She picked him up; and the moment she touched him there was an awful transformation. Even Dimple saw it was only a parsnip,—a pronged, ill-shaped, tough old parsnip.
But that night something happened which Dimple never forgot. The old Parsnip-Man came to his bed and spoke to him. But I regret to say that he used many large words which Dimple could not understand.
“Kind sir,” said he, “naturally we are a fine and shapely race,—we, and our cousins the Beets and the Carrots and the Salsify. If we are brought up, as every new generation ought to be, with tender surroundings, and kept out of the company of stones and clods and weeds, we have a dear promise that many of us shall be placed on the dinner-table when children eat, and be changed into rosy cheeks, and white arms, and handsome young bodies, and live a long, merry life above ground in the sunshine. But if we are neglected by those upon whom we are dependent, we are changed underground, and become horrid old fellows, with ugly faces; and when we are pulled up, we are carted away and fed to cattle.
“Do you know what it must be to be fed to cattle?” he roared.
And then, after a moment, he smiled mournfully. “A word to the wise,” he said. The low, pleading tone floated all about Dimple like a cool, green leaf. When he looked up to ask what the “Word” was, the Parsnip-Man had disappeared.
Dimple told his mamma in the morning. Mamma knew the “Word” very well. She said it was too bad, and she would have the parsnip-bed hoed that very day.
HOW DORR FOUGHT.
BY SALOME.