Story-Tell Lib | Page 7

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