Conduct of life -- Fiction; People with disabilities -- Fiction; Short stories; Storytellers -- Fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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