The Boy that was Scaret o’ Dyin’
VII
I Have told you that little Lib was a delicate child, and that she grew more and more fragile and weak as the summer went on. In the hot, dry days of August she drooped like a thirsty flower, and her strength failed very fast. Her voice, though still sweet and clear, lost its shrillness, and one had to draw very close to the little speaker that he might not lose a word of the stories she told. Aunt Jane York often came out to us now, anxious and fussy, talking fretfully of and to little Lib, feeling the small hands and feet to see if they were cold, and drawing the shawl closer around the wasted form. I know she loved the little girl, and perhaps she wished now that she had shown that love more tenderly. She talked freely, in the very presence of the child, of her rapid decline and the probability that she would not “last long.” Lib said nothing concerning her own condition, and showed no sign of having heard her aunt’s comments. But one day, when Miss York, after speaking very freely and plainly of the child’s approaching end, had gone indoors, Lib announced, in a low, sweet voice, a new story.
The Boy that was Scaret o’ Dyin’
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.