_How Lars Porsena of Clusium Got Opal into Trouble, and how Michael
Angelo Sanzio Raphael and Sadie McKibben Gave her Great Comfort._
To-day was a warm, hot day. It was warm in the morning and hot at
noon. Before noon and after noon and after that, I carried water
to the hired men in the field in a jug. I got the water out of the
pump to put into the jug. I had to put water in the pump before any
would come out. The men were glad to have that water in the jug.
While I was taking the water in the jug to the men in the field, from
her sewing-basket Lars Porsena of Clusium took the mamma’s thimble,
and she did n’t have it and she could n’t find it. She sent me to
watch out for it in the house and in the yard and everywhere. 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
could n’t help feeling she ought to have given me thanks for finding
the thimble.
Afterwards I made little vases out of clay. I put them in the oven
to bake. The mamma found my vases of clay. She threw them out the
window. When I went to pick them up, they were broken. I felt sad
inside. I went to talk things over with my chum, Michael Angelo
Sanzio Raphael. He is that most tall fir tree that grows just back
of the barn. I scooted up the barn door. From there I climbed onto
the lower part of the barn roof. I walked up a ways. Up there I took
a long look at the world about. One gets such a good wide view of
the world from a barn roof. After, I looked looks in four straight
ways and four corner ways. I said a little prayer. I always say a
little prayer before I jump off the barn into the arms of Michael
Angelo Sanzio Raphael, because that jump is quite a long jump, and
if I did not land in the arms of Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael, I
might get my leg or neck broken. That would mean I’d have to keep
still a long time. Now I think that would be the most awful thing
that could happen, for I do so love to be active. So I always say
a little prayer and do that jump in a careful way. To-day, when I
did jump, I did land right proper in that fir tree. It is such a
comfort to nestle up to Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael when one is
in trouble. He is such a grand tree. He has an understanding soul.
After I talked with him and listened unto his voice, I slipped down
out of his arms. I intended to slip into the barn corral, but I
slid off the wrong limb in the wrong way. I landed in the pig-pen
on top of Aphrodite, the mother-pig. She gave a peculiar grunt. It
was not like those grunts she gives when she is comfortable.
I felt I ought to do something to make up to her for having come into
her home out of the arms of Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael instead of
calling on her in the proper way. I decided a good way to make it up
to her would be to pull down the rail fence in that place where the
pig-pen is weak, and take her for a walk. I went to the wood-shed.
I got a piece of clothes-line rope. While I was making a halter for
the mother-pig, I took my Sunday-best hair-ribbon--the blue ribbon
the Uncle Henry gave to me. I made a bow on that halter. I put the
bow just over her ears. That gave her the proper look. When the
mamma saw us go walking by, she took the bow from off the pig. She
put that bow in the trunk; me she put under the bed.
By-and-by--some time long it was--she took me from under the bed and
gave me a spanking. She did not have time to give me a spanking when
she put me under the bed. She left me there until she did have time.
After she did it she sent me to the ranch-house to get milk for the
baby. I walked slow through the oak grove, looking for caterpillars.
I found nine. Then I went to the pig-pen. The chore boy was fixing
back the rails I had pulled down. His temper was quite warm. He was
saying prayer words in a very quick way. I went not near unto him.
I slipped around near Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael. 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. I have not friendly feelings
for that big black cat. Day before the day that was yesterday I saw
him kill the mother hummingbird. He knocked her with his paw when
she came to the nasturtiums. I did n’t even speak to him.
Just as I was going to knock on the back door for the milk, I heard
a voice on the front porch. It was the voice of a person who has an
understanding soul. I hurried around to the front porch. There was
Sadie McKibben with a basket on her arm. She beamed a smile at me. I
went over and nestled up against her blue gingham apron with cross
stitches on it. The freckles on Sadie McKibben’s wrinkled face are as
many as are the stars in the Milky Way, and she is awful old--going
on forty. Her hands are all brown and cracked like the dried-up
mud-puddles by the roadside in July, and she has an understanding
soul. She always has bandages ready in her pantry when some of my
pets get hurt. There are cookies in her cookie-jar when I don’t get
home for meals, and she allows me to stake out earthworm claims in
her back yard.
[Photograph: A SPECIMEN PAGE OF OPAL’S DIARY WRITTEN ON A PAPER
BAG]
She walked along beside me when I took the milk home. When she came
near the lane, she took from her basket wrapping-papers and gave
them to me to print upon. Then she kissed me good-bye upon the cheek
and went her way to her home. I went my way to the house we live in.
After the mamma had switched me for not getting back sooner with the
milk, she told me to fix the milk for the baby. The baby’s bottle
used to be a brandy bottle, but it evoluted into a milk bottle when
they put a nipple onto it.
I sit here on the doorstep printing this on the wrapping-paper Sadie
McKibben gave me. The baby is in bed asleep. The mamma and the rest
of the folks is gone to the ranch-house. When they went away, she
said for me to stay in the doorway to see that nothing comes to
carry the baby away. By the step is Brave Horatius. At my feet is
Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus. I hear songs--lullaby songs of the
trees. The back part of me feels a little bit sore, but I am happy
listening to the twilight music of God’s good world. I’m real glad
I’m alive.