Once there was a boy that was dreadful scaret o' dyin'. Some folks is
that way, you know; they ain't never done it to know how it feels, and
they're scaret. And this boy was that way. He wa'n't very rugged, his
health was sort o' slim, and mebbe that made him think about sech things
more. 'Tany rate, he was terr'ble scaret o' dyin'. 'Twas a long time
ago this was,--the times when posies and creaturs could talk so's folks
could know what they was sayin'.
And one day, as this boy, his name was Reuben,--I forget his other
name,--as Reuben was settin' under a tree, an ellum tree, cryin', he
heerd a little, little bit of a voice,--not squeaky, you know, but small
and thin and soft like,--and he see 'twas a posy talkin'. 'Twas one o'
them posies they call Benjamins, with three-cornered whitey blowths with
a mite o' pink on 'em, and it talked in a kind o' pinky-white voice, and
it says, "What you cryin' for, Reuben?" And he says, "'Cause I'm scaret
o' dyin'," says he; "I'm dreadful scaret o' dyin'." Well, what do you
think? That posy jest laughed,--the most cur'us little pinky-white laugh
't was,--and it says, the Benjamin says: "Dyin'! Scaret o' dyin'? Why, I
die myself every single year o' my life." "Die yourself!" says Reuben.
"You 're foolin'; you're alive this minute." "'Course I be," says the
Benjamin; "but that's neither here nor there,--I've died every year
sence I can remember." "Don't it hurt?" says the boy. "No, it don't,"
says the posy; "it's real nice. You see, you get kind o' tired a-holdin'
up your head straight and lookin' peart and wide awake, and tired o' the
sun shinin' so hot, and the winds blowin' you to pieces, and the bees
a-takin' your honey. So it's nice to feel sleepy and kind o' hang your
head down, and get sleepier and sleepier, and then find you're droppin'
off. Then you wake up jest 't the nicest time o' year, and come up and
look 'round, and--why, I like to die, I do." But someways that didn't
help Reuben much as you'd think. "I ain't a posy," he think to himself,
"and mebbe I wouldn't come up."
Well, another time he was settin' on a stone in the lower pastur',
cryin' again, and he heerd another cur'us little voice. 'T wa'n't like
the posy's voice, but 'twas a little, wooly, soft, fuzzy voice, and he
see 't was a caterpillar a-talkin' to him. And the caterpillar says, in
his fuzzy little voice, he says, "What you cryin' for, Reuben?" And the
boy, he says, "I'm powerful scaret o' dyin', that's why," he says. And
that fuzzy caterpillar he laughed. "Dyin'!" he says. "I'm lottin' on
dyin' myself. All my fam'ly," he says, "die every once in a while, and
when they wake up they're jest splendid,--got wings, and fly about, and
live on honey and things. Why, I wouldn't miss it for anything!" he
says. "I'm lottin' on it." But somehow that didn't chirk up Reuben much.
"I ain't a caterpillar," he says, "and mebbe I wouldn't wake up at
all."
Well, there was lots o' other things talked to that boy, and tried to
help him,--trees and posies and grass and crawlin' things, that was
allers a-dyin' and livin', and livin' and dyin'. Reuben thought it
didn't help him any, but I guess it did a little mite, for he couldn't
help thinkin' o' what they every one on 'em said. But he was scaret all
the same.
And one summer he begun to fail up faster and faster, and he got so
tired he couldn't hardly hold his head up, but he was scaret all the
same. And one day he was layin' on the bed, and lookin' out o' the east
winder, and the sun kep' a-shinin' in his eyes till he shet 'em up, and
he fell asleep. He had a real good nap, and when he woke up he went out
to take a walk.
And he begun to think o' what the posies and trees and creaturs had said
about dyin', and how they laughed at his bein' scaret at it, and he says
to himself, "Why, someways I don't feel so scaret to-day, but I s'pose I
be." And jest then what do you think he done? Why, he met a Angel. He'd
never seed one afore, but he knowed it right off. And the Angel says,
"Ain't you happy, little boy?" And Reuben says, "Well, I would be, only
I'm so dreadful scaret o' dyin'. It must be terr'ble cur'us," he says,
"to be dead." And the Angel says, "Why, you be dead." And he was.
* * * * *
The story of the boy that was scaret o' dyin' was the last story that
little Lib ever told us. We saw her sometimes after that, but she was
not strong enough to talk much. She sat no longer now in the low chair
under the maples, but lay on a chintz-covered couch in the sitting-room,
by the west windows. The once shrilly-sweet voice with its clear bird
tones was but a whisper now, as she told us over and again, while she
lay there, that she would tell us a new story "to-morrow." It was always
"to-morrow" till the end came. And the story was to be, so the whisper
went on, "the beautif'lest story,--oh, you never did!" And its name was
to be,--what a faint and feeble reproduction of the old triumphant
announcement of a new title!--"The Posy Gardin' that the King Kep'."
She never told us that story. Before the autumn leaves had fallen, while
the maples in front of the farmhouse were still red and glorious in
their dying beauty, we laid our little friend to rest. Perhaps she will
tell us the tale some day. I am sure there will be "a Angel" in
it,--sure, too, that the story will have a new and tender meaning if we
hear it there, that story of the King and of the posy gardin' he kep'.
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