reproof or condemnation.

The Stony Head

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, an