'live, so kind o' young every way. Fust off she didn't think o' anything
but that, how good and well she felt, and how beautiful things was all
'round her. Then all of a suddent she rec'lected her little berry, and
she says to herself, "Oh, dear, dear me! If only my own little berry
was here to see me now, and know how I feel!" She thought she said it to
herself, but mebbe she talked out loud, for, jest as she said it,
somebody answered her. 'T was a Angel, and he says, "Why your little
berry does see you,--look there." And she looked, and she see he was
p'intin' to the beautif'lest little plant you never see,--straight and
nice, with little bits o' soft green leaves, with the sun a-shinin'
through 'em, and,--well, somehow, you never can get it through your head
how mothers take in things,--she knowed cert'in sure that was her little
berry.

The Angel begun to speak. He was goin' to explain how, if she hadn't
never lost her berry, 'twouldn't never 'a' growed into this pretty
plant, but, he see, all of a suddent, that he needn't take the trouble.
She showed in her face she knowed all about it,--every blessed thing. I
tell ye, even angels ain't much use explainin' when there's mothers, and
it's got to do with their own child'en. Yes, the mother plant see it
all, without tellin'. She was jest a mite 'shamed but she was terr'ble
pleased.

The Stony Head

V

When little Lib told the story I give below, Deacon Zenas Welcome was
one of the listeners. The deacon was a son of old Elder Welcome who had
been many years before the pastor of the little church in a neighboring
village. Elder Welcome was one of the old-fashioned sort not so common
in these days, a good man, but stern and somewhat harsh. He preached
only the terrors of the law, dwelt much upon the doctrines, the decrees,
election, predestination, and eternal punishment, and rarely lingered
over such themes as the fatherhood of God, his love to mankind, and his
wonderful gift to a lost world. The son followed in his father's
footsteps. He was a hard, austere, melancholy man, undemonstrative and
reticent, shutting out all brightness from his own life, and clouding
many an existence going on around him. I have always thought that his
unwonted presence among us that day had a purpose, and that he had come
to spy out some taint of heterodoxy in Lib's tales, to reprove and
condemn. He went away quietly, however, when the story was ended, and we
heard nothing of