Story-Tell Lib | Page 6

'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,