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But one day, afore she'd got very old, 'fore she'd dried up or fell off, or anything like that, she see somebody comin' along her way. 'Twas a man, and he was lookin' at all the posies real hard and partic'lar, but he wasn't pickin' any of 'em. Seems 's if he was lookin' for somethin' diff'rent from what he see, and the poor little shet-up posy begun to wonder what he was arter.
The first story I ever heard the child tell was one of those which seemed to hold comfort and cheer for herself or for humble little souls like her. It was a story of the closed gentian, the title of which she announced, as she always did, loudly, and with an amusing little air of self-satisfaction. The Shet-up Posy Once there was a posy.
"Will you have to pick me to pieces?" says the shet-up posy. "No, ma'am," says the man; "I've got a way o' tellin', the one I work for showed me." The shet-up posy never knowed what he done to her. I don't know myself, but 'twas somethin' soft and pleasant, that didn't hurt a mite, and then the man he says, "Well, well, well!"
That's all he said, but he took her up real gentle, and begun to carry her away. "Where be ye takin' me?" says the shet-up posy. "Where ye belong," says the man; "to the gardin o' the one I work for," he says. "I didn't know I was nice enough inside," says the shet-up posy, very soft and still. "They most gen'ally don't," says the man. The Horse that B'leeved he'd Get there
Bimeby she braced up, and she asked him about it in her shet-up, whisp'rin' voice. And says he, the man says: "I'm a-pickin' posies. That's what I work at most o' the time. 'T ain't for myself," he says, "but the one I work for. I'm on'y his help. I run errands and do chores for him, and it's a partic'lar kind o' posy he's sent me for to-day." "What for does he want 'em?" says the shet-up posy.
Makes you think real hard, that does; leastways, makes me. What's they that way for? If they ain't never goin' to open out, what's the use o' havin' the shet-up part so slicked up and nice, with nobody never seem' it? Folks has different names for 'em, dumb foxgloves, blind genshuns, and all that, but I allers call 'em the shet-up posies.
And the shet-up posy felt real bad; not mean and hateful and begrudgin', you know, and wantin' to take away the nice part from the other posies, but sorry, and kind o' 'shamed. "Oh, deary me!" she says, I most forgot to say 'twas a girl posy, "deary me, what a humly, skimpy, awk'ard thing I be!
Let me say here that often the little parables seemed meant to cheer and lift up Lib's own trembling soul, shut up in the frail, crippled body. Meant, I say; perhaps that is not the right word. For did she mean anything by these tales, at least consciously? Be that as it may, certain of these little stories seemed to touch her own case strangely. The Shet-up Posy
I got to find a posy that's handsomer inside than 't is outside, one that folks ain't took no notice of here, 'cause 'twas kind o' humly and queer to look at, not knowin' that inside 'twas as handsome as any posy on the airth. Seen any o' that kind?" says the man. Well, the shet-up posy was dreadful worked up. "Deary dear!" she says to herself, "now if they'd on'y finished me off inside!
I'm the right kind outside, humly and queer enough, but there's nothin' worth lookin' at inside, I'm certin sure o' that." But she didn't say this nor anything else out loud, and bimeby, when the man had waited, and didn't get any answer, he begun to look at the shet-up posy more partic'lar, to see why she was so mum.
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