Last Words: A Final Collection of StoriesEwing, Juliana Horatia
General
Last Words: A Final Collection of Stories
Ewing, Juliana Horatia
Children's stories; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction
Margery reads a great deal of history; she likes it; she likes all the
sensible books in the attic, and I like the rest, particularly poetry
and fairy tales.
The books are mother's books, they belonged to her father. She liked
having them all in the parlor, "littering the whole place," Jael says;
but Grandmamma has moved them to the attic now, all but a volume of
Sermons for Sunday, and the Oriental Annual, to amuse visitors if they
are left alone. Only she says you never ought to leave your visitors
alone.
Jael is very glad the books were taken to the attic, because "they
gather dust worse than chimney ornaments;" so she says.
Margery and I are very glad too, for we are sent to play in the attic,
and then we read as much as ever we like; and we move our pet books to
our own corner and pretend they are our very own. We have very cosy
corners; we pile up some of the big books for seats, and then make a
bigger pile in front of us for tables, and there we sit.
Once Dr. Brown found us. We had got whooping cough, and he had come
to see if we were better; and he is very big, and he tramped so
heavily on the stairs I did really think he was a burglar; and Margery
was a little frightened too, so we were very glad to see him; and when
he saw us reading at our tables, he said, "So this is the Attic salt
ye season life with, is it?" And then he laughed just as he always
does.
There is one story in my favorite Fairy Book which Margery likes too;
it is called "A Puzzling Tale." I read it to Margery when we were
sitting in our tree seat in the garden, and I put my hand over the
answer to the puzzle, and she could not guess; and if Margery could
not guess, I do not think any one else could.
This is the tale:--"Three women were once changed into flowers, and
grew in a field: but one was permitted to go home at night. Once, when
day was dawning, and she was about to return to her companions in the
field and become a flower again, she said to her husband, 'In the
morning come to the field and pick me off my stalk, then I shall be
released, and able to live at home for the future.' So the husband
went to the field as he was told, and picked his wife and took her
home."
"Now how did he know his wife's flower from the other two, for all the
three flowers were alike?"
(That is the Puzzle. This is the answer):
"_He knew his wife because there was no dew upon her flower._"
There is a very nice picture of the three flowers standing stiff and
upright, with leaves held out like hands, and large round flower
faces, all three exactly alike. I have looked at them again and again,
but I never could see any difference; for you can't see the dew on the
ones who had been out all night, and so you can't tell which was the
one who was allowed to go home. But I think it was partly being so
fond of those round flower faces in the Puzzling Tale, that made me
get so very very fond of Sunflowers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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