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 anything, he never helped 'em
or done a thing for 'em, 'cause he was a-lookin' every single minute at
that head, and seein' how stony and hard it was, and bein' scaret of it
and the One he thought it looked like.
Folks that was in trouble come along and knocked at his door, and he
never opened it a mite, even to see who was there. Sheep and lambs that
had got lost come a-strayin' into his yard, but he never took 'em in,
nor showed 'em the way home. He wa'n't no good to nobody, not even to
hisself, for he was terr'ble unhappy and scaret and angry. So 't went on,
oh! I d'know how long, years and years, I guess likely, and there the
man was shet up all alone, lookin' and lookin', and scaret at lookin' at
that ha'sh, hard, stony face and head. But one day, as he was settin'
there by the winder lookin', he heerd a little sound. I d'know what made
him hear it jest then. There'd been sech sounds as that time and time
ag'in, and he never took no notice. 'Twas like a child a-cryin', and
that's common enough.
But this time it seemed diff'ent, and he couldn't help takin' notice. He
tried not to hear it, but he had to. 'T was a little child a-cryin' as
if it had lost its way and was scaret, and the man found he couldn't
stand it somehow. Mebbe the reason was he'd had a little boy of his own
once, and he lost him. Now I think on 't, that was one o' the things he
blamed on God, and thought about when he looked at the Stone Head.
Anyway, he couldn't stand this cryin' that time, and he started up, and,
fust thing he knowed, he'd opened the door and gone out. He hadn't been
out in the sunshine and the air for a long spell, and it made his head
swimmy at fust. But he heerd the little cryin' ag'in, and he run along
on to find the child. But he couldn't find it; every time he'd think he
was close to it, he'd hear the cryin' a little further off. And he'd go
on and on, a-stumblin' over stones and fallin' over logs and a-steppin'
into holes, but stickin' to it, and forgettin' everything only that
little cryin' voice ahead of him. Seems 's if he jest must find that
little lost boy or girl, 's if he'd be more 'n willin' to give up his own
poor lonesome old life to save that child. And, jest 's he come to
thinkin' that, he see somethin' ahead of him movin' and in a minute he
knowed he'd found the lost child.
'Fore he thought what he was a-doin', he got down on his knees jest's he
used to do 'fore he got angry at God, and was goin' to thank him for
helpin' him to save that child. Then he rec'lected. It come back to him
who God was, and how he'd seed his head, with the ha'sh stony face up on
the mountain, and that made him look up to see it ag'in.
And oh! what do you think he see? There was the same head up there,--he
couldn't make a mistake about that,--but the face, oh! the face was so
diff'ent. It wasn't ha'sh nor hard nor dark any more. There was such a
lovin', beautiful, kind sort o' look on it now. Some ways it made the
man think a mite of the way his father, that had died ever so long ago,
used to look at him when he was a boy, and had been bad, and then was
sorry and 'shamed. Oh, 't was the beautif'lest face you never see! "Oh!
what ever does it mean?" says the man out loud. "What's changed that
face so? Oh! what in the world's made it so diff'ent?" And jest that
minute a Angel come up close to him. 'T was a little young Angel, and I
guess mebbe 't was what he'd took for a lost child, and that he'd been
follerin' so fur. And the Angel says, "The face ain't changed a mite.
'Twas jest like that all the time, only you're lookin' at it from a
diff'ent p'int." And 'twas so, and he see it right off. He'd been
follerin' that cryin' so fur and so long that he'd got into a diff'ent
section o' country, and he'd got a diff'ent view, oh! a terr'ble
diff'ent view, and he never went back.