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.