and tight.
Nobody'd ever dream't was pretty inside. And the funniest thing, it
didn't know 'twas so itself! It thought 'twas a mistake somehow, thought
it had oughter been a posy, and was begun for one, but wa'n't finished,
and 'twas terr'ble unhappy. It knew there was pretty posies all 'round
there, goldenrod and purple daisies and all; and their inside was the
right side, and they was proud of it, and held it open, and showed the
pretty lining, all soft and nice with the little fuzzy yeller threads
standin' up, with little balls on their tip ends. 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! I ain't
more 'n half made; there ain't no nice, pretty lining inside o' me, like
them other posies; and on'y my wrong side shows, and that's jest plain
and common. I can't chirk up folks like the goldenrod and daisies does.
Nobody won't want to pick me and carry me home. I ain't no good to
anybody, and I never shall be."

So she kep' on, thinkin' these dreadful sorry thinkin's, and most
wishin' she'd never been made at all. You know 't wa'n't jest at fust
she felt this way. Fust she thought she was a bud, like lots o' buds all
'round her, and she lotted on openin' like they did. But when the days
kep' passin' by, and all the other buds opened out, and showed how
pretty they was, and she didn't open, why, then she got terr'ble
discouraged; and I don't wonder a mite.

She'd see the dew a-layin' soft and cool on the other posies' faces, and
the sun a-shinin' warm on 'em as they held 'em up, and sometimes she'd
see a butterfly come down and light on 'em real soft, and kind o' put
his head down to 'em, 's if he was kissin' 'em, and she thought 'twould
be powerful nice to hold her face up to all them pleasant things. But
she couldn't.

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. Bimeby she braced up, and she asked
him about it in her shet-up, whisp'ri