Opal Stanley Whiteley

“ She does so like to feel things. She has seeing by feels. Often I do carry things to her when I find them and she knows some of my friends. Peter Paul Rubens has gone with me to visit her. So has gone Felix Mendelssohn and Nannerl Mozart—the two mices with voices that squeak mouse-songs in the night. And Plato and Pliny, [65] the two bats, and others go too. And their goings and what she has thinks about them I have printed here in my prints. And it is often I go the way that does lead to her house, for the girl who has no seeing—she and I—we are friends. ”

“ And too, when they come home from work in the far woods, the men do bring bits of moss and nice velvet caterpillars and little rocks. Some do. And these they give to me for my nature collections. And I feel joy feels all over. Brave Horatius does bark joy barks. He does know and I do know the folks that live in the lumber camps—they are kindly folks.
Morning is glad on the hills. I hear a song like unto the song of the verdier. The sky sings in blue tones. The earth sings in green. I am so happy. The mamma is gone for a visit away. Before her going she did set me to mind the baby. ”

“ Brave Horatius went with me and so did Minerva. She wore her cap with ruffles on it like the morning-cap of Jenny Strong. Menander Euripides Theocritus Thucydides walked by my side. And too Sir Francis Bacon went with us. His leg has well feels a long time now, but he walks not as other chickens walk. He has likes to go to cathedral service, and so has Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus. ”

“ Already they did have ragged noses, where all of the three mouses did nibble nibbles. I have thinks I will have to make lions of stone for the begins of route du Connétable. The baby had wakes-up again. I did sing it to sleep with chant d’automne.
Now I sit here and I print. The baby sleeps on. The wind comes creeping in under the door. It calls, “Come, come, petite Françoise, come.” It calls to me to come go exploring. It sings of the things that are to be found under leaves. It whispers the dreams of the tall fir trees. It does pipe the gentle song the forest sings on gray days. ”

“ I wrapped my apron around him so he would not have cold feels. There was much wetness upon my apron as I did go along. It was wetness of blood. The sky was more gray, and before I was come to the house we live in, the raindrops were coming down in a slow, sad way. I have thinks the sky was crying tears for the hurts of Lars Porsena of Clusium. And I was too.
I had longs for the man that wears gray neckties and is kind to mice to be come back again. He and other mill folks and Dear Love and her husband and Sadie McKibben and her husband are all away gone until to-morrow even-time. ”

“ Nothing else is like it, nor apt to be. If there is alchemy in Nature, it is in children’s hearts the unspoiled treasure lies, and for that room of the treasure-house, the Story of Opal offers a tiny golden key. ”

“ Lars Porsena of Clusium had going with me. I looked looks away to the meeting of the roads. There was a horse come near unto it. A man was riding on this horse. I like to ride upon a horse. I like to stand up when I ride upon a horse. It is so much joy. I feel the feels the horse does feel when he puts each foot to the ground.
When I did see that horse go on and on, then I did have feels it would be nice to go a long way on explores. I did have thinks William Shakespeare had wants to go. He was in the lane. I gave him pats on the nose and I talked with him about it. ”

“ Hearing him say that made me have better feels.
Men are such a comfort—men that wear gray neckties and are kind to mice. One I know. He looks kind looks upon the forest and he does love the grand fir trees that do grow there. I have seen him stretch out his arms to them just like I do do in the cathedral. He does have kindness for the little folks that do live about the grand trees. His ways are ways of gentleness. All my friends have likes for him, and so had Solomon Grundy. To-day he said he would take Solomon Grundy back to camp by the mill to his bunk-house. ”

“ No matter how doubtful the enterprise, the issue she always holds as certain, simply because the world is good and God loves his children. Loving herself all created things, from her barrel-full of caterpillars, whose evolution she would note and chronicle from day to day, to the dogs and horses, squirrels, raccoons, and bats which peopled the world she lived in, she would thank God daily for them, and very early in her life determined to devote the rest of it to spreading knowledge of them and of their kind far and wide among little children. ”

“ Brave Horatius did bark Amen—and one of the most tall pine trees was saying a poem.
After morning’s works was done I was washing out clothes for the baby. I thought what a nice christening robe one of the baby’s dresses would make for one of the new baby pigs. The mamma had not thoughts that way. When the dress was on the line, I did go by the chicken-yard to have sees how the children of Minerva are growing. Pius VII is getting some tail-feathers. He comes to feed from my hand every day, and he likes to go to school in my little basket. ”

“ It’s a nice place to explore. I think so. Mice think so. Sometimes—quite often—when I am crawling back in a haystack, I do meet a mouse, which is very nice, for mice are nice folks to know. And now to-day, when I did crawl back away under the straw I did find something. What I did find made me feel gratitudes from my curls to my toes. It was a nest full of eggs and nobody had used an egg from it. There are—there were just fifteen eggs under the hay. They are not near so white as are those eight eggs the mamma is sending straight to Mrs. Limberger, but they do have more smooth feels. ”

“ I had seeing of little plant folks just peeping out of the earth to see what they could see. I did have thinks it would be nice to be one of them, and then grow up and have a flower and bees a-coming and seed-children at fall-time. I have thinks this is a very interest world to live in. There is so much to see out the window when teacher does have one to stand in the corner to study one’s lesson. ”

“ I look and I look for Brave Horatius. I go four straight ways and I come back four different ways. When I am come I go back and forth by Jardin des Tuileries and across Pont Royal and adown the singing creek where the willows grow. Lonesome feels are everywhere. ”

“ I did pick out sixteen names and then, being as I could not make decides between them, I did have decides to pick out names for them some other day. And I did begin at once to get that pail all full of elderberries.
When that was come to pass, I set the pail on a little stump. Brave Horatius stayed to guard it, and I did go the way that leads to the hill-top. I did have longings to dance. Most every day I do dance. I dance with the leaves and the grass. I feel thrills from my toes to my curls. I feel like a bird sometimes. ”

“ I did hurry home from school in a quick way in the afternoon of this day. Aidan of Iona come from Lindisfarne has said I may name the little lambs that now are coming. All day I did have thinks about what names to call them by. There are some names I do so like to sing the spell of. Some names I do sing over and over again when I do go on explores. I could hardly wait waits until school-getting-out time. I had remembers how Sadie McKibben says no child should grow a day old without having a name. Now some of those dear baby lambs are two and three days old since their borning-time. ”

“ They fall from the trees. They flutter on the ground. When the brown leaves flutter, they are saying little things. They talk with the wind. I hear them tell of their borning days when they did come into the world as leaves. ”

“ I have feels now it is nice for them to have it; and it is good that they will not have needs to give it up—being as it matches them. Angels do have a goodly amount of wisdom. This is a wonderful world to live in.
When I did say good-bye to Elsie and the charmante baby, I did go to the barn where is the gentle Jersey cow and the baby calf that does match her. That baby calf I have named Mathilde Plantagenet. ”

“ She likes to have her toes tickled. She has likes for it. This baby has likes for many things. She has likes to sit up on the bed. The mamma has me to prop it up so it won’t fall over. And this baby—it has likes to make bubbles with its mouth and to stick its foot in its mouth. It does like to rattle all the rattles the grandma and Jenny Strong and Elsie bring to it. It does have such likes to be rocked. And most of the times when it is awake, it does want to be singed to and carried about. It is a baby that has satisfaction looks on its face for a little time when it gets what it wants. ”

“ Jenny Strong, who comes to visit us, says the reason I like to wear the papa’s big coat is because it makes me more grown-up. She’s wrong. The reason I like to wear the papa’s big coat is because it has pockets in it—big ones—nice ones to put toads and mice and caterpillars and beetles in. That’s why I like to wear the papa’s coat. Why, when I go walking in the papa’s big coat, nearly the whole nursery can go along. This morning, just as I was making a start out the door to the nursery, the mamma came into the kitchen. She did hurry to the door and I did hurry out. ”

“ I peeked in between the fence-rails. Aphrodite was again in the pig-pen. She was snoozing, so I tiptoed over to the rain-barrel by the barn. I raised mosquitoes in the rain-barrel for my pet bats. Aristotle eats more mosquitoes than Plato and Pliny eat.
On my way to the house I met Clementine, the Plymouth Rock hen, with her family. She only has twelve baby chickens now. The grandpa say the other one she did have died of new monia because I gave it too many baths for its health. When I came to the house one of the cats, a black one, was sitting on the doorstep. ”

“ One drinks in so much inspiration while one is dabbling one’s toes in a willow creek. And one does hear the talkings of plants that dwell near unto the water.
While I was dabbling my toes, my legs did have longings to go in wading, but I went not in. Something might have happened to what was left of that dozen eggs the mamma was sending straight [264] to Mrs. Limberger, and that was why I did not go. And I did not take Felix Mendelssohn out of the pocket he was riding in, that he might dabble his toes. I took him not out, for he has no longings to dabble his toes in a brook. ”

“ I think being an earthworm must be an interesting life. I wonder how it feels to stretch out long and then get short again. I went goes on, to pull weeds by the bean-folks. I went back some steps to look looks at them. Those bean-folks in the garden are such climbers. Their thoughts reach up toward the sky. And they climb up on the poles we put in the garden there.
By-and-by I saw another earthworm. He was alone. I did have sees of his movements. I always do see more earthworms after rain. This one was making himself very long. Lucian Horace Ovid Virgil, too, did have seeing of that earthworm. ”

“ Minerva is a very nice hen and it is so nice she has so many children at once. I so do like to pick out names for children. Now I have thinks there is needs for me to hurry to get those christening robes done for her children, being as they are hatching now. On the day of their christening I will carry them in a little basket to the cathedral. There is needs to carry little chickens in a basket, for they are delicate. To-day I did show Minerva the little cap with ruffles on it that I have just made for her to wear to the cathedral at their christening. ”