the bees
+a-takin' your honey. So it's nice to feel sleepy and kind o' hang your
+head down, and get sleepier and sleepier, and then find you're droppin'
+off. Then you wake up jest 't the nicest time o' year, and come up and
+look 'round, and--why, I like to die, I do." But someways that didn't
+help Reuben much as you'd think. "I ain't a posy," he think to himself,
+"and mebbe I wouldn't come up."
+
+Well, another time he was settin' on a stone in the lower pastur',
+cryin' again, and he heerd another cur'us little voice. 'T wa'n't like
+the posy's voice, but 'twas a little, wooly, soft, fuzzy voice, and he
+see 't was a caterpillar a-talkin' to him. And the caterpillar says, in
+his fuzzy little voice, he says, "What you cryin' for, Reuben?" And the
+boy, he says, "I'm powerful scaret o' dyin', that's why," he says. And
+that fuzzy caterpillar he laughed. "Dyin'!" he says. "I'm lottin' on
+dyin' myself. All my fam'ly," he says, "die every once in a while, and
+when they wake up they're jest splendid,--got wings, and fly about, and
+live on honey and things. Why, I wouldn't miss it for anything!" he
+says. "I'm lottin' on it." But somehow that didn't chirk up Reuben much.
+"I ain't a caterpillar," he says, "and mebbe I wouldn't wake up at
+all."
+
+Well, there was lots o' other things talked to that boy, and tried to
+help him,--trees and posies and grass and crawlin' things, that was
+allers a-dyin' and livin', and livin' and dyin'. Reuben thought it
+didn't help him any, but I guess it did a little mite, for he couldn't
+help thinkin' o' what they every one on 'em said. But he was scaret all
+the same.
+
+And one summer he begun to fail up faster and faster, and he got so
+tired he couldn't hardly hold his head up, but he was scaret all the
+same. And one day he was layin' on the bed, and lookin' out o' the east
+winder, and the sun kep' a-shinin' in his eyes till he shet 'em up, and
+he fell asleep. He had a real good nap, and when he woke up he went out
+to take a walk.
+
+And he begun to think o' what the posies and trees and creaturs had said
+about dyin', and how they laughed at his bein' scaret at it, and he says
+to himself, "Why, someways I don't feel so scaret to-day, but I s'pose I
+be." And jest then what do you think he done? Why, he met a Angel. He'd
+never seed one afore, but he knowed it right off. And the Angel says,
+"Ain't you happy, little boy?" And Reuben says, "Well, I would be, only
+I'm so dreadful scaret o' dyin'. It must be terr'ble cur'us," he says,
+"to be dead." And the Angel says, "Why, you be dead." And he was.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The story of the boy that was scaret o' dyin' was the last story that
+little Lib ever told us. We saw her sometimes after that, but she was
+not strong enough to talk much. She sat no longer now in the low chair
+under the maples, but lay on a chintz-covered couch in the sitting-room,
+by the west windows. The once shrilly-sweet voice with its clear bird
+tones was but a whisper now, as she told us over and again, while she
+lay there, that she would tell us a new story "to-morrow." It was always
+"to-morrow" till the end came. And the story was to be, so the whisper
+went on, "the beautif'lest story,--oh, you never did!" And its name was
+to be,--what a faint and feeble reproduction of the old triumphant
+announcement of a new title!--"The Posy Gardin' that the King Kep'."
+
+She never told us that story. Before the autumn leaves had fallen, while
+the maples in front of the farmhouse were still red and glorious in
+their dying beauty, we laid our little friend to rest. Perhaps she will
+tell us the tale some day. I am sure there will be "a Angel" in
+it,--sure, too, that the story will have a new and tender meaning if we
+hear it there, that story of the King and of the posy gardin' he kep'.
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.
+2. Unusual spelling in chapter titles retained.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Story-Tell Lib, by Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Story-Tell Lib, by Annie Trumbull Slosson.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Story-Tell Lib, by Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Story-Tell Lib
+
+Author: Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2006 [EBook #19989]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORY-TELL LIB ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>Story-Tell Lib</h1>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width: 336px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name='illus-001' id='illus-001'></a>
+<img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' title='' width = '336' height = '505'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<table width='450' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='' border='1'><tr><td>
+<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 250%; margin-top: 80px; margin-bottom: 60px;'> Story-Tell Lib</p>
+<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 80%; margin-bottom: 20px;'> By</p>
+<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 120%; margin-bottom: 5px;'> Annie Trumbull Slosson</p>
+<p class='titleblock' style='font-family: italic; margin-bottom: 60px;'> Author of &#8220;Fishin&#8217; Jimmy&#8221;</p>
+<div class='figcenter' style='width: 50px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<img src='images/illus-emb.jpg' alt='' title='' width='50' height='73'/>
+</div>
+<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 100%; margin-top: 120px;'> CHARLES SCRIBNER&#8217;S SONS</p>
+<p class='titleblock' style='font-size: 90%; margin-bottom: 60px;'> NEW YORK&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;1908</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<p class='center'>
+<i>Copyright, 1900</i><br />
+<span class='smcap'>By Charles Scribner&#8217;s Sons</span><br/>
+<i>All rights reserved</i></p>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width: 100px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name='illus-002' id='illus-002'></a>
+<img src='images/illus-em2.jpg' alt='' title='' width = '100' height = '107'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<h2><a name='Contents' id='Contents'></a>Contents</h2>
+<div class='smcap'>
+<table border='0' width='500' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents'>
+<col style='width:20%;' />
+<col style='width:70%;' />
+<col style='width:10%;' />
+<tr>
+  <td class='pr' align='right'>I</td>
+  <td align='left'>Story-Tell Lib</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#I'>3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='pr' align='right'>II</td>
+  <td align='left'>The Shet-up Posy</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#II'>11</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='pr' align='right'>III</td>
+  <td align='left'>The Horse that B&#8217;leeved he&#8217;d Get there</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#III'>23</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='pr' align='right'>IV</td>
+  <td align='left'>The Plant that Lost its Berry</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#IV'>35</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='pr' align='right'>V</td>
+  <td align='left'>The Stony Head</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#V'>45</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='pr' align='right'>VI</td>
+  <td align='left'>Diff&#8217;ent Kind o&#8217; Bundles</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#VI'>55</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='pr' align='right'>VII</td>
+  <td align='left'>The Boy that was Scaret</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href='#VII'>69</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+
+<h1>Story-Tell Lib</h1>
+
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name='I' id='I'></a>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_3' id='Page_3'>3</a></span>
+<h2>I</h2><h3>Story-Tell Lib</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>That was what everybody in the little mountain village called her.
+Her real name, as she often told me, ringing out each syllable proudly
+in her shrill sweet voice, was Elizabeth Rowena Marietta York. A
+stately name, indeed, for the little crippled, stunted, helpless
+creature, and I myself could never think of her by any name but the
+one the village people used, Story-tell Lib. I had heard of her for
+two or three summers in my visits to Greenhills. The village folk had
+talked to me of the little lame girl who told such pretty stories out
+of her own head, &#8220;kind o&#8217; fables that learnt folks things, and helped
+&#8217;em without bein&#8217; too preachy.&#8221; But I<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_4' id='Page_4'>4</a></span> had no definite idea of what
+the child was till I saw and heard her myself. She was about thirteen
+years of age, but very small and fragile. She was lame, and could walk
+only with the aid of a crutch. Indeed, she could but hobble painfully,
+a few steps at a time, with that assistance. Her little white face was
+not an attractive one, her features being sharp and pinched, and her
+eyes faded, dull, and almost expressionless. Only the full, prominent,
+rounding brow spoke of a mind out of the common. She was an orphan,
+and lived with her aunt, Miss Jane York, in an old-fashioned farmhouse
+on the upper road.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Jane was a good woman. She kept the child neatly clothed and
+comfortably fed, but I do not think she lavished many caresses or
+loving words on little Lib, it was not her way, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_5' id='Page_5'>5</a></span> girl led a
+lonesome, quiet, unchildlike life. Aunt Jane tried to teach her to
+read and write, but, whether from the teacher&#8217;s inability to impart
+knowledge, or from some strange lack in the child&#8217;s odd brain, Lib
+never learned the lesson. She could not read a word, she did not even
+know her alphabet. I cannot explain to myself or to you the one gift
+which gave her her homely village name. She told stories. I listened
+to many of them, and I took down from her lips several of these. They
+are, as you will see if you read them, &#8220;kind o&#8217; fables,&#8221; as the
+country folk said. They were all simple little tales in the dialect of
+the hill country in which she lived. But each held some lesson,
+suggested some truth, which, strangely enough, the child herself did
+not seem to see; at least, she never admitted that she saw or intended
+any hidden meaning.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_6' id='Page_6'>6</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I often questioned her as to this after we became friends. After
+listening to some tale in which I could discern just the lovely truth
+which would best help some troubled soul in her audience, I have
+questioned her as to its meaning. I can see now, in memory, the short-sighted, expressionless eyes of faded blue which met mine as she said,
+&#8220;Don&#8217;t mean anything,&mdash;it don&#8217;t. It&#8217;s jest a story. Stories don&#8217;t
+have to mean things; they&#8217;re stories, and I tells &#8217;em.&#8221; That was all
+she would say, and the mystery remained. What did it mean? Whence came
+that strange power of giving to the people who came to her something
+to help and cheer, both help and cheer hidden in a simple little
+story? Was it, as I like to think, God-given, a treasure sent from
+above? Or would you rather think it an inheritance from some
+ancestor,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_7' id='Page_7'>7</a></span> a writer, a teller of tales? Or perhaps you
+believe in the transmigration of souls, and think that the spirit of
+some &AElig;sop of old, who spoke in parables, had entered the frail
+crippled body of our little Lib, and spoke through her pinched pale
+lips. I leave you your theories, I keep my own.</p>
+
+<p>But one thing which I find I have omitted thus far may seem to you
+to throw a little light on this matter. It does not help me much. Lib
+was a wonderful listener, as well as a narrator. Miss Jane sometimes
+took an occasional boarder. Teachers, clergymen, learned professors,
+had from time to time tarried under her roof. And while these talked
+to one another, or to some visitor from neighboring hotels, little Lib
+would sit motionless and silent by the hour. One would scarcely call
+it listening; to listen seems too active a<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_8' id='Page_8'>8</a></span> verb in this case. The girl&#8217;s
+face wore no eager look of interest, the faded, short-sighted eyes did
+not light up with intelligence, nor the features quiver with varied
+emotions. If she received ideas from what fell upon her ears, it must
+have been by a sort of unconscious absorption. She took it in as the
+earth does the rain or the flower the sunshine. And so it was with any
+reading aloud from book or paper. She would sit, utterly quiet, while
+the reader&#8217;s voice went on, and nothing could draw her away till it
+was ended. Question her later as to what was read or spoken of, and
+you gained no satisfaction. If she had any idea of what she had heard,
+she had not the power of putting it into words. &#8220;I like it. I like it
+lots,&#8221; she would say; that was all.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the whole summer in which I knew the child, the
+summer<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_9' id='Page_9'>9</a></span>
+which came so quickly, so sadly, to an end, little Lib sat, on bright,
+fair days, in a low wooden chair under the maples in front of the
+farmhouse. And it had grown to be the custom of her many friends, both
+young and old, to gather there, and listen to her stories, if she had
+any to tell. I often joined the group of listeners. On many, many
+days, as the season advanced, Lib had no words for us. She had always
+been a fragile, puny little creature, and this year she seemed to grow
+weaker, thinner, more waxen white, each day. She had a wonderful
+voice, shrill, far-reaching, but strangely sweet and clear, with a
+certain vibrating, reedy, bird-like quality, which even yet thrills me
+as I recall it.</p>
+
+<p>I am going to tell you a few of the little stories, pictures,
+fables, parables, allegories,&mdash;I scarcely know what to<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_10' id='Page_10'>10</a></span> call
+them,&mdash;which I heard Story-tell Lib relate. The words are her
+own, but I cannot give you the sweet tones, the quaint manner, the
+weird, strange personality, of the little narrator. Let me say here
+that often the little parables seemed meant to cheer and lift up Lib&#8217;s
+own trembling soul, shut up in the frail, crippled body. Meant, I say;
+perhaps that is not the right word. For did she mean anything by these
+tales, at least consciously? Be that as it may, certain of these
+little stories seemed to touch her own case strangely.</p>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name='II' id='II'></a>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_11' id='Page_11'>11</a></span>
+<h2>The Shet-up Posy</h2><h3>II</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_13' id='Page_13'>13</a></span>The first story I ever heard the child tell
+was one of those which seemed to hold comfort and cheer for herself or
+for humble little souls like her. It was a story of the closed
+gentian, the title of which she announced, as she always did, loudly,
+and with an amusing little air of self-satisfaction.</p>
+
+<h3>The Shet-up Posy</h3>
+
+<p>Once there was a posy. &#8217;T wa&#8217;n&#8217;t a common kind o&#8217; posy, that blows
+out wide open, so&#8217;s everybody can see its outsides and its insides
+too. But &#8217;t was one of them posies like what grows down the road, back
+o&#8217; your pa&#8217;s sugar-house, Danny, and don&#8217;t come till way towards fall.
+They&#8217;re sort o&#8217; blue, but<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_14' id='Page_14'>14</a></span> real dark, and they look &#8217;s if they was
+buds &#8217;stead o&#8217; posies,&mdash;only buds opens out, and these doesn&#8217;t
+They&#8217;re all shet up close and tight, and they never, never, never
+opens. Never mind how much sun they get, never mind how much rain or
+how much drouth, whether it&#8217;s cold or hot, them posies stay shet up
+tight, kind o&#8217; buddy, and not finished and humly. But if you pick &#8217;em
+open, real careful, with a pin,&mdash;I&#8217;ve done it,&mdash;you find
+they&#8217;re dreadful pretty inside.</p>
+
+<p>You couldn&#8217;t see a posy that was finished off better, soft and
+nice, with pretty little stripes painted on &#8217;em, and all the little
+things like threads in the middle, sech as the open posies has,
+standing up, with little knots on their tops, oh, so pretty,&mdash;you
+never did! Makes you think real hard, that does; leastways, makes me.
+What&#8217;s they<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_15' id='Page_15'>15</a></span> that way for? If they ain&#8217;t never goin&#8217; to
+open out, what&#8217;s the use o&#8217; havin&#8217; the shet-up part so slicked up and
+nice, with nobody never seem&#8217; it? Folks has different names for &#8217;em,
+dumb foxgloves, blind genshuns, and all that, but I allers call &#8217;em
+the shet-up posies.</p>
+
+<p>Well, &#8217;t was one o&#8217; that kind o&#8217; posy I was goin&#8217; to tell you
+about. &#8217;Twas one o&#8217; the shet-uppest and the buddiest of all on &#8217;em,
+all blacky-blue and straight up and down, and shet up fast and tight.
+Nobody&#8217;d ever dream&#8217;t was pretty inside. And the funniest thing, it
+didn&#8217;t know &#8217;twas so itself! It thought &#8217;twas a mistake somehow,
+thought it had oughter been a posy, and was begun for one, but wa&#8217;n&#8217;t
+finished, and &#8217;twas terr&#8217;ble unhappy. It knew there was pretty posies
+all &#8217;round there, goldenrod and purple daisies and all; and their
+inside was the right side,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_16' id='Page_16'>16</a></span> and they was proud of it, and held it open,
+and showed the pretty lining, all soft and nice with the little fuzzy
+yeller threads standin&#8217; up, with little balls on their tip ends. And
+the shet-up posy felt real bad; not mean and hateful and begrudgin&#8217;,
+you know, and wantin&#8217; to take away the nice part from the other
+posies, but sorry, and kind o&#8217; &#8217;shamed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, deary me!&#8221; she says,&mdash;I most forgot to say &#8217;twas a girl
+posy,&mdash;&#8220;deary me, what a humly, skimpy, awk&#8217;ard thing I be! I
+ain&#8217;t more &#8217;n half made; there ain&#8217;t no nice, pretty lining inside o&#8217;
+me, like them other posies; and on&#8217;y my wrong side shows, and that&#8217;s
+jest plain and common. I can&#8217;t chirk up folks like the goldenrod and
+daisies does. Nobody won&#8217;t want to pick me and carry me home. I ain&#8217;t
+no good to anybody, and I never shall be.&#8221;<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_17' id='Page_17'>17</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So she kep&#8217; on, thinkin&#8217; these dreadful sorry thinkin&#8217;s, and most
+wishin&#8217; she&#8217;d never been made at all. You know &#8217;t wa&#8217;n&#8217;t jest at fust
+she felt this way. Fust she thought she was a bud, like lots o&#8217; buds
+all &#8217;round her, and she lotted on openin&#8217; like they did. But when the
+days kep&#8217; passin&#8217; by, and all the other buds opened out, and showed
+how pretty they was, and she didn&#8217;t open, why, then she got terr&#8217;ble
+discouraged; and I don&#8217;t wonder a mite.</p>
+
+<p>She&#8217;d see the dew a-layin&#8217; soft and cool on the other posies&#8217;
+faces, and the sun a-shinin&#8217; warm on &#8217;em as they held &#8217;em up, and
+sometimes she&#8217;d see a butterfly come down and light on &#8217;em real soft,
+and kind o&#8217; put his head down to &#8217;em, &#8217;s if he was kissin&#8217; &#8217;em, and
+she thought &#8217;twould be powerful nice to hold her face up to all them
+pleasant things. But she couldn&#8217;t.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_18' id='Page_18'>18</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But one day, afore she&#8217;d got very old, &#8217;fore she&#8217;d dried up or fell
+off, or anything like that, she see somebody comin&#8217; along her way.
+&#8217;Twas a man, and he was lookin&#8217; at all the posies real hard and
+partic&#8217;lar, but he wasn&#8217;t pickin&#8217; any of &#8217;em. Seems &#8217;s if he was
+lookin&#8217; for somethin&#8217; diff&#8217;rent from what he see, and the poor little
+shet-up posy begun to wonder what he was arter. Bimeby she braced up,
+and she asked him about it in her shet-up, whisp&#8217;rin&#8217; voice. And says
+he, the man says: &#8220;I&#8217;m a-pickin&#8217; posies. That&#8217;s what I work at most o&#8217;
+the time. &#8217;T ain&#8217;t for myself,&#8221; he says, &#8220;but the one I work for. I&#8217;m
+on&#8217;y his help. I run errands and do chores for him, and it&#8217;s a
+partic&#8217;lar kind o&#8217; posy he&#8217;s sent me for to-day.&#8221; &#8220;What for does he
+want &#8217;em?&#8221; says the shet-up posy. &#8220;Why, to set out in his<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_19' id='Page_19'>19</a></span> gardin,&#8221;
+the man says. &#8220;He&#8217;s got the beautif&#8217;lest gardin you never see, and I
+pick posies for &#8217;t.&#8221; &#8220;Deary me,&#8221; thinks she to herself, &#8220;I jest wish
+he&#8217;d pick me. But I ain&#8217;t the kind, I know.&#8221; And then she says, so
+soft he can&#8217;t hardly hear her, &#8220;What sort o&#8217; posies is it you&#8217;re arter
+this time?&#8221; &#8220;Well,&#8221; says the man, &#8220;it&#8217;s a dreadful sing&#8217;lar order I&#8217;ve
+got to-day. I got to find a posy that&#8217;s handsomer inside than &#8217;t is
+outside, one that folks ain&#8217;t took no notice of here, &#8217;cause &#8217;twas
+kind o&#8217; humly and queer to look at, not knowin&#8217; that inside &#8217;twas as
+handsome as any posy on the airth. Seen any o&#8217; that kind?&#8221; says the
+man.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the shet-up posy was dreadful worked up. &#8220;Deary dear!&#8221; she
+says to herself, &#8220;now if they&#8217;d on&#8217;y finished me off inside! I&#8217;m the
+right kind outside, humly and queer enough, but<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_20' id='Page_20'>20</a></span> there&#8217;s
+nothin&#8217; worth lookin&#8217; at inside,&mdash;I&#8217;m certin sure o&#8217; that.&#8221; But
+she didn&#8217;t say this nor anything else out loud, and bimeby, when the
+man had waited, and didn&#8217;t get any answer, he begun to look at the
+shet-up posy more partic&#8217;lar, to see why she was so mum. And all of a
+suddent he says, the man did, &#8220;Looks to me&#8217;s if you was somethin&#8217; that
+kind yourself, ain&#8217;t ye?&#8221; &#8220;Oh, no, no, no!&#8221; whispers the shet-up posy.
+&#8220;I wish I was, I wish I was. I&#8217;m all right outside, humly and awk&#8217;ard,
+queer&#8217;s I can be, but I ain&#8217;t pretty inside,&mdash;oh! I most know I
+ain&#8217;t.&#8221; &#8220;I ain&#8217;t so sure o&#8217; that myself,&#8221; says the man, &#8220;but I can
+tell in a jiffy.&#8221; &#8220;Will you have to pick me to pieces?&#8221; says the shet-up posy. &#8220;No, ma&#8217;am,&#8221; says the man; &#8220;I&#8217;ve got a way o&#8217; tellin&#8217;, the
+one I work for showed me.&#8221; The shet-up posy never knowed what<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_21' id='Page_21'>21</a></span> he done
+to her. I don&#8217;t know myself, but &#8217;twas somethin&#8217; soft and pleasant,
+that didn&#8217;t hurt a mite, and then the man he says, &#8220;Well, well, well!&#8221;
+That&#8217;s all he said, but he took her up real gentle, and begun to carry
+her away. &#8220;Where be ye takin&#8217; me?&#8221; says the shet-up posy. &#8220;Where ye
+belong,&#8221; says the man; &#8220;to the gardin o&#8217; the one I work for,&#8221; he says.
+&#8220;I didn&#8217;t know I was nice enough inside,&#8221; says the shet-up posy, very
+soft and still. &#8220;They most gen&#8217;ally don&#8217;t,&#8221; says the man.</p>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name='III' id='III'></a>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_23' id='Page_23'>23</a></span>
+<h2>The Horse that B&#8217;leeved he&#8217;d Get there</h2><h3>III</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_25' id='Page_25'>25</a></span>
+Among those who sometimes came to listen to little Lib&#8217;s allegories
+was Mary Ann Sherman, a tall, dark, gloomy woman of whom I had heard
+much. She was the daughter of old Deacon Sherman, a native of the
+village, who had, some years before I came to Greenhills, died by his
+own hand, after suffering many years from a sort of religious
+melancholia. Whether the trouble was hereditary and his daughter was
+born with a tendency inherited from her father, or whether she was
+influenced by what she had heard of his life, and death, I do not
+know. But she was a dreary creature with never a smile or a hopeful
+look upon her dark<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_26' id='Page_26'>26</a></span> face. Nothing to her was right or good;
+this world was a desert, her friends had all left her, strangers
+looked coldly upon her. As for the future, there was nothing to look
+forward to in this world or the next. As Dave Moony, the village
+cynic, said, &#8220;Mary Ann wa&#8217;n&#8217;t proud or set up about nothin&#8217; but bein&#8217;
+the darter of a man that had c&#8217;mitted the onpar&#8217;nable sin.&#8221; Poor
+woman! her eyes were blinded to all the beauty and brightness of this
+world, to the hope and love and joy of the next. What wonder that one
+day, as she paused in passing the little group gathered around Lib,
+and the child began the little story I give below, I thought it well
+fitted to the gloomy woman&#8217;s case!<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_27' id='Page_27'>27</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>The Horse that B&#8217;leeved he&#8217;d Get there</h3>
+
+<p>You&#8217;ve seen them thrashin&#8217; machines they&#8217;re usin&#8217; round here. The
+sort, you know, where the horses keep steppin&#8217; up a board thing &#8217;s if
+they was climbin&#8217; up-hill or goin&#8217; up a pair o&#8217; stairs, only they
+don&#8217;t never get along a mite; they keep right in the same place all
+the time, steppin&#8217; and steppin&#8217;, but never gittin&#8217; on.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I knew a horse once, that worked on one o&#8217; them things. His
+name was Jack, and he was a nice horse. First time they put him on to
+thrash, he didn&#8217;t know what the machine was, and he walked along and
+up the boards quick and lively, and he didn&#8217;t see why he didn&#8217;t get on
+faster. There was a horse side of him named Billy, a<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_28' id='Page_28'>28</a></span> kind o&#8217;
+frettin&#8217;, cross feller, and he see through it right off.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you go along,&#8221; he says to Jack; &#8220;&#8217;t ain&#8217;t no use; you won&#8217;t
+never get on, they&#8217;re foolin&#8217; us, and I won&#8217;t give in to &#8217;em.&#8221; So
+Billy he hung back and shook his head, and tried to get away, and to
+kick, and the man whipped him, and hollered at him. But Jack, he went
+on quiet and quick and pleasant, steppin&#8217; away, and he says softly to
+Billy, &#8220;Come along,&#8221; he says; &#8220;it&#8217;s all right, we&#8217;ll be there bimeby.
+Don&#8217;t you see how I&#8217;m gittin&#8217; on a&#8217;ready?&#8221; And that was the ways
+things went every day.</p>
+
+<p>Jack never gin up; he climbed and climbed, and walked and walked,
+jest&#8217;s if he see the place he was goin&#8217; to, and &#8217;s if it got nearer
+and nearer. And every night, when they took him off, he was as pleased
+with his day&#8217;s journey<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_29' id='Page_29'>29</a></span> &#8217;s if he&#8217;d gone twenty mile. &#8220;I&#8217;ve done
+first-rate to-day,&#8221; he says to cross, kickin&#8217; Billy. &#8220;The roads was
+good, and I never picked up a stone nor dropped a shoe, and I got on a
+long piece. I&#8217;ll be there pretty soon,&#8221; says he. &#8220;Why,&#8221; says Billy,
+&#8220;what a foolish fellow you be! You&#8217;ve been in the same place all day,
+and ain&#8217;t got on one mite. What do you mean by <i>there</i>? Where is
+it you think you&#8217;re goin&#8217;, anyway?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t &#8217;zackly know,&#8221; says Jack, &#8220;but I&#8217;m gittin&#8217; there
+real spry. I &#8217;most see it one time to-day.&#8221; He didn&#8217;t mind Billy&#8217;s
+laughin&#8217; at him, and tryin&#8217; to keep him from bein&#8217; sat&#8217;sfied. He jest
+went on tryin&#8217; and tryin&#8217; to get there, and hopin&#8217; and believin&#8217; he
+would after a spell. He was always peart and comfortable, took his
+work real easy, relished his victuals and drink, and slept first rate
+nights. But Billy he fretted<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_30' id='Page_30'>30</a></span> and scolded and kicked and bit, and that
+made him hot and tired, and got him whipped, and hollered at, and
+pulled, and yanked. You see, he hadn&#8217;t got anything in his mind to
+chirk him up, for he didn&#8217;t believe anything good was comin&#8217;, as Jack
+did; he &#8217;most knowed it wasn&#8217;t, but Jack &#8217;most knowed it was. And Jack
+took notice of things that Billy never see at all. He see the trees a-growin&#8217;, and heered the birds a-singin&#8217;, and Injun Brook a-gugglin&#8217;
+along over the stones, and he watched the butterflies a-flyin&#8217;, and
+sometimes a big yeller &#8217;n black one would light right on his back.
+Jack took notice of &#8217;em all, and he&#8217;d say, &#8220;I&#8217;m gettin&#8217; along now,
+certin sure, for there&#8217;s birds and posies and flyin&#8217; things here I
+never see back along. I guess I&#8217;m most there.&#8221; &#8220;&#8216;There, there!&#8217;&#8221;
+Billy&#8217;d say. &#8220;Where is it,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_31' id='Page_31'>31</a></span> anyway? I ain&#8217;t never seen any o&#8217; them
+posies and creaturs you talk about, and I&#8217;m right side of you on these
+old boards the whole time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And all the children round there liked Jack. They&#8217;d watch the two
+horses workin&#8217;, and they see Billy all cross and skittish, holdin&#8217;
+back and shakin&#8217; his head and tryin&#8217; to kick, never takin&#8217; no notice
+o&#8217; them nor anything. And, again, they see Jack steppin&#8217; along peart
+and spry, pleasant and willin&#8217;, turnin&#8217; his head when they come up to
+him, and lookin&#8217; friendly at &#8217;em out of his kind brown eyes, and
+they&#8217;d say, the boys and girls would, &#8220;Good Jack! nice old Jack!&#8221; and
+they&#8217;d pat him, and give him an apple, or a carrot, or suthin&#8217; good.
+But they didn&#8217;t give Billy any. They didn&#8217;t like his ways, and they
+was &#8217;most afraid he&#8217;d bite their fingers. And<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_32' id='Page_32'>32</a></span> Jack would say, come
+evenin&#8217;, &#8220;It&#8217;s gittin&#8217; nicer and nicer we get further on the
+road,&mdash;ain&#8217;t it? Folks is pleasanter speakin&#8217;, and the victuals
+&#8217;pears better flavored, and things is comfortabler every way, seems &#8217;s
+if, and I jedge by that we&#8217;re &#8217;most there.&#8221; But Billy&#8217;d say, a-grumblin&#8217; away, &#8220;It&#8217;s worse&#8217;n worse,&mdash;young ones a-botherin&#8217; my
+life out o&#8217; me, and the birds a-jabberin&#8217; and the posies a-smellin&#8217;
+till my head aches. Oh, deary me! I&#8217;m &#8217;most dead.&#8221; So &#8217;t went on and
+kep&#8217; on. Jack had every mite as hard work as Billy, but he didn&#8217;t mind
+it, he was so full o&#8217; what was comin&#8217; and how good &#8217;t would be to get
+there. And &#8217;cause he was pleasant and willin&#8217; and worked so good, and
+&#8217;cause he took notice o&#8217; all the nice things round him, and see new
+ones every day, he was treated real kind, and never got tired<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_33' id='Page_33'>33</a></span> and used
+up and low in his mind like Billy. Even the flies didn&#8217;t pester him&#8217;s
+they done Billy, for he on&#8217;y said, when he felt &#8217;em bitin&#8217; and
+crawlin&#8217;, &#8220;Dog-days is come,&#8221; says he, &#8220;for here&#8217;s the flies worse and
+worse. So the summer&#8217;s most over, and I&#8217;ll get there in a jiffy
+now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What am I stoppin&#8217; for,&#8221; do you say, &#8216;Miry? &#8217;Cause that&#8217;s all. You
+needn&#8217;t make sech a fuss, child&#8217;en. It&#8217;s done, this story is, I tell
+ye. Leastways I don&#8217;t know any more on it. I told you all about them
+two horses, and which had a good time and which didn&#8217;t, and what &#8217;twas
+made the differ&#8217;nce &#8217;twixt &#8217;em. But you want to know whether Jack got
+there. Well, I don&#8217;t know no more &#8217;n the horses did what <i>there</i>
+was, but in my own mind I b&#8217;leeve he got it. Mebbe &#8217;t was jest dyin&#8217;
+peaceful and quiet, and restin&#8217; after all that steppin&#8217;<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_34' id='Page_34'>34</a></span> and
+climbin&#8217;. He&#8217;d a-liked that, partic&#8217;lar when he knowed the folks was
+sorry to have him go, and would allus rec&#8217;lect him. Mebbe &#8217;t was jest
+livin&#8217; on and on, int&#8217;rested and enjoyin&#8217;, and liked by folks, and
+then bein&#8217; took away from the hard work and put out to pastur&#8217; for the
+rest o&#8217; his days. Mebbe &#8217;twas&mdash;Oh! I d&#8217;know. Might &#8217;a&#8217; been lots
+o&#8217; things, but I feel pretty certin sure he got it, and he was glad he
+hadn&#8217;t gi&#8217;n up b&#8217;leevin&#8217; &#8217;t would come. For you &#8217;member, all the time
+when Billy &#8217;most knowed it wasn&#8217;t, Jack &#8217;most knowed &#8217;twas.</p>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name='IV' id='IV'></a>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_35' id='Page_35'>35</a></span>
+<h2>The Plant that Lost its Berry</h2><h3>IV</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_37' id='Page_37'>37</a></span>It was a sad day in Greenhills when we knew
+that Susan Holcomb&#8217;s little Jerusha was dead. We all loved the child,
+and she was her mother&#8217;s dearest treasure. Susan was a widow, and this
+was her only child. A pretty little creature she was, with yellow
+curls and dark-blue eyes, rosy and plump and sturdy. But a sudden,
+sharp attack of croup seized the child, and in a few hours she fell
+asleep. I need not tell you of the mother&#8217;s grief. She could not be
+comforted because her child was not. One day a little neighbor, a boy
+with great faith&mdash;not wholly misplaced&mdash;in the helpfulness
+of Story-tell Lib&#8217;s little parables, succeeded, with a child&#8217;s art, in
+bringing the sad mother to the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_38' id='Page_38'>38</a></span> group of listeners. And it was that day
+that Lib told this new story.</p>
+
+<h3><a name='The_Plant_that_Lost_its_Berry'
+id='The_Plant_that_Lost_its_Berry'></a>The Plant that Lost its Berry</h3>
+
+<p>Once there was a plant, and it had jest one little berry. And the
+berry was real pretty to look at. It was sort o&#8217; blue, with a kind o&#8217;
+whitey, foggy look all over the blue, and it wa&#8217;n&#8217;t round like
+huckleberries and cramb&#8217;ries, but longish, and a little p&#8217;inted to
+each end. And the stem it growed on, the little bit of a stem, you
+know, comin&#8217; out o&#8217; the plant&#8217;s big stem, like a little neck to the
+berry, was pinky and real pretty. And this berry didn&#8217;t have a lot o&#8217;
+teenty little seeds inside on it, like most berries, but it jest had
+one pretty white stone in it, with raised up streaks on it.</p>
+
+<p>The plant set everything by her little berry. She thought there
+never was in<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_39' id='Page_39'>39</a></span> all the airth sech a beautiful berry as
+hern,&mdash;so pretty shaped and so whitey blue, with sech a soft skin
+and pinky neck, and more partic&#8217;lar with that nice, white, striped
+stone inside of it. She held it all day and all night tight and fast.
+When it rained real hard, and the wind blowed, she kind o&#8217; stretched
+out some of her leaves, and covered her little berry up, and she done
+the same when the sun was too hot. And the berry growed and growed,
+and was so fat and smooth and pretty! And the plant was jest wropped
+up in her little berry, lovin&#8217; it terr&#8217;ble hard, and bein&#8217; dreadful
+proud on it, too.</p>
+
+<p>Well, one day, real suddent, when the plant wasn&#8217;t thinkin&#8217; of any
+storm comin&#8217;, a little wind riz up. &#8217;T wa&#8217;n&#8217;t a gale, &#8217;t wa&#8217;n&#8217;t half
+as hard a blow as the berry&#8217;d seen lots o&#8217; times and never got hurt
+nor nothin&#8217;. And the plant wa&#8217;n&#8217;t<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_40' id='Page_40'>40</a></span> lookin&#8217; out for any danger,
+when all of a suddent there come a little bit of a snap, and the
+slimsy little pink stem broke, and the little berry fell and rolled
+away, and, &#8217;fore you could say &#8220;Jack Robinson,&#8221; &#8217;t was clean gone out
+o&#8217; sight. I can&#8217;t begin to tell ye how that plant took on. Seem &#8217;s if
+she&#8217;d die, or go ravin&#8217; crazy. It&#8217;s only folks that has lost jest what
+they set most by on airth that can understand about it, I s&#8217;pose. She
+wouldn&#8217;t b&#8217;leeve it fust off; she &#8217;most knowed she&#8217;d wake up and feel
+her little berry a-holdin&#8217; close to her, hangin&#8217; on her, snugglin&#8217; up
+to her under the shady leaves. The other plants &#8217;round there tried to
+chirk her up and help her. One on &#8217;em told her how it had lost all its
+little berries itself, a long spell back, and how it had some ways
+stood it and got over it. &#8220;But they wa&#8217;n&#8217;t like mine,&#8221; thinks the poor
+plant.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_41' id='Page_41'>41</a></span> &#8220;There never, never was no berry like mine,
+with its pretty figger, its pinky, slim little neck, and its soft,
+smooth-feelin&#8217; skin.&#8221; And another plant told her mebbe her berry was
+saved from growin&#8217; up a trouble to her, gettin&#8217; bad and hard, with
+mebbe a worm inside on it, to make her ashamed and sorry. &#8220;Oh, no,
+no!&#8221; thinks the mother plant. &#8220;My berry&#8217;d never got bad and hard, and
+I&#8217;d &#8217;a&#8217; kep&#8217; any worm from touchin&#8217; its little white heart.&#8221; Not a
+single thing the plant-folks said to her done a mite o&#8217; good. Their
+talk only worried her and pestered her, when she jest wanted to be let
+alone, so&#8217;s she could think about her little berry all to herself.</p>
+
+<p>Just where the berry used to hang, and where the little pinky stem
+broke off, there was a sore place, a sort o&#8217; scar, that ached and
+smarted all day and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_42' id='Page_42'>42</a></span> all night, and never, never healed up. And
+bimeby the poor plant got all wore out with the achin&#8217; and the
+mournin&#8217; and the missin&#8217; and she &#8217;peared to feel her heart all a-dryin&#8217; up and stoppin&#8217;, and her leaves turned yeller and wrinkled,
+and&mdash;she was dead. She couldn&#8217;t live on, ye see, without her
+little berry.</p>
+
+<p>They called it bein&#8217; dead, folks did, and it looked like it, for
+there she lay without a sign of life for a long, long, long spell.
+&#8217;Twas for days and weeks and months anyway. But it didn&#8217;t seem so long
+to the mother plant. She shet up her eyes, feelin&#8217; powerful tired and
+lonesome, and the next thing she knowed she opened &#8217;em again, and she
+was wide awoke. She hardly knowed herself, though, she was so fresh
+and juicy and &#8217;live, so kind o&#8217; young every way. Fust off she didn&#8217;t
+think o&#8217; anything but that, how good and well she<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_43' id='Page_43'>43</a></span> felt, and
+how beautiful things was all &#8217;round her. Then all of a suddent she
+rec&#8217;lected her little berry, and she says to herself, &#8220;Oh, dear, dear
+me! If only my own little berry was here to see me now, and know how I
+feel!&#8221; She thought she said it to herself, but mebbe she talked out
+loud, for, jest as she said it, somebody answered her. &#8217;T was a Angel,
+and he says, &#8220;Why your little berry does see you,&mdash;look there.&#8221;
+And she looked, and she see he was p&#8217;intin&#8217; to the beautif&#8217;lest little
+plant you never see,&mdash;straight and nice, with little bits o&#8217; soft
+green leaves, with the sun a-shinin&#8217; through &#8217;em, and,&mdash;well,
+somehow, you never can get it through your head how mothers take in
+things,&mdash;she knowed cert&#8217;in sure that was her little berry.</p>
+
+<p>The Angel begun to speak. He was goin&#8217; to explain how, if she
+hadn&#8217;t never<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_44' id='Page_44'>44</a></span> lost her berry, &#8217;twouldn&#8217;t never &#8217;a&#8217; growed
+into this pretty plant, but, he see, all of a suddent, that he needn&#8217;t
+take the trouble. She showed in her face she knowed all about
+it,&mdash;every blessed thing. I tell ye, even angels ain&#8217;t much use
+explainin&#8217; when there&#8217;s mothers, and it&#8217;s got to do with their own
+child&#8217;en. Yes, the mother plant see it all, without tellin&#8217;. She was
+jest a mite &#8217;shamed but she was terr&#8217;ble pleased.</p>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name='V' id='V'></a>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_45' id='Page_45'>45</a></span>
+
+<h2>The Stony Head</h2><h3>V</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_47' id='Page_47'>47</a></span>When little Lib told the story I give below,
+Deacon Zenas Welcome was one of the listeners. The deacon was a son of
+old Elder Welcome who had been many years before the pastor of the
+little church in a neighboring village. Elder Welcome was one of the
+old-fashioned sort not so common in these days, a good man, but stern
+and somewhat harsh. He preached only the terrors of the law, dwelt
+much upon the doctrines, the decrees, election, predestination, and
+eternal punishment, and rarely lingered over such themes as the
+fatherhood of God, his love to mankind, and his wonderful gift to a
+lost world. The son followed in his father&#8217;s footsteps. He was a hard,
+austere, melancholy<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_48' id='Page_48'>48</a></span> man, undemonstrative and reticent, shutting
+out all brightness from his own life, and clouding many an existence
+going on around him. I have always thought that his unwonted presence
+among us that day had a purpose, and that he had come to spy out some
+taint of heterodoxy in Lib&#8217;s tales, to reprove and condemn. He went
+away quietly, however, when the story was ended, and we heard nothing
+of reproof or condemnation.</p>
+
+<h3><a name='The_Stony_Head' id='The_Stony_Head'></a>The Stony
+Head</h3>
+
+<p>Once there was somethin&#8217; way up on the side of a mountain that
+looked like a man&#8217;s head. The rocks up there&#8217;d got fixed so&#8217;s they
+jest made a great big head and face, and everybody could see it as
+plain as could be. Folks called it the Stony Head, and they come to
+see it<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_49' id='Page_49'>49</a></span> from miles away. There was a man lived
+round there jest where he could see the head from his winder. He was a
+man that things had gone wrong with all along; he&#8217;d had lots o&#8217;
+trouble, and he didn&#8217;t take it very easy. He fretted and complained,
+and blamed it on other folks, and more partic&#8217;lar on&mdash;God. And
+one day&mdash;he&#8217;d jest come to live in them parts&mdash;he looked out
+of his winder, and he see, standin&#8217; out plain ag&#8217;in the sky, he see
+that Stony Head. It looked real ha&#8217;sh and hard and stony and dark, and
+all of a suddent the man thought it was&mdash;God.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; he says to hisself, &#8220;that&#8217;s jest the way I &#8217;most knowed he
+looked, ha&#8217;sh and hard and stony and dark, and that&#8217;s him.&#8221; The man
+was dreadful scaret of it, but some ways he couldn&#8217;t stop lookin&#8217; at
+it. And bimeby he shet hisself up there all alone, and spent his
+whole<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_50' id='Page_50'>50</a></span> time jest a-lookin&#8217; at that hard, stony
+face, and thinkin&#8217; who&#8217;t was, and who&#8217;d brought all his trouble on
+him. There was poor folks all &#8217;round that deestrict, but he never done
+nothin&#8217; to help &#8217;em; let &#8217;em be hungry or thirsty or ailin&#8217;, or shet
+up in jail, or anything, he never helped &#8217;em or done a thing for &#8217;em,
+&#8217;cause he was a-lookin&#8217; every single minute at that head, and seein&#8217;
+how stony and hard it was, and bein&#8217; scaret of it and the One he
+thought it looked like.</p>
+
+<p>Folks that was in trouble come along and knocked at his door, and
+he never opened it a mite, even to see who was there. Sheep and lambs
+that had got lost come a-strayin&#8217; into his yard, but he never took &#8217;em
+in, nor showed &#8217;em the way home. He wa&#8217;n&#8217;t no good to nobody, not even
+to hisself, for he was terr&#8217;ble unhappy and scaret and angry. So &#8217;t
+went on, oh! I d&#8217;know how long,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_51' id='Page_51'>51</a></span> years and years, I guess likely, and there
+the man was shet up all alone, lookin&#8217; and lookin&#8217;, and scaret at
+lookin&#8217; at that ha&#8217;sh, hard, stony face and head. But one day, as he
+was settin&#8217; there by the winder lookin&#8217;, he heerd a little sound. I
+d&#8217;know what made him hear it jest then. There&#8217;d been sech sounds as
+that time and time ag&#8217;in, and he never took no notice. &#8217;Twas like a
+child a-cryin&#8217;, and that&#8217;s common enough.</p>
+
+<p>But this time it seemed diff&#8217;ent, and he couldn&#8217;t help takin&#8217;
+notice. He tried not to hear it, but he had to. &#8217;T was a little child
+a-cryin&#8217; as if it had lost its way and was scaret, and the man found
+he couldn&#8217;t stand it somehow. Mebbe the reason was he&#8217;d had a little
+boy of his own once, and he lost him. Now I think on &#8217;t, that was one
+o&#8217; the things he blamed on God, and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_52' id='Page_52'>52</a></span> thought about when he looked
+at the Stone Head. Anyway, he couldn&#8217;t stand this cryin&#8217; that time,
+and he started up, and, fust thing he knowed, he&#8217;d opened the door and
+gone out. He hadn&#8217;t been out in the sunshine and the air for a long
+spell, and it made his head swimmy at fust. But he heerd the little
+cryin&#8217; ag&#8217;in, and he run along on to find the child. But he couldn&#8217;t
+find it; every time he&#8217;d think he was close to it, he&#8217;d hear the
+cryin&#8217; a little further off. And he&#8217;d go on and on, a-stumblin&#8217; over
+stones and fallin&#8217; over logs and a-steppin&#8217; into holes, but stickin&#8217;
+to it, and forgettin&#8217; everything only that little cryin&#8217; voice ahead
+of him. Seems &#8217;s if he jest must find that little lost boy or girl, &#8217;s
+if he&#8217;d be more &#8217;n willin&#8217; to give up his own poor lonesome old life to
+save that child. And, jest &#8217;s he come to thinkin&#8217; that, he see
+somethin&#8217; ahead<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_53' id='Page_53'>53</a></span> of him movin&#8217; and in a minute he knowed
+he&#8217;d found the lost child.</p>
+
+<p>&#8217;Fore he thought what he was a-doin&#8217;, he got down on his knees
+jest&#8217;s he used to do &#8217;fore he got angry at God, and was goin&#8217; to thank
+him for helpin&#8217; him to save that child. Then he rec&#8217;lected. It come
+back to him who God was, and how he&#8217;d seed his head, with the ha&#8217;sh
+stony face up on the mountain, and that made him look up to see it
+ag&#8217;in.</p>
+
+<p>And oh! what do you think he see? There was the same head up
+there,&mdash;he couldn&#8217;t make a mistake about that,&mdash;but the
+face, oh! the face was so diff&#8217;ent. It wasn&#8217;t ha&#8217;sh nor hard nor dark
+any more. There was such a lovin&#8217;, beautiful, kind sort o&#8217; look on it
+now. Some ways it made the man think a mite of the way his father,
+that had died ever so long ago, used to look at him when he was a boy,
+and had been bad, and<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_54' id='Page_54'>54</a></span> then was sorry and &#8217;shamed. Oh, &#8217;t was the
+beautif&#8217;lest face you never see! &#8220;Oh! what ever does it mean?&#8221; says
+the man out loud. &#8220;What&#8217;s changed that face so? Oh! what in the
+world&#8217;s made it so diff&#8217;ent?&#8221; And jest that minute a Angel come up
+close to him. &#8217;T was a little young Angel, and I guess mebbe &#8217;t was
+what he&#8217;d took for a lost child, and that he&#8217;d been follerin&#8217; so fur.
+And the Angel says, &#8220;The face ain&#8217;t changed a mite. &#8217;Twas jest like
+that all the time, only you&#8217;re lookin&#8217; at it from a diff&#8217;ent p&#8217;int.&#8221;
+And &#8217;twas so, and he see it right off. He&#8217;d been follerin&#8217; that cryin&#8217;
+so fur and so long that he&#8217;d got into a diff&#8217;ent section o&#8217; country,
+and he&#8217;d got a diff&#8217;ent view, oh! a terr&#8217;ble diff&#8217;ent view, and he
+never went back.</p>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name='VI' id='VI'></a>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_55' id='Page_55'>55</a></span>
+<h2>Diff&#8217;ent Kind o&#8217; Bundles</h2><h3>VI</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_57' id='Page_57'>57</a></span>Everybody in Greenhills knew &#8220;Stoopin&#8217;
+Jacob,&#8221; the little humpbacked boy who lived at the north end of the
+village. From babyhood he had suffered from a grievous deformity which
+rounded his little shoulders and bowed the frail form. It was
+characteristic of the kindly folk of the neighborhood, that, instead
+of calling the boy Hump-backed or Crooked-backed Jacob, they gave him
+the name of Stoopin&#8217; Jacob, as if the bowed and bent posture was
+voluntary, and not enforced.</p>
+
+<p>A lovely soul dwelt in that crooked, pain-racked body, and looked
+out of the gentle brown eyes shining in the pale, thin little face.
+Every one loved the boy, most of all the dogs, cats,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_58' id='Page_58'>58</a></span> horses,
+cows of the little farms, the birds and animals of forest and
+brookside. He knew them all, and they knew, loved, and trusted him.
+The tinier creatures, such as butterflies, bees, ants, beetles, even
+caterpillars, downy or smooth, were his friends, or seemed so. He knew
+them, watched them, studied their habits, and was the little
+naturalist of Greenhills village, consulted by all, even by older and
+wiser people.</p>
+
+<p>A close friendship existed between the boy and Story-tell Lib, and
+we all understood the tale she told us one day when Stoopin&#8217; Jacob was
+one of the listeners.</p>
+
+<h3><a name='Diffent_Kind_o_Bundles'
+id='Diffent_Kind_o_Bundles'></a>Diff&#8217;ent Kind o&#8217; Bundles</h3>
+
+<p>Once there was a lot o&#8217; folks, and every single one on &#8217;em had
+bundles on their backs. But they was all diff&#8217;ent,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_59' id='Page_59'>59</a></span> oh! jest
+as diff&#8217;ent as&mdash;as anything, the bundles was. And these folks all
+b&#8217;longed to one person, that they called the Head Man. They was his
+folks, and nobody else&#8217;s, and he had the whole say, and could do
+anything he wanted to. But he was real nice, and always done jest the
+best thing,&mdash;yes, sir, the bestest thing, whatever folks might
+say against it.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I was tellin&#8217; ye about how these folks had diff&#8217;ent kind o&#8217;
+bundles on their backs. &#8217;Twas this way. One on &#8217;em was a man that had
+a real hefty bundle on his back, that he&#8217;d put on there
+hisself,&mdash;not all to onct, but a mite to time, for years &#8216;n&#8217;
+years. &#8217;Twas a real cur&#8217;us bundle, made up out o&#8217; little things in the
+road that&#8217;d got in his way, or hurt him, or put him back. Some on &#8217;em
+was jest little stones that had hurt his feet, and some was
+little<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_60' id='Page_60'>60</a></span> stingin&#8217; weeds that smarted him as he went
+by &#8217;em, and some was jest mites o&#8217; dirt somebody&#8217;d throwed at him, not
+meanin&#8217; no great o&#8217; harm. He&#8217;d picked &#8217;em all up, every bit o&#8217;
+worryin&#8217;, prickin&#8217;, hurtin&#8217; little thing, and he&#8217;d piled &#8217;em up on his
+back till he had a big bundle that he allers carried about and never
+forgot for a minute.</p>
+
+<p>He was f&#8217;rever lookin&#8217; out for sech troublin&#8217; things, too, and he&#8217;d
+see &#8217;em way ahead on him in his road, and sometimes he&#8217;d think he see
+&#8217;em when there wa&#8217;n&#8217;t any there &#8217;t all. And, &#8217;stead o&#8217; lettin&#8217; &#8217;em lay
+where they was, and goin&#8217; right ahead and forgettin&#8217; &#8217;em, he&#8217;d pick
+every single one on &#8217;em up and pile &#8217;em on that bundle, and carry &#8217;em
+wherever he went.</p>
+
+<p>And he was allers talkin&#8217; about &#8217;em to folks, p&#8217;intin&#8217; out that
+little stone that he&#8217;d stubbed his toe on, and this pesky<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_61' id='Page_61'>61</a></span> weed that
+stung him, and t&#8217;other little mite o&#8217; mud he&#8217;d conceited somebody&#8217;d
+throwed at him. He fretted and scolded and complained &#8217;bout &#8217;em, and
+made out that nobody never had so many tryin&#8217; things gettin&#8217; in his
+way as he had. He never took into &#8217;count, ye see, that he&#8217;d picked &#8217;em
+up hisself and piled &#8217;em on his own back. If he&#8217;d jest let &#8217;em lay,
+and gone along, he&#8217;d &#8217;a&#8217; forgot &#8217;em all, I guess, after a spell.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was another man with a bundle, a cur&#8217;us one too, for &#8217;t
+was all made out o&#8217; money, dreadful heavy and cold and hard to carry.
+Every speck o&#8217; money he could scrape together he&#8217;d put in that bundle,
+till he couldn&#8217;t scursely heft it, &#8217;twas that big and weighed so much.
+He had plenty o&#8217; chances to make it lighter, for there was folks all
+along the road that needed it bad,&mdash;little child&#8217;en that hadn&#8217;t
+no<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_62' id='Page_62'>62</a></span>
+clo&#8217;es nor no victuals, and sick folks and old folks, every one on &#8217;em
+needin&#8217; money dreadful bad. But the man never gin &#8217;em a mite. He kep&#8217;
+it all on his back, a-hurtin&#8217; and weighin&#8217; him down.</p>
+
+<p>Then ag&#8217;in there was another man. He had a bundle that he didn&#8217;t
+put on his back hisself, nor the Head Man didn&#8217;t nuther. Folks did it
+to him. He hadn&#8217;t done nothin&#8217; to deserve it, &#8217;t was jest put on him
+by other people, and so &#8217;t was powerful hard to bear. But, ye see, the
+Head Man had pervided partic&#8217;lar for them kind, and he&#8217;d said in
+public, so &#8217;t everybody knowed about it, that he&#8217;d help folks like
+that,&mdash;said he&#8217;d help &#8217;em carry sech bundles hisself, or mebbe
+take &#8217;em off, if it &#8217;peared to be best.</p>
+
+<p>But this man disremembered that,&mdash;or, worse still, p&#8216;r&#8217;aps he
+didn&#8217;t &#8217;zackly<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_63' id='Page_63'>63</a></span> believe it. So he went along all scrunched
+down with that hefty bundle other folks had piled up on him, not
+scoldin&#8217; nor complainin&#8217; nor gittin&#8217; mad about it, but jest thinkin&#8217;
+it had got to be, and nobody could help him. But ye see it hadn&#8217;t got
+to be, and somebody could &#8217;a&#8217; helped him.</p>
+
+<p>And then bimeby along come a man that had sech a hefty, hefty
+bundle! &#8217;Twas right &#8217;tween his shoulders, and it sort o&#8217; scrooched him
+down, and it hurt him in his back and in his feelin&#8217;s. The Head Man
+had put that bundle on the man hisself when he was a little bit of a
+feller. He&#8217;d made it out o&#8217; flesh and skin and things. It was jest
+ezackly like the man&#8217;s body, so &#8217;t when it ached he ached hisself. And
+he&#8217;d had to carry that thing about all his born days.</p>
+
+<p>I don&#8217;t know why the Head Man done<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_64' id='Page_64'>64</a></span> it, I&#8217;m sure, but I know how
+good and pleasant he was, and how he liked his folks and meant well to
+&#8217;em, and how he knowed jest what oughter be and what hadn&#8217;t oughter
+be, so &#8217;t stands to reason he&#8217;d done this thing a-purpose, and not
+careless like, and he hadn&#8217;t made no mistake.</p>
+
+<p>I&#8217;ve guessed a lot o&#8217; reasons why he done it. Mebbe he see the man
+wouldn&#8217;t &#8217;a&#8217; done so well without the bundle,&mdash;might &#8217;a&#8217; run off,
+&#8217;way, &#8217;way off from the Head Man and the work he had to do. Or, ag&#8217;in,
+p&#8216;r&#8217;aps he wanted to make a &#8217;zample of the man, and show folks how
+patient and nice a body could be, even though he had a big, hefty
+bundle to carry all his born days, one made out o&#8217; flesh and skin and
+things, and that hurt dreadful.</p>
+
+<p>But my other guess is the one I b&#8217;leeve in most,&mdash;that the
+Head Man done it<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_65' id='Page_65'>65</a></span> to scrooch him down, so&#8217;s he&#8217;d take notice
+o&#8217; little teenty things, down below, that most folks never see, things
+that needed him to watch &#8217;em, and do for &#8217;em, and tell about &#8217;em.
+That&#8217;s my fav&#8217;rite guess. &#8217;Tany rate, the Head Man done
+right,&mdash;I&#8217;m cert&#8217;in sure o&#8217; that.</p>
+
+<p>And it <i>had</i> made the man nicer, and pleasanter spoken, and
+kinder to folks, and partic&#8217;lar to creaturs. It had made him sort o&#8217;
+bend down, &#8217;twas so hefty, and so he&#8217;d got to takin&#8217; notice o&#8217; teenty
+little things nobody else scursely&#8217;d see,&mdash;mites o&#8217; posies, and
+cunnin&#8217; little bugs, and creepin&#8217;, crawlin&#8217; things. He took a heap o&#8217;
+comfort in &#8217;em. And he told other folks &#8217;bout them little things and
+their little ways, and what they was made for, and things they could
+learn us; and &#8217;twas real int&#8217;restin&#8217;, and done folks good too.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_66' id='Page_66'>66</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And, deary me, he was that patient and good and uncomplainin&#8217;, you
+never see! No, I ain&#8217;t a-cryin&#8217;. This was a stranger, this man, you
+know, and I make a p&#8217;int o&#8217; never cryin&#8217; about strangers.</p>
+
+<p>There was a lot and a lot more kinds o&#8217; folks with bundles, but I&#8217;m
+only goin&#8217; to tell ye about them four,&mdash;this time, any way.</p>
+
+<p>Well, come pay day, these folks all come up afore the Head Man to
+be settled with. And fust he called up the man that had the bundle all
+made out o&#8217; things that had pricked him, and tripped him up, and
+scratched him, and put him back on the road. And then he had up the
+man with the money weighin&#8217; him down,&mdash;the money he&#8217;d kep&#8217; away
+from poor folks and piled up on his own back. And then come the feller
+that was carryin&#8217; the heavy bundle<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_67' id='Page_67'>67</a></span> folks had put on him when &#8217;t
+wa&#8217;n&#8217;t no fault o&#8217; his&#8217;n, and that he might &#8217;a&#8217; got red of a long
+spell back, if he&#8217;d only rec&#8217;lected what the Head Man had said &#8217;bout
+sech cases, and how they could be helped.</p>
+
+<p>I ain&#8217;t a-goin&#8217; to tell ye what he said to them folks, &#8217;cause &#8217;t
+ain&#8217;t my business, seems to me. Whether he punished either on &#8217;em, or
+scolded &#8217;em, or sent &#8217;em off to try ag&#8217;in, or what all, never mind.
+Knowin&#8217; &#8217;s much as I do about the ways o&#8217; that Head Man, I bet he made
+&#8217;em feel terrible ashamed, any way.</p>
+
+<p>But when he came to the man with the bundle made out o&#8217; flesh and
+skin and things, he looks at him a minute, and then says he, the Head
+Man does, &#8220;Why,&#8221; he says, &#8220;that&#8217;s my own work! I made that bundle, and
+I fixed it on your back all myself. I hefted and I<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_68' id='Page_68'>68</a></span> sized it,
+and I hefted you and sized you. A mite of a young one you was then. I
+made it jest hefty enough for you to carry, not a bit heftier, no more
+nor less. I rec&#8217;lect it well,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I ain&#8217;t forgot it. I never
+forgot it one minute sence I fitted in on, though mebbe you kind o&#8217;
+thought by spells that I had. And now,&#8221; he says&mdash;No, I can&#8217;t tell
+ye what he says. It&#8217;s a secret, that is. But I don&#8217;t mind lettin&#8217; ye
+know that the man was sat&#8217;sfied, perfec&#8217;ly sat&#8217;sfied. A Angel told me
+he was, and went on to say the man was dreadful pleased to find he&#8217;d
+been wearin&#8217; a bundle the Head Man hisself had made and fixed on him,
+heftin&#8217; it and sizin&#8217; it, and heftin&#8217; him and sizin&#8217; him too, so&#8217;s
+&#8216;twa&#8217;n&#8217;t too much for him to carry. But he ain&#8217;t carryin&#8217; it no more.
+The Angel said so.</p>
+
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name='VII' id='VII'></a>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_69' id='Page_69'>69</a></span>
+<h2>The Boy that was Scaret o&#8217; Dyin&#8217;</h2><h3>VII</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_71' id='Page_71'>71</a></span>I
+Have told you that little Lib was a delicate child, and that she grew
+more and more fragile and weak as the summer went on. In the hot, dry
+days of August she drooped like a thirsty flower, and her strength
+failed very fast. Her voice, though still sweet and clear, lost its
+shrillness, and one had to draw very close to the little speaker that
+he might not lose a word of the stories she told. Aunt Jane York often
+came out to us now, anxious and fussy, talking fretfully of and to
+little Lib, feeling the small hands and feet to see if they were cold,
+and drawing the shawl closer around the wasted form. I know she loved
+the little girl, and perhaps she wished now that she had shown
+that<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_72' id='Page_72'>72</a></span>
+love more tenderly. She talked freely, in the very presence of the
+child, of her rapid decline and the probability that she would not
+&#8220;last long.&#8221; Lib said nothing concerning her own condition, and showed
+no sign of having heard her aunt&#8217;s comments. But one day, when Miss
+York, after speaking very freely and plainly of the child&#8217;s
+approaching end, had gone indoors, Lib announced, in a low, sweet
+voice, a new story.</p>
+
+<h3><a name='The_Boy_that_was_Scaret'
+id='The_Boy_that_was_Scaret'></a>The Boy that was Scaret o&#8217; Dyin&#8217;</h3>
+
+<p>Once there was a boy that was dreadful scaret o&#8217; dyin&#8217;. Some folks
+is that way, you know; they ain&#8217;t never done it to know how it feels,
+and they&#8217;re scaret. And this boy was that way. He wa&#8217;n&#8217;t very rugged,
+his health was sort o&#8217; slim, and mebbe that made him<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_73' id='Page_73'>73</a></span> think
+about sech things more. &#8217;Tany rate, he was terr&#8217;ble scaret o&#8217; dyin&#8217;.
+&#8217;Twas a long time ago this was,&mdash;the times when posies and
+creaturs could talk so&#8217;s folks could know what they was sayin&#8217;.</p>
+
+<p>And one day, as this boy, his name was Reuben,&mdash;I forget his
+other name,&mdash;as Reuben was settin&#8217; under a tree, an ellum tree,
+cryin&#8217;, he heerd a little, little bit of a voice,&mdash;not squeaky,
+you know, but small and thin and soft like,&mdash;and he see &#8217;twas a
+posy talkin&#8217;. &#8217;Twas one o&#8217; them posies they call Benjamins, with
+three-cornered whitey blowths with a mite o&#8217; pink on &#8217;em, and it
+talked in a kind o&#8217; pinky-white voice, and it says, &#8220;What you cryin&#8217;
+for, Reuben?&#8221; And he says, &#8220;&#8216;Cause I&#8217;m scaret o&#8217; dyin&#8217;,&#8221; says he; &#8220;I&#8217;m
+dreadful scaret o&#8217; dyin&#8217;.&#8221; Well, what do you think? That posy jest
+laughed,&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_74' id='Page_74'>74</a></span> most cur&#8217;us little pinky-white laugh &#8217;t
+was,&mdash;and it says, the Benjamin says: &#8220;Dyin&#8217;! Scaret o&#8217; dyin&#8217;?
+Why, I die myself every single year o&#8217; my life.&#8221; &#8220;Die yourself!&#8221; says
+Reuben. &#8220;You &#8217;re foolin&#8217;; you&#8217;re alive this minute.&#8221; &#8220;&#8217;Course I be,&#8221;
+says the Benjamin; &#8220;but that&#8217;s neither here nor there,&mdash;I&#8217;ve died
+every year sence I can remember.&#8221; &#8220;Don&#8217;t it hurt?&#8221; says the boy. &#8220;No,
+it don&#8217;t,&#8221; says the posy; &#8220;it&#8217;s real nice. You see, you get kind o&#8217;
+tired a-holdin&#8217; up your head straight and lookin&#8217; peart and wide
+awake, and tired o&#8217; the sun shinin&#8217; so hot, and the winds blowin&#8217; you
+to pieces, and the bees a-takin&#8217; your honey. So it&#8217;s nice to feel
+sleepy and kind o&#8217; hang your head down, and get sleepier and sleepier,
+and then find you&#8217;re droppin&#8217; off. Then you wake up jest &#8217;t the nicest
+time o&#8217; year, and come up and look &#8217;round, and&mdash;why, I<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_75' id='Page_75'>75</a></span> like to
+die, I do.&#8221; But someways that didn&#8217;t help Reuben much as you&#8217;d think.
+&#8220;I ain&#8217;t a posy,&#8221; he think to himself, &#8220;and mebbe I wouldn&#8217;t come
+up.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Well, another time he was settin&#8217; on a stone in the lower pastur&#8217;,
+cryin&#8217; again, and he heerd another cur&#8217;us little voice. &#8217;t wa&#8217;n&#8217;t like
+the posy&#8217;s voice, but &#8217;twas a little, wooly, soft, fuzzy voice, and he
+see &#8217;t was a caterpillar a-talkin&#8217; to him. And the caterpillar says,
+in his fuzzy little voice, he says, &#8220;What you cryin&#8217; for, Reuben?&#8221; And
+the boy, he says, &#8220;I&#8217;m powerful scaret o&#8217; dyin&#8217;, that&#8217;s why,&#8221; he says.
+And that fuzzy caterpillar he laughed. &#8220;Dyin&#8217;!&#8221; he says. &#8220;I&#8217;m lottin&#8217;
+on dyin&#8217; myself. All my fam&#8217;ly,&#8221; he says, &#8220;die every once in a while,
+and when they wake up they&#8217;re jest splendid,&mdash;got wings, and fly
+about, and live on honey and things.<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_76' id='Page_76'>76</a></span> Why, I wouldn&#8217;t miss it for
+anything!&#8221; he says. &#8220;I&#8217;m lottin&#8217; on it.&#8221; But somehow that didn&#8217;t chirk
+up Reuben much. &#8220;I ain&#8217;t a caterpillar,&#8221; he says, &#8220;and mebbe I
+wouldn&#8217;t wake up at all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Well, there was lots o&#8217; other things talked to that boy, and tried
+to help him,&mdash;trees and posies and grass and crawlin&#8217; things,
+that was allers a-dyin&#8217; and livin&#8217;, and livin&#8217; and dyin&#8217;. Reuben
+thought it didn&#8217;t help him any, but I guess it did a little mite, for
+he couldn&#8217;t help thinkin&#8217; o&#8217; what they every one on &#8217;em said. But he
+was scaret all the same.</p>
+
+<p>And one summer he begun to fail up faster and faster, and he got so
+tired he couldn&#8217;t hardly hold his head up, but he was scaret all the
+same. And one day he was layin&#8217; on the bed, and lookin&#8217; out o&#8217; the
+east winder, and the sun kep&#8217; a-shinin&#8217; in his eyes till he shet &#8217;em
+up,<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_77' id='Page_77'>77</a></span>
+and he fell asleep. He had a real good nap, and when he woke up he
+went out to take a walk.</p>
+
+<p>And he begun to think o&#8217; what the posies and trees and creaturs had
+said about dyin&#8217;, and how they laughed at his bein&#8217; scaret at it, and
+he says to himself, &#8220;Why, someways I don&#8217;t feel so scaret to-day, but
+I s&#8217;pose I be.&#8221; And jest then what do you think he done? Why, he met a
+Angel. He&#8217;d never seed one afore, but he knowed it right off. And the
+Angel says, &#8220;Ain&#8217;t you happy, little boy?&#8221; And Reuben says, &#8220;Well, I
+would be, only I&#8217;m so dreadful scaret o&#8217; dyin&#8217;. It must be terr&#8217;ble
+cur&#8217;us,&#8221; he says, &#8220;to be dead.&#8221; And the Angel says, &#8220;Why, you be
+dead.&#8221; And he was.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The story of the boy that was scaret o&#8217; dyin&#8217; was the last story
+that little Lib<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_78' id='Page_78'>78</a></span> ever told us. We saw her sometimes after
+that, but she was not strong enough to talk much. She sat no longer
+now in the low chair under the maples, but lay on a chintz-covered
+couch in the sitting-room, by the west windows. The once shrilly-sweet
+voice with its clear bird tones was but a whisper now, as she told us
+over and again, while she lay there, that she would tell us a new
+story &#8220;to-morrow.&#8221; It was always &#8220;to-morrow&#8221; till the end came. And
+the story was to be, so the whisper went on, &#8220;the beautif&#8217;lest
+story,&mdash;oh, you never did!&#8221; And its name was to be,&mdash;what a
+faint and feeble reproduction of the old triumphant announcement of a
+new title!&mdash;&#8220;The Posy Gardin&#8217; that the King Kep&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She never told us that story. Before the autumn leaves had fallen,
+while the maples in front of the farmhouse were<span class='pagenum'><a name='Page_79' id='Page_79'>79</a></span> still red
+and glorious in their dying beauty, we laid our little friend to rest.
+Perhaps she will tell us the tale some day. I am sure there will be &#8220;a
+Angel&#8221; in it,&mdash;sure, too, that the story will have a new and
+tender meaning if we hear it there, that story of the King and of the
+posy gardin&#8217; he kep&#8217;.</p>
+
+<hr class='full' />
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber&#8217;s Notes</h3>
+<ol>
+<li>Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.</li>
+<li>Unusual spelling in chapter titles retained.</li>
+</ol>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Story-Tell Lib, by Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORY-TELL LIB ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Story-Tell Lib, by Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Story-Tell Lib
+
+Author: Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2006 [EBook #19989]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORY-TELL LIB ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Story-Tell Lib
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+[Illustration]
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Story-Tell Lib
+
+By
+Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
+Author of "Fishin' Jimmy"
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+NEW YORK . . . . . 1908
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+_Copyright, 1900_
+BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+_All rights reserved_
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                       CONTENTS
+
+                                                 PAGE
+
+    I. STORY-TELL LIB                               3
+   II. THE SHET-UP POSY                            13
+  III. THE HORSE THAT B'LEEVED HE'D GET THERE      25
+   IV. THE PLANT THAT LOST ITS BERRY               37
+    V. THE STONY HEAD                              47
+   VI. DIFF'ENT KIND O' BUNDLES                    57
+  VII. THE BOY THAT WAS SCARET O' DYIN'            71
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+STORY-TELL LIB
+
+I
+
+Story-Tell Lib
+
+
+That was what everybody in the little mountain village called her. Her
+real name, as she often told me, ringing out each syllable proudly in
+her shrill sweet voice, was Elizabeth Rowena Marietta York. A stately
+name, indeed, for the little crippled, stunted, helpless creature, and I
+myself could never think of her by any name but the one the village
+people used, Story-tell Lib. I had heard of her for two or three summers
+in my visits to Greenhills. The village folk had talked to me of the
+little lame girl who told such pretty stories out of her own head, "kind
+o' fables that learnt folks things, and helped 'em without bein' too
+preachy." But I had no definite idea of what the child was till I saw
+and heard her myself. She was about thirteen years of age, but very
+small and fragile. She was lame, and could walk only with the aid of a
+crutch. Indeed, she could but hobble painfully, a few steps at a time,
+with that assistance. Her little white face was not an attractive one,
+her features being sharp and pinched, and her eyes faded, dull, and
+almost expressionless. Only the full, prominent, rounding brow spoke of
+a mind out of the common. She was an orphan, and lived with her aunt,
+Miss Jane York, in an old-fashioned farmhouse on the upper road.
+
+Miss Jane was a good woman. She kept the child neatly clothed and
+comfortably fed, but I do not think she lavished many caresses or loving
+words on little Lib, it was not her way, and the girl led a lonesome,
+quiet, unchildlike life. Aunt Jane tried to teach her to read and write,
+but, whether from the teacher's inability to impart knowledge, or from
+some strange lack in the child's odd brain, Lib never learned the
+lesson. She could not read a word, she did not even know her alphabet. I
+cannot explain to myself or to you the one gift which gave her her
+homely village name. She told stories. I listened to many of them, and I
+took down from her lips several of these. They are, as you will see if
+you read them, "kind o' fables," as the country folk said. They were all
+simple little tales in the dialect of the hill country in which she
+lived. But each held some lesson, suggested some truth, which, strangely
+enough, the child herself did not seem to see; at least, she never
+admitted that she saw or intended any hidden meaning.
+
+I often questioned her as to this after we became friends. After
+listening to some tale in which I could discern just the lovely truth
+which would best help some troubled soul in her audience, I have
+questioned her as to its meaning. I can see now, in memory, the
+short-sighted, expressionless eyes of faded blue which met mine as she
+said, "Don't mean anything,--it don't. It's jest a story. Stories don't
+have to mean things; they're stories, and I tells 'em." That was all she
+would say, and the mystery remained. What did it mean? Whence came that
+strange power of giving to the people who came to her something to help
+and cheer, both help and cheer hidden in a simple little story? Was it,
+as I like to think, God-given, a treasure sent from above? Or would you
+rather think it an inheritance from some ancestor, a writer, a teller of
+tales? Or perhaps you believe in the transmigration of souls, and think
+that the spirit of some AEsop of old, who spoke in parables, had entered
+the frail crippled body of our little Lib, and spoke through her pinched
+pale lips. I leave you your theories, I keep my own.
+
+But one thing which I find I have omitted thus far may seem to you to
+throw a little light on this matter. It does not help me much. Lib was a
+wonderful listener, as well as a narrator. Miss Jane sometimes took an
+occasional boarder. Teachers, clergymen, learned professors, had from
+time to time tarried under her roof. And while these talked to one
+another, or to some visitor from neighboring hotels, little Lib would
+sit motionless and silent by the hour. One would scarcely call it
+listening; to listen seems too active a verb in this case. The girl's
+face wore no eager look of interest, the faded, short-sighted eyes did
+not light up with intelligence, nor the features quiver with varied
+emotions. If she received ideas from what fell upon her ears, it must
+have been by a sort of unconscious absorption. She took it in as the
+earth does the rain or the flower the sunshine. And so it was with any
+reading aloud from book or paper. She would sit, utterly quiet, while
+the reader's voice went on, and nothing could draw her away till it was
+ended. Question her later as to what was read or spoken of, and you
+gained no satisfaction. If she had any idea of what she had heard, she
+had not the power of putting it into words. "I like it. I like it lots,"
+she would say; that was all.
+
+Throughout the whole summer in which I knew the child, the summer which
+came so quickly, so sadly, to an end, little Lib sat, on bright, fair
+days, in a low wooden chair under the maples in front of the farmhouse.
+And it had grown to be the custom of her many friends, both young and
+old, to gather there, and listen to her stories, if she had any to tell.
+I often joined the group of listeners. On many, many days, as the season
+advanced, Lib had no words for us. She had always been a fragile, puny
+little creature, and this year she seemed to grow weaker, thinner, more
+waxen white, each day. She had a wonderful voice, shrill, far-reaching,
+but strangely sweet and clear, with a certain vibrating, reedy,
+bird-like quality, which even yet thrills me as I recall it.
+
+I am going to tell you a few of the little stories, pictures, fables,
+parables, allegories,--I scarcely know what to call them,--which I heard
+Story-tell Lib relate. The words are her own, but I cannot give you the
+sweet tones, the quaint manner, the weird, strange personality, of the
+little narrator. Let me say here that often the little parables seemed
+meant to cheer and lift up Lib's own trembling soul, shut up in the
+frail, crippled body. Meant, I say; perhaps that is not the right word.
+For did she mean anything by these tales, at least consciously? Be that
+as it may, certain of these little stories seemed to touch her own case
+strangely.
+
+
+
+
+The Shet-up Posy
+
+II
+
+
+The first story I ever heard the child tell was one of those which
+seemed to hold comfort and cheer for herself or for humble little souls
+like her. It was a story of the closed gentian, the title of which she
+announced, as she always did, loudly, and with an amusing little air of
+self-satisfaction.
+
+
+The Shet-up Posy
+
+Once there was a posy. 'T wa'n't a common kind o' posy, that blows out
+wide open, so's everybody can see its outsides and its insides too.
+But 't was one of them posies like what grows down the road, back o' your
+pa's sugar-house, Danny, and don't come till way towards fall. They're
+sort o' blue, but real dark, and they look 's if they was buds 'stead
+o' posies,--only buds opens out, and these doesn't They're all shet up
+close and tight, and they never, never, never opens. Never mind how much
+sun they get, never mind how much rain or how much drouth, whether it's
+cold or hot, them posies stay shet up tight, kind o' buddy, and not
+finished and humly. But if you pick 'em open, real careful, with a
+pin,--I've done it,--you find they're dreadful pretty inside.
+
+You couldn't see a posy that was finished off better, soft and nice,
+with pretty little stripes painted on 'em, and all the little things
+like threads in the middle, sech as the open posies has, standing up,
+with little knots on their tops, oh, so pretty,--you never did! Makes
+you think real hard, that does; leastways, makes me. What's they that
+way for? If they ain't never goin' to open out, what's the use o' havin'
+the shet-up part so slicked up and nice, with nobody never seem' it?
+Folks has different names for 'em, dumb foxgloves, blind genshuns, and
+all that, but I allers call 'em the shet-up posies.
+
+Well, 't was one o' that kind o' posy I was goin' to tell you about.
+'Twas one o' the shet-uppest and the buddiest of all on 'em, all
+blacky-blue and straight up and down, and shet up fast and tight.
+Nobody'd ever dream't was pretty inside. And the funniest thing, it
+didn't know 'twas so itself! It thought 'twas a mistake somehow, thought
+it had oughter been a posy, and was begun for one, but wa'n't finished,
+and 'twas terr'ble unhappy. It knew there was pretty posies all 'round
+there, goldenrod and purple daisies and all; and their inside was the
+right side, and they was proud of it, and held it open, and showed the
+pretty lining, all soft and nice with the little fuzzy yeller threads
+standin' up, with little balls on their tip ends. And the shet-up posy
+felt real bad; not mean and hateful and begrudgin', you know, and
+wantin' to take away the nice part from the other posies, but sorry, and
+kind o' 'shamed.
+
+"Oh, deary me!" she says,--I most forgot to say 'twas a girl
+posy,--"deary me, what a humly, skimpy, awk'ard thing I be! I ain't
+more 'n half made; there ain't no nice, pretty lining inside o' me, like
+them other posies; and on'y my wrong side shows, and that's jest plain
+and common. I can't chirk up folks like the goldenrod and daisies does.
+Nobody won't want to pick me and carry me home. I ain't no good to
+anybody, and I never shall be."
+
+So she kep' on, thinkin' these dreadful sorry thinkin's, and most
+wishin' she'd never been made at all. You know 't wa'n't jest at fust
+she felt this way. Fust she thought she was a bud, like lots o' buds all
+'round her, and she lotted on openin' like they did. But when the days
+kep' passin' by, and all the other buds opened out, and showed how
+pretty they was, and she didn't open, why, then she got terr'ble
+discouraged; and I don't wonder a mite.
+
+She'd see the dew a-layin' soft and cool on the other posies' faces, and
+the sun a-shinin' warm on 'em as they held 'em up, and sometimes she'd
+see a butterfly come down and light on 'em real soft, and kind o' put
+his head down to 'em, 's if he was kissin' 'em, and she thought 'twould
+be powerful nice to hold her face up to all them pleasant things. But
+she couldn't.
+
+But one day, afore she'd got very old, 'fore she'd dried up or fell
+off, or anything like that, she see somebody comin' along her way. 'Twas
+a man, and he was lookin' at all the posies real hard and partic'lar,
+but he wasn't pickin' any of 'em. Seems 's if he was lookin' for
+somethin' diff'rent from what he see, and the poor little shet-up posy
+begun to wonder what he was arter. Bimeby she braced up, and she asked
+him about it in her shet-up, whisp'rin' voice. And says he, the man
+says: "I'm a-pickin' posies. That's what I work at most o' the time. 'T
+ain't for myself," he says, "but the one I work for. I'm on'y his help.
+I run errands and do chores for him, and it's a partic'lar kind o' posy
+he's sent me for to-day." "What for does he want 'em?" says the shet-up
+posy. "Why, to set out in his gardin," the man says. "He's got the
+beautif'lest gardin you never see, and I pick posies for 't." "Deary
+me," thinks she to herself, "I jest wish he'd pick me. But I ain't the
+kind, I know." And then she says, so soft he can't hardly hear her,
+"What sort o' posies is it you're arter this time?" "Well," says the
+man, "it's a dreadful sing'lar order I've got to-day. I got to find a
+posy that's handsomer inside than 't is outside, one that folks ain't
+took no notice of here, 'cause 'twas kind o' humly and queer to look at,
+not knowin' that inside 'twas as handsome as any posy on the airth. Seen
+any o' that kind?" says the man.
+
+Well, the shet-up posy was dreadful worked up. "Deary dear!" she says to
+herself, "now if they'd on'y finished me off inside! I'm the right kind
+outside, humly and queer enough, but there's nothin' worth lookin' at
+inside,--I'm certin sure o' that." But she didn't say this nor anything
+else out loud, and bimeby, when the man had waited, and didn't get any
+answer, he begun to look at the shet-up posy more partic'lar, to see why
+she was so mum. And all of a suddent he says, the man did, "Looks to
+me's if you was somethin' that kind yourself, ain't ye?" "Oh, no, no,
+no!" whispers the shet-up posy. "I wish I was, I wish I was. I'm all
+right outside, humly and awk'ard, queer's I can be, but I ain't pretty
+inside,--oh! I most know I ain't." "I ain't so sure o' that myself,"
+says the man, "but I can tell in a jiffy." "Will you have to pick me to
+pieces?" says the shet-up posy. "No, ma'am," says the man; "I've got a
+way o' tellin', the one I work for showed me." The shet-up posy never
+knowed what he done to her. I don't know myself, but 'twas somethin'
+soft and pleasant, that didn't hurt a mite, and then the man he says,
+"Well, well, well!" That's all he said, but he took her up real gentle,
+and begun to carry her away. "Where be ye takin' me?" says the shet-up
+posy. "Where ye belong," says the man; "to the gardin o' the one I work
+for," he says. "I didn't know I was nice enough inside," says the
+shet-up posy, very soft and still. "They most gen'ally don't," says the
+man.
+
+
+
+
+The Horse that B'leeved he'd Get there
+
+III
+
+
+Among those who sometimes came to listen to little Lib's allegories was
+Mary Ann Sherman, a tall, dark, gloomy woman of whom I had heard much.
+She was the daughter of old Deacon Sherman, a native of the village, who
+had, some years before I came to Greenhills, died by his own hand, after
+suffering many years from a sort of religious melancholia. Whether the
+trouble was hereditary and his daughter was born with a tendency
+inherited from her father, or whether she was influenced by what she
+had heard of his life, and death, I do not know. But she was a dreary
+creature with never a smile or a hopeful look upon her dark face.
+Nothing to her was right or good; this world was a desert, her friends
+had all left her, strangers looked coldly upon her. As for the future,
+there was nothing to look forward to in this world or the next. As Dave
+Moony, the village cynic, said, "Mary Ann wa'n't proud or set up about
+nothin' but bein' the darter of a man that had c'mitted the onpar'nable
+sin." Poor woman! her eyes were blinded to all the beauty and brightness
+of this world, to the hope and love and joy of the next. What wonder
+that one day, as she paused in passing the little group gathered around
+Lib, and the child began the little story I give below, I thought it
+well fitted to the gloomy woman's case!
+
+
+The Horse that B'leeved he'd Get there
+
+You've seen them thrashin' machines they're usin' round here. The sort,
+you know, where the horses keep steppin' up a board thing 's if they was
+climbin' up-hill or goin' up a pair o' stairs, only they don't never get
+along a mite; they keep right in the same place all the time, steppin'
+and steppin', but never gittin' on.
+
+Well, I knew a horse once, that worked on one o' them things. His name
+was Jack, and he was a nice horse. First time they put him on to thrash,
+he didn't know what the machine was, and he walked along and up the
+boards quick and lively, and he didn't see why he didn't get on faster.
+There was a horse side of him named Billy, a kind o' frettin', cross
+feller, and he see through it right off.
+
+"Don't you go along," he says to Jack; "'t ain't no use; you won't never
+get on, they're foolin' us, and I won't give in to 'em." So Billy he
+hung back and shook his head, and tried to get away, and to kick, and
+the man whipped him, and hollered at him. But Jack, he went on quiet and
+quick and pleasant, steppin' away, and he says softly to Billy, "Come
+along," he says; "it's all right, we'll be there bimeby. Don't you see
+how I'm gittin' on a'ready?" And that was the ways things went every
+day.
+
+Jack never gin up; he climbed and climbed, and walked and walked, jest's
+if he see the place he was goin' to, and 's if it got nearer and nearer.
+And every night, when they took him off, he was as pleased with his
+day's journey 's if he'd gone twenty mile. "I've done first-rate
+to-day," he says to cross, kickin' Billy. "The roads was good, and I
+never picked up a stone nor dropped a shoe, and I got on a long piece.
+I'll be there pretty soon," says he. "Why," says Billy, "what a foolish
+fellow you be! You've been in the same place all day, and ain't got on
+one mite. What do you mean by _there_? Where is it you think you're
+goin', anyway?"
+
+"Well, I don't 'zackly know," says Jack, "but I'm gittin' there real
+spry. I 'most see it one time to-day." He didn't mind Billy's laughin'
+at him, and tryin' to keep him from bein' sat'sfied. He jest went on
+tryin' and tryin' to get there, and hopin' and believin' he would after
+a spell. He was always peart and comfortable, took his work real easy,
+relished his victuals and drink, and slept first rate nights. But Billy
+he fretted and scolded and kicked and bit, and that made him hot and
+tired, and got him whipped, and hollered at, and pulled, and yanked. You
+see, he hadn't got anything in his mind to chirk him up, for he didn't
+believe anything good was comin', as Jack did; he 'most knowed it
+wasn't, but Jack 'most knowed it was. And Jack took notice of things
+that Billy never see at all. He see the trees a-growin', and heered the
+birds a-singin', and Injun Brook a-gugglin' along over the stones, and
+he watched the butterflies a-flyin', and sometimes a big yeller 'n black
+one would light right on his back. Jack took notice of 'em all, and he'd
+say, "I'm gettin' along now, certin sure, for there's birds and posies
+and flyin' things here I never see back along. I guess I'm most there."
+"'There, there!'" Billy'd say. "Where is it, anyway? I ain't never seen
+any o' them posies and creaturs you talk about, and I'm right side of
+you on these old boards the whole time."
+
+And all the children round there liked Jack. They'd watch the two horses
+workin', and they see Billy all cross and skittish, holdin' back and
+shakin' his head and tryin' to kick, never takin' no notice o' them nor
+anything. And, again, they see Jack steppin' along peart and spry,
+pleasant and willin', turnin' his head when they come up to him, and
+lookin' friendly at 'em out of his kind brown eyes, and they'd say, the
+boys and girls would, "Good Jack! nice old Jack!" and they'd pat him,
+and give him an apple, or a carrot, or suthin' good. But they didn't
+give Billy any. They didn't like his ways, and they was 'most afraid
+he'd bite their fingers. And Jack would say, come evenin', "It's gittin'
+nicer and nicer we get further on the road,--ain't it? Folks is
+pleasanter speakin', and the victuals 'pears better flavored, and
+things is comfortabler every way, seems 's if, and I jedge by that we're
+'most there." But Billy'd say, a-grumblin' away, "It's worse'n
+worse,--young ones a-botherin' my life out o' me, and the birds
+a-jabberin' and the posies a-smellin' till my head aches. Oh, deary me!
+I'm 'most dead." So 't went on and kep' on. Jack had every mite as hard
+work as Billy, but he didn't mind it, he was so full o' what was comin'
+and how good 't would be to get there. And 'cause he was pleasant and
+willin' and worked so good, and 'cause he took notice o' all the nice
+things round him, and see new ones every day, he was treated real kind,
+and never got tired and used up and low in his mind like Billy. Even the
+flies didn't pester him's they done Billy, for he on'y said, when he
+felt 'em bitin' and crawlin', "Dog-days is come," says he, "for here's
+the flies worse and worse. So the summer's most over, and I'll get there
+in a jiffy now."
+
+"What am I stoppin' for," do you say, 'Miry? 'Cause that's all. You
+needn't make sech a fuss, child'en. It's done, this story is, I tell ye.
+Leastways I don't know any more on it. I told you all about them two
+horses, and which had a good time and which didn't, and what 'twas made
+the differ'nce 'twixt 'em. But you want to know whether Jack got there.
+Well, I don't know no more 'n the horses did what _there_ was, but in my
+own mind I b'leeve he got it. Mebbe 't was jest dyin' peaceful and quiet,
+and restin' after all that steppin' and climbin'. He'd a-liked that,
+partic'lar when he knowed the folks was sorry to have him go, and would
+allus rec'lect him. Mebbe 't was jest livin' on and on, int'rested and
+enjoyin', and liked by folks, and then bein' took away from the hard
+work and put out to pastur' for the rest o' his days. Mebbe 'twas--Oh! I
+d'know. Might 'a' been lots o' things, but I feel pretty certin sure he
+got it, and he was glad he hadn't gi'n up b'leevin' 't would come. For
+you 'member, all the time when Billy 'most knowed it wasn't, Jack 'most
+knowed 'twas.
+
+
+
+
+The Plant that Lost its Berry
+
+IV
+
+
+It was a sad day in Greenhills when we knew that Susan Holcomb's little
+Jerusha was dead. We all loved the child, and she was her mother's
+dearest treasure. Susan was a widow, and this was her only child. A
+pretty little creature she was, with yellow curls and dark-blue eyes,
+rosy and plump and sturdy. But a sudden, sharp attack of croup seized
+the child, and in a few hours she fell asleep. I need not tell you of
+the mother's grief. She could not be comforted because her child was
+not. One day a little neighbor, a boy with great faith--not wholly
+misplaced--in the helpfulness of Story-tell Lib's little parables,
+succeeded, with a child's art, in bringing the sad mother to the group
+of listeners. And it was that day that Lib told this new story.
+
+
+The Plant that Lost its Berry
+
+Once there was a plant, and it had jest one little berry. And the berry
+was real pretty to look at. It was sort o' blue, with a kind o' whitey,
+foggy look all over the blue, and it wa'n't round like huckleberries and
+cramb'ries, but longish, and a little p'inted to each end. And the stem
+it growed on, the little bit of a stem, you know, comin' out o' the
+plant's big stem, like a little neck to the berry, was pinky and real
+pretty. And this berry didn't have a lot o' teenty little seeds inside
+on it, like most berries, but it jest had one pretty white stone in it,
+with raised up streaks on it.
+
+The plant set everything by her little berry. She thought there never
+was in all the airth sech a beautiful berry as hern,--so pretty shaped
+and so whitey blue, with sech a soft skin and pinky neck, and more
+partic'lar with that nice, white, striped stone inside of it. She held
+it all day and all night tight and fast. When it rained real hard, and
+the wind blowed, she kind o' stretched out some of her leaves, and
+covered her little berry up, and she done the same when the sun was too
+hot. And the berry growed and growed, and was so fat and smooth and
+pretty! And the plant was jest wropped up in her little berry, lovin' it
+terr'ble hard, and bein' dreadful proud on it, too.
+
+Well, one day, real suddent, when the plant wasn't thinkin' of any storm
+comin', a little wind riz up. 'T wa'n't a gale, 't wa'n't half as hard a
+blow as the berry'd seen lots o' times and never got hurt nor nothin'.
+And the plant wa'n't lookin' out for any danger, when all of a suddent
+there come a little bit of a snap, and the slimsy little pink stem
+broke, and the little berry fell and rolled away, and, 'fore you could
+say "Jack Robinson," 't was clean gone out o' sight. I can't begin to
+tell ye how that plant took on. Seem 's if she'd die, or go ravin'
+crazy. It's only folks that has lost jest what they set most by on airth
+that can understand about it, I s'pose. She wouldn't b'leeve it fust
+off; she 'most knowed she'd wake up and feel her little berry a-holdin'
+close to her, hangin' on her, snugglin' up to her under the shady
+leaves. The other plants 'round there tried to chirk her up and help
+her. One on 'em told her how it had lost all its little berries itself,
+a long spell back, and how it had some ways stood it and got over it.
+"But they wa'n't like mine," thinks the poor plant. "There never, never
+was no berry like mine, with its pretty figger, its pinky, slim little
+neck, and its soft, smooth-feelin' skin." And another plant told her
+mebbe her berry was saved from growin' up a trouble to her, gettin' bad
+and hard, with mebbe a worm inside on it, to make her ashamed and sorry.
+"Oh, no, no!" thinks the mother plant. "My berry'd never got bad and
+hard, and I'd 'a' kep' any worm from touchin' its little white heart."
+Not a single thing the plant-folks said to her done a mite o' good.
+Their talk only worried her and pestered her, when she jest wanted to be
+let alone, so's she could think about her little berry all to herself.
+
+Just where the berry used to hang, and where the little pinky stem broke
+off, there was a sore place, a sort o' scar, that ached and smarted all
+day and all night, and never, never healed up. And bimeby the poor plant
+got all wore out with the achin' and the mournin' and the missin' and
+she 'peared to feel her heart all a-dryin' up and stoppin', and her
+leaves turned yeller and wrinkled, and--she was dead. She couldn't live
+on, ye see, without her little berry.
+
+They called it bein' dead, folks did, and it looked like it, for there
+she lay without a sign of life for a long, long, long spell. 'Twas for
+days and weeks and months anyway. But it didn't seem so long to the
+mother plant. She shet up her eyes, feelin' powerful tired and lonesome,
+and the next thing she knowed she opened 'em again, and she was wide
+awoke. She hardly knowed herself, though, she was so fresh and juicy and
+'live, so kind o' young every way. Fust off she didn't think o' anything
+but that, how good and well she felt, and how beautiful things was all
+'round her. Then all of a suddent she rec'lected her little berry, and
+she says to herself, "Oh, dear, dear me! If only my own little berry
+was here to see me now, and know how I feel!" She thought she said it to
+herself, but mebbe she talked out loud, for, jest as she said it,
+somebody answered her. 'T was a Angel, and he says, "Why your little
+berry does see you,--look there." And she looked, and she see he was
+p'intin' to the beautif'lest little plant you never see,--straight and
+nice, with little bits o' soft green leaves, with the sun a-shinin'
+through 'em, and,--well, somehow, you never can get it through your head
+how mothers take in things,--she knowed cert'in sure that was her little
+berry.
+
+The Angel begun to speak. He was goin' to explain how, if she hadn't
+never lost her berry, 'twouldn't never 'a' growed into this pretty
+plant, but, he see, all of a suddent, that he needn't take the trouble.
+She showed in her face she knowed all about it,--every blessed thing. I
+tell ye, even angels ain't much use explainin' when there's mothers, and
+it's got to do with their own child'en. Yes, the mother plant see it
+all, without tellin'. She was jest a mite 'shamed but she was terr'ble
+pleased.
+
+
+
+
+The Stony Head
+
+V
+
+
+When little Lib told the story I give below, Deacon Zenas Welcome was
+one of the listeners. The deacon was a son of old Elder Welcome who had
+been many years before the pastor of the little church in a neighboring
+village. Elder Welcome was one of the old-fashioned sort not so common
+in these days, a good man, but stern and somewhat harsh. He preached
+only the terrors of the law, dwelt much upon the doctrines, the decrees,
+election, predestination, and eternal punishment, and rarely lingered
+over such themes as the fatherhood of God, his love to mankind, and his
+wonderful gift to a lost world. The son followed in his father's
+footsteps. He was a hard, austere, melancholy man, undemonstrative and
+reticent, shutting out all brightness from his own life, and clouding
+many an existence going on around him. I have always thought that his
+unwonted presence among us that day had a purpose, and that he had come
+to spy out some taint of heterodoxy in Lib's tales, to reprove and
+condemn. He went away quietly, however, when the story was ended, and we
+heard nothing of reproof or condemnation.
+
+
+The Stony Head
+
+Once there was somethin' way up on the side of a mountain that looked
+like a man's head. The rocks up there'd got fixed so's they jest made a
+great big head and face, and everybody could see it as plain as could
+be. Folks called it the Stony Head, and they come to see it from miles
+away. There was a man lived round there jest where he could see the
+head from his winder. He was a man that things had gone wrong with all
+along; he'd had lots o' trouble, and he didn't take it very easy. He
+fretted and complained, and blamed it on other folks, and more
+partic'lar on--God. And one day--he'd jest come to live in them
+parts--he looked out of his winder, and he see, standin' out plain ag'in
+the sky, he see that Stony Head. It looked real ha'sh and hard and stony
+and dark, and all of a suddent the man thought it was--God.
+
+"Yes," he says to hisself, "that's jest the way I 'most knowed he
+looked, ha'sh and hard and stony and dark, and that's him." The man was
+dreadful scaret of it, but some ways he couldn't stop lookin' at it. And
+bimeby he shet hisself up there all alone, and spent his whole time jest
+a-lookin' at that hard, stony face, and thinkin' who't was, and who'd
+brought all his trouble on him. There was poor folks all 'round that
+deestrict, but he never done nothin' to help 'em; let 'em be hungry or
+thirsty or ailin', or shet up in jail, or anything, he never helped 'em
+or done a thing for 'em, 'cause he was a-lookin' every single minute at
+that head, and seein' how stony and hard it was, and bein' scaret of it
+and the One he thought it looked like.
+
+Folks that was in trouble come along and knocked at his door, and he
+never opened it a mite, even to see who was there. Sheep and lambs that
+had got lost come a-strayin' into his yard, but he never took 'em in,
+nor showed 'em the way home. He wa'n't no good to nobody, not even to
+hisself, for he was terr'ble unhappy and scaret and angry. So 't went on,
+oh! I d'know how long, years and years, I guess likely, and there the
+man was shet up all alone, lookin' and lookin', and scaret at lookin' at
+that ha'sh, hard, stony face and head. But one day, as he was settin'
+there by the winder lookin', he heerd a little sound. I d'know what made
+him hear it jest then. There'd been sech sounds as that time and time
+ag'in, and he never took no notice. 'Twas like a child a-cryin', and
+that's common enough.
+
+But this time it seemed diff'ent, and he couldn't help takin' notice. He
+tried not to hear it, but he had to. 'T was a little child a-cryin' as
+if it had lost its way and was scaret, and the man found he couldn't
+stand it somehow. Mebbe the reason was he'd had a little boy of his own
+once, and he lost him. Now I think on 't, that was one o' the things he
+blamed on God, and thought about when he looked at the Stone Head.
+Anyway, he couldn't stand this cryin' that time, and he started up, and,
+fust thing he knowed, he'd opened the door and gone out. He hadn't been
+out in the sunshine and the air for a long spell, and it made his head
+swimmy at fust. But he heerd the little cryin' ag'in, and he run along
+on to find the child. But he couldn't find it; every time he'd think he
+was close to it, he'd hear the cryin' a little further off. And he'd go
+on and on, a-stumblin' over stones and fallin' over logs and a-steppin'
+into holes, but stickin' to it, and forgettin' everything only that
+little cryin' voice ahead of him. Seems 's if he jest must find that
+little lost boy or girl, 's if he'd be more 'n willin' to give up his own
+poor lonesome old life to save that child. And, jest 's he come to
+thinkin' that, he see somethin' ahead of him movin' and in a minute he
+knowed he'd found the lost child.
+
+'Fore he thought what he was a-doin', he got down on his knees jest's he
+used to do 'fore he got angry at God, and was goin' to thank him for
+helpin' him to save that child. Then he rec'lected. It come back to him
+who God was, and how he'd seed his head, with the ha'sh stony face up on
+the mountain, and that made him look up to see it ag'in.
+
+And oh! what do you think he see? There was the same head up there,--he
+couldn't make a mistake about that,--but the face, oh! the face was so
+diff'ent. It wasn't ha'sh nor hard nor dark any more. There was such a
+lovin', beautiful, kind sort o' look on it now. Some ways it made the
+man think a mite of the way his father, that had died ever so long ago,
+used to look at him when he was a boy, and had been bad, and then was
+sorry and 'shamed. Oh, 't was the beautif'lest face you never see! "Oh!
+what ever does it mean?" says the man out loud. "What's changed that
+face so? Oh! what in the world's made it so diff'ent?" And jest that
+minute a Angel come up close to him. 'T was a little young Angel, and I
+guess mebbe 't was what he'd took for a lost child, and that he'd been
+follerin' so fur. And the Angel says, "The face ain't changed a mite.
+'Twas jest like that all the time, only you're lookin' at it from a
+diff'ent p'int." And 'twas so, and he see it right off. He'd been
+follerin' that cryin' so fur and so long that he'd got into a diff'ent
+section o' country, and he'd got a diff'ent view, oh! a terr'ble
+diff'ent view, and he never went back.
+
+
+
+
+Diff'ent Kind o' Bundles
+
+VI
+
+
+Everybody in Greenhills knew "Stoopin' Jacob," the little humpbacked boy
+who lived at the north end of the village. From babyhood he had suffered
+from a grievous deformity which rounded his little shoulders and bowed
+the frail form. It was characteristic of the kindly folk of the
+neighborhood, that, instead of calling the boy Hump-backed or
+Crooked-backed Jacob, they gave him the name of Stoopin' Jacob, as if
+the bowed and bent posture was voluntary, and not enforced.
+
+A lovely soul dwelt in that crooked, pain-racked body, and looked out
+of the gentle brown eyes shining in the pale, thin little face. Every
+one loved the boy, most of all the dogs, cats, horses, cows of the
+little farms, the birds and animals of forest and brookside. He knew
+them all, and they knew, loved, and trusted him. The tinier creatures,
+such as butterflies, bees, ants, beetles, even caterpillars, downy or
+smooth, were his friends, or seemed so. He knew them, watched them,
+studied their habits, and was the little naturalist of Greenhills
+village, consulted by all, even by older and wiser people.
+
+A close friendship existed between the boy and Story-tell Lib, and we
+all understood the tale she told us one day when Stoopin' Jacob was one
+of the listeners.
+
+
+Diff'ent Kind o' Bundles
+
+Once there was a lot o' folks, and every single one on 'em had bundles
+on their backs. But they was all diff'ent, oh! jest as diff'ent as--as
+anything, the bundles was. And these folks all b'longed to one person,
+that they called the Head Man. They was his folks, and nobody else's,
+and he had the whole say, and could do anything he wanted to. But he was
+real nice, and always done jest the best thing,--yes, sir, the bestest
+thing, whatever folks might say against it.
+
+Well, I was tellin' ye about how these folks had diff'ent kind o'
+bundles on their backs. 'Twas this way. One on 'em was a man that had a
+real hefty bundle on his back, that he'd put on there hisself,--not all
+to onct, but a mite to time, for years 'n' years. 'Twas a real cur'us
+bundle, made up out o' little things in the road that'd got in his way,
+or hurt him, or put him back. Some on 'em was jest little stones that
+had hurt his feet, and some was little stingin' weeds that smarted him
+as he went by 'em, and some was jest mites o' dirt somebody'd throwed at
+him, not meanin' no great o' harm. He'd picked 'em all up, every bit o'
+worryin', prickin', hurtin' little thing, and he'd piled 'em up on his
+back till he had a big bundle that he allers carried about and never
+forgot for a minute.
+
+He was f'rever lookin' out for sech troublin' things, too, and he'd see
+'em way ahead on him in his road, and sometimes he'd think he see 'em
+when there wa'n't any there't all. And, 'stead o' lettin' 'em lay where
+they was, and goin' right ahead and forgettin' 'em, he'd pick every
+single one on 'em up and pile 'em on that bundle, and carry 'em wherever
+he went.
+
+And he was allers talkin' about 'em to folks, p'intin' out that little
+stone that he'd stubbed his toe on, and this pesky weed that stung him,
+and t'other little mite o' mud he'd conceited somebody'd throwed at him.
+He fretted and scolded and complained 'bout 'em, and made out that
+nobody never had so many tryin' things gettin' in his way as he had. He
+never took into 'count, ye see, that he'd picked 'em up hisself and
+piled 'em on his own back. If he'd jest let 'em lay, and gone along,
+he'd 'a' forgot 'em all, I guess, after a spell.
+
+Then there was another man with a bundle, a cur'us one too, for 't was
+all made out o' money, dreadful heavy and cold and hard to carry. Every
+speck o' money he could scrape together he'd put in that bundle, till he
+couldn't scursely heft it, 'twas that big and weighed so much. He had
+plenty o' chances to make it lighter, for there was folks all along the
+road that needed it bad,--little child'en that hadn't no clo'es nor no
+victuals, and sick folks and old folks, every one on 'em needin' money
+dreadful bad. But the man never gin 'em a mite. He kep' it all on his
+back, a-hurtin' and weighin' him down.
+
+Then ag'in there was another man. He had a bundle that he didn't put on
+his back hisself, nor the Head Man didn't nuther. Folks did it to him.
+He hadn't done nothin' to deserve it, 't was jest put on him by other
+people, and so 't was powerful hard to bear. But, ye see, the Head Man
+had pervided partic'lar for them kind, and he'd said in public, so 't
+everybody knowed about it, that he'd help folks like that,--said he'd
+help 'em carry sech bundles hisself, or mebbe take 'em off, if it
+'peared to be best.
+
+But this man disremembered that,--or, worse still, p'r'aps he didn't
+'zackly believe it. So he went along all scrunched down with that hefty
+bundle other folks had piled up on him, not scoldin' nor complainin'
+nor gittin' mad about it, but jest thinkin' it had got to be, and nobody
+could help him. But ye see it hadn't got to be, and somebody could 'a'
+helped him.
+
+And then bimeby along come a man that had sech a hefty, hefty bundle!
+'Twas right 'tween his shoulders, and it sort o' scrooched him down, and
+it hurt him in his back and in his feelin's. The Head Man had put that
+bundle on the man hisself when he was a little bit of a feller. He'd
+made it out o' flesh and skin and things. It was jest ezackly like the
+man's body, so 't when it ached he ached hisself. And he'd had to carry
+that thing about all his born days.
+
+I don't know why the Head Man done it, I'm sure, but I know how good and
+pleasant he was, and how he liked his folks and meant well to 'em, and
+how he knowed jest what oughter be and what hadn't oughter be, so 't
+stands to reason he'd done this thing a-purpose, and not careless like,
+and he hadn't made no mistake.
+
+I've guessed a lot o' reasons why he done it. Mebbe he see the man
+wouldn't 'a' done so well without the bundle,--might 'a' run off, 'way,
+'way off from the Head Man and the work he had to do. Or, ag'in, p'r'aps
+he wanted to make a 'zample of the man, and show folks how patient and
+nice a body could be, even though he had a big, hefty bundle to carry
+all his born days, one made out o' flesh and skin and things, and that
+hurt dreadful.
+
+But my other guess is the one I b'leeve in most,--that the Head Man done
+it to scrooch him down, so's he'd take notice o' little teenty things,
+down below, that most folks never see, things that needed him to watch
+'em, and do for 'em, and tell about 'em. That's my fav'rite guess. 'Tany
+rate, the Head Man done right,--I'm cert'in sure o' that.
+
+And it _had_ made the man nicer, and pleasanter spoken, and kinder to
+folks, and partic'lar to creaturs. It had made him sort o' bend down,
+'twas so hefty, and so he'd got to takin' notice o' teenty little things
+nobody else scursely'd see,--mites o' posies, and cunnin' little bugs,
+and creepin', crawlin' things. He took a heap o' comfort in 'em. And he
+told other folks 'bout them little things and their little ways, and
+what they was made for, and things they could learn us; and 'twas real
+int'restin', and done folks good too.
+
+And, deary me, he was that patient and good and uncomplainin', you never
+see! No, I ain't a-cryin'. This was a stranger, this man, you know, and
+I make a p'int o' never cryin' about strangers.
+
+There was a lot and a lot more kinds o' folks with bundles, but I'm only
+goin' to tell ye about them four,--this time, any way.
+
+Well, come pay day, these folks all come up afore the Head Man to be
+settled with. And fust he called up the man that had the bundle all made
+out o' things that had pricked him, and tripped him up, and scratched
+him, and put him back on the road. And then he had up the man with the
+money weighin' him down,--the money he'd kep' away from poor folks and
+piled up on his own back. And then come the feller that was carryin' the
+heavy bundle folks had put on him when 't wa'n't no fault o' his'n, and
+that he might 'a' got red of a long spell back, if he'd only rec'lected
+what the Head Man had said 'bout sech cases, and how they could be
+helped.
+
+I ain't a-goin' to tell ye what he said to them folks, 'cause 't ain't
+my business, seems to me. Whether he punished either on 'em, or scolded
+'em, or sent 'em off to try ag'in, or what all, never mind. Knowin' 's
+much as I do about the ways o' that Head Man, I bet he made 'em feel
+terrible ashamed, any way.
+
+But when he came to the man with the bundle made out o' flesh and skin
+and things, he looks at him a minute, and then says he, the Head Man
+does, "Why," he says, "that's my own work! I made that bundle, and I
+fixed it on your back all myself. I hefted and I sized it, and I hefted
+you and sized you. A mite of a young one you was then. I made it jest
+hefty enough for you to carry, not a bit heftier, no more nor less. I
+rec'lect it well," he says. "I ain't forgot it. I never forgot it one
+minute sence I fitted in on, though mebbe you kind o' thought by spells
+that I had. And now," he says--No, I can't tell ye what he says. It's a
+secret, that is. But I don't mind lettin' ye know that the man was
+sat'sfied, perfec'ly sat'sfied. A Angel told me he was, and went on to
+say the man was dreadful pleased to find he'd been wearin' a bundle the
+Head Man hisself had made and fixed on him, heftin' it and sizin' it,
+and heftin' him and sizin' him too, so's 'twa'n't too much for him to
+carry. But he ain't carryin' it no more. The Angel said so.
+
+
+
+
+The Boy that was Scaret o' Dyin'
+
+VII
+
+
+I have told you that little Lib was a delicate child, and that she grew
+more and more fragile and weak as the summer went on. In the hot, dry
+days of August she drooped like a thirsty flower, and her strength
+failed very fast. Her voice, though still sweet and clear, lost its
+shrillness, and one had to draw very close to the little speaker that he
+might not lose a word of the stories she told. Aunt Jane York often came
+out to us now, anxious and fussy, talking fretfully of and to little
+Lib, feeling the small hands and feet to see if they were cold, and
+drawing the shawl closer around the wasted form. I know she loved the
+little girl, and perhaps she wished now that she had shown that love
+more tenderly. She talked freely, in the very presence of the child, of
+her rapid decline and the probability that she would not "last long."
+Lib said nothing concerning her own condition, and showed no sign of
+having heard her aunt's comments. But one day, when Miss York, after
+speaking very freely and plainly of the child's approaching end, had
+gone indoors, Lib announced, in a low, sweet voice, a new story.
+
+
+The Boy that was Scaret o' Dyin'
+
+Once there was a boy that was dreadful scaret o' dyin'. Some folks is
+that way, you know; they ain't never done it to know how it feels, and
+they're scaret. And this boy was that way. He wa'n't very rugged, his
+health was sort o' slim, and mebbe that made him think about sech things
+more. 'Tany rate, he was terr'ble scaret o' dyin'. 'Twas a long time
+ago this was,--the times when posies and creaturs could talk so's folks
+could know what they was sayin'.
+
+And one day, as this boy, his name was Reuben,--I forget his other
+name,--as Reuben was settin' under a tree, an ellum tree, cryin', he
+heerd a little, little bit of a voice,--not squeaky, you know, but small
+and thin and soft like,--and he see 'twas a posy talkin'. 'Twas one o'
+them posies they call Benjamins, with three-cornered whitey blowths with
+a mite o' pink on 'em, and it talked in a kind o' pinky-white voice, and
+it says, "What you cryin' for, Reuben?" And he says, "'Cause I'm scaret
+o' dyin'," says he; "I'm dreadful scaret o' dyin'." Well, what do you
+think? That posy jest laughed,--the most cur'us little pinky-white laugh
+'t was,--and it says, the Benjamin says: "Dyin'! Scaret o' dyin'? Why, I
+die myself every single year o' my life." "Die yourself!" says Reuben.
+"You 're foolin'; you're alive this minute." "'Course I be," says the
+Benjamin; "but that's neither here nor there,--I've died every year
+sence I can remember." "Don't it hurt?" says the boy. "No, it don't,"
+says the posy; "it's real nice. You see, you get kind o' tired a-holdin'
+up your head straight and lookin' peart and wide awake, and tired o' the
+sun shinin' so hot, and the winds blowin' you to pieces, and the bees
+a-takin' your honey. So it's nice to feel sleepy and kind o' hang your
+head down, and get sleepier and sleepier, and then find you're droppin'
+off. Then you wake up jest 't the nicest time o' year, and come up and
+look 'round, and--why, I like to die, I do." But someways that didn't
+help Reuben much as you'd think. "I ain't a posy," he think to himself,
+"and mebbe I wouldn't come up."
+
+Well, another time he was settin' on a stone in the lower pastur',
+cryin' again, and he heerd another cur'us little voice. 'T wa'n't like
+the posy's voice, but 'twas a little, wooly, soft, fuzzy voice, and he
+see 't was a caterpillar a-talkin' to him. And the caterpillar says, in
+his fuzzy little voice, he says, "What you cryin' for, Reuben?" And the
+boy, he says, "I'm powerful scaret o' dyin', that's why," he says. And
+that fuzzy caterpillar he laughed. "Dyin'!" he says. "I'm lottin' on
+dyin' myself. All my fam'ly," he says, "die every once in a while, and
+when they wake up they're jest splendid,--got wings, and fly about, and
+live on honey and things. Why, I wouldn't miss it for anything!" he
+says. "I'm lottin' on it." But somehow that didn't chirk up Reuben much.
+"I ain't a caterpillar," he says, "and mebbe I wouldn't wake up at
+all."
+
+Well, there was lots o' other things talked to that boy, and tried to
+help him,--trees and posies and grass and crawlin' things, that was
+allers a-dyin' and livin', and livin' and dyin'. Reuben thought it
+didn't help him any, but I guess it did a little mite, for he couldn't
+help thinkin' o' what they every one on 'em said. But he was scaret all
+the same.
+
+And one summer he begun to fail up faster and faster, and he got so
+tired he couldn't hardly hold his head up, but he was scaret all the
+same. And one day he was layin' on the bed, and lookin' out o' the east
+winder, and the sun kep' a-shinin' in his eyes till he shet 'em up, and
+he fell asleep. He had a real good nap, and when he woke up he went out
+to take a walk.
+
+And he begun to think o' what the posies and trees and creaturs had said
+about dyin', and how they laughed at his bein' scaret at it, and he says
+to himself, "Why, someways I don't feel so scaret to-day, but I s'pose I
+be." And jest then what do you think he done? Why, he met a Angel. He'd
+never seed one afore, but he knowed it right off. And the Angel says,
+"Ain't you happy, little boy?" And Reuben says, "Well, I would be, only
+I'm so dreadful scaret o' dyin'. It must be terr'ble cur'us," he says,
+"to be dead." And the Angel says, "Why, you be dead." And he was.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The story of the boy that was scaret o' dyin' was the last story that
+little Lib ever told us. We saw her sometimes after that, but she was
+not strong enough to talk much. She sat no longer now in the low chair
+under the maples, but lay on a chintz-covered couch in the sitting-room,
+by the west windows. The once shrilly-sweet voice with its clear bird
+tones was but a whisper now, as she told us over and again, while she
+lay there, that she would tell us a new story "to-morrow." It was always
+"to-morrow" till the end came. And the story was to be, so the whisper
+went on, "the beautif'lest story,--oh, you never did!" And its name was
+to be,--what a faint and feeble reproduction of the old triumphant
+announcement of a new title!--"The Posy Gardin' that the King Kep'."
+
+She never told us that story. Before the autumn leaves had fallen, while
+the maples in front of the farmhouse were still red and glorious in
+their dying beauty, we laid our little friend to rest. Perhaps she will
+tell us the tale some day. I am sure there will be "a Angel" in
+it,--sure, too, that the story will have a new and tender meaning if we
+hear it there, that story of the King and of the posy gardin' he kep'.
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.
+2. Unusual spelling in chapter titles retained.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Story-Tell Lib, by Annie Trumbull Slosson
+
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