Opal Whiteley

“ And Brave Horatius came a-following after. As we did go along, we did have listens to the voices of the trees and grass. The girl that has no seeing is learning to have hearing of what the grasses say and of the waters of the brooks that tell the hill songs. Too, she is learning to see things. She shuts her eyes when I shut mine. We go on journeys together. We ride in a cloud—in a fleecy white one that does sail away over the hills. We look down on beautiful earth, and we see Nonette and Iraouaddy and Launette and forêt d'Ermenonville and Aunette and forêt de Chantilly
and Saint Firmin. ”

“ All the pennies that the man that wears gray neckties and is kind to mice does give to me I save. I put them in the corner of the wood-shed where Brave Horatius sleeps at night. I think I have most enough pennies to buy her a singing lesson now. I have nineteen pennies. And when I grow up I am going to buy her a whole rain-barrel full of singing lessons.
And then I did have thinks as how to-morrow I will be taking Elizabeth Barrett Browning to visit the girl who has no seeing. They do both have likings for one another. The girl who has no seeing has an understanding soul. ”

“ He has longs for Lars Porsena of Clusium to come perch on his back. And the winds are calling, and between the callings of the wind the willows do call down by the creek. They beckon and call to the soul of Lars Porsena of Clusium.
The clouds go slow across the sky. The water goes slow in the brook. No one seems to be in a hurry. Even the wind walks slow. I think she wears a silk robe to-day. ”

“ When the guirlande is made, I do put it around the neck of William Shakespeare. He does have appreciations. As we go walking down the lane, I do talk with him about the one he is named for. And he does have understanding. He is such a beautiful gray horse, and his ways are ways of gentleness. Too, he does have likings like the likings I have for the hills that are beyond the fields—for the hills where are trails and tall fir trees like the wonderful ones that do grow by the road. ”

“ Mice and toads do have such beautiful eyes. I saw two caterpillars on an ear of corn after I turned the tassels back. All along the way I kept hearing voices. Little leaves were whispering, "Come, petite Françoise," over in the lane. I saw another mouse with beautiful eyes. Then I saw a man and woman coming across the field. The man was carrying a baby.
Soon I met them. It was Larry and Jean and their little baby. They let me pat the baby's hand and smooth back its hair, for I do so love babies. ”

“ The existence of the diary itself was well remembered, though for many years Opal had never spoken of it; a friend recalled the calamitous day when the abundant chronicle of six years was destroyed; and a cloud of witnesses bore testimony to the multitudinous family of pets, and some even to the multicolored names they bore. There were many letters besides, which came not to the Atlantic at all, but were part of Opal's own correspondence with people "of understanding," members by instinct of that free-masonry which, as she learned long ago, binds folk of answering hearts and minds. ”

“ Some have knowing of the needs I do have for scraps in the nursery and the hospital. 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. ”

“ Jenny Strong has little ruffles around the neck of that dress, like the little ruffles that was around the neck of the man with the glove when Titian made his picture. Those ruffles on the neck of the gray dress of Jenny Strong did look like it was their joy to cuddle up against the back of her black bonnet.
That black bonnet has a pink rosebud on it, and every time that Jenny Strong does give her head a nod, that pink rosebud does give itself a nod. It must be interest to be a pink rosebud on a black bonnet that Jenny Strong wears. ”

“ When he sat down on a log with the dear pig, I said I had fears Solomon Grundy was sick. He said he did too. But he smoothed my curls back and he said, "Don't you worry; he will get well." 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. ”

“ 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 Connctable. 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 did sing to it le chant de fleurs
that Angel Father did teach me to sing of hyacinthe, éclaire, nenufar, rose, iris et dauphinelle et oléandre et romarin, lis, eglantier, anemone, narcisse et souci. I did sing it four times over, and the baby did go to sleeps again. I do so love to watch it in its cradle. Afterwards I went to look for thoughts. Every day now I do look for thoughts in flowers. Some times they are hidden away in the flower-bell—and sometimes I find them on a wild rose—and sometimes they are among the ferns—and sometimes I climb away up in the trees to look looks for them. ”

“ I do wonder if potato plants do have longings to dabble their toes. I have supposes they do just like I do. Being a
potato must be interest—specially the having so many eyes. I have longings for more eyes. There is much to see in this world all about. Every day I do see beautiful things everywhere I do go. To-day it was near eventime—the time I did have all those potatoes ready for plants. Then I did go to see Solomon Grundy in the pig-pen. I did take a sugar-lump in my apron pocket for his dear mother, Aphrodite. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of her parents, whom she lost before her fifth year, she is sure of nothing except that they loved her, and that she loved them with a tenacity of affection as strong now as at the time of parting. To recall what manner of people they were, no physical proof remains except, perhaps, two precious little copybooks, which held their photographs and wherein her mother and father had set down things which they wished their little daughter to learn, both of the world about her and of that older world of legend and history, with which the diarist shows such capricious and entertaining familiarity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As quick as I did eat my breakfast, the mamma did set out the lard-pail on the wash-bench with a dozen eggs in it. As quick as she did so, I put on my sun-bonnet. It is blue and has a ruffle on it. Sometimes I wear it on my head, but most times it hangs back over my shoulders. And often I carry it over my arm with things in it—earthworms for baby birds, bandages for the folks that get hurt, and mentholatum in quinine boxes. Then too on exploration trips my chums ride in it. Sometimes it's a mouse and sometimes it's a beetle. ”

“ There are nine more white poker-chips in a little pile under the root of a stump close by the old log. These nine white poker-chips are waiting waits to have portraits made on them. When I do get portraits made on most all the white poker-chips I do have, then one of the logging men at the mill by the far woods does give me more white poker-chips to draw more pictures of Aphrodite and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and all of us on. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. I do so. In between times I print, and I do spell over and over the words in my two books Angel Father and Angel Mother did make. I sing-song the letters of the words when I go adown the road. So I do when I am in the house when the mamma is n't at home. I do not so when she is at home, because she won't let me.
Now Elizabeth Barrett Browning is calling me out in the pasture. I expect she wants an apple or a sugar-lump. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Little gray one of the black cap has likes for suet. And other folks has likes for other things.
There is a little box in the woods that I do keep things for the pheasants and grouses and squirrels and more little birds and wood-mouses and wood-rats. In fall-time days Peter Paul Rubens did come here with me when I did bring seeds and nuts to this box for days of hiver. When we were come to the box, I did have more thinks of him. I think the soul of Peter Paul Rubens is not afar. I think it is in the forest. I go looking for it. I climb up in the trees. I call and call. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I know how Lars Porsena of Clusium has a fondness for collecting things of bright colors, like unto my fondness for collecting rocks; so I ran to his hiding-place in the old oak tree. There I found the mamma's thimble; but she said the pet crow's having taken it was as though I had taken it, because he was my property; so I got a spanking with the hazel switches that grow near unto our back steps. Inside me I couldn't help feeling she ought to have given me thanks for finding the thimble. ”

“ It was just an invitation to make Solomon Grundy's portrait there by her side, and no needs of taking him out of the pig-pen.
I told her yes, I would make his portrait right there by her, and I did bring many brown bracken ferns after I did have the pig-pen cleaned out. Most every day I do give the pig-pen a rake-out, and bring some clean dirt from the garden. I have thinks pigs do have likes for clean places to live in. It brings more inspirations to their souls. And, too, every day Aphrodite does have likes for her feeding-trough to be scrubbed clean all over. ”