Story-Tell Lib

Story-Tell Lib, by Annie
Trumbull Slosson

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Title: Story-Tell Lib
Author: Annie Trumbull Slosson
Release Date: December 1, 2006 [EBook #19989]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Story-Tell Lib
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[Illustration]
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Story-Tell Lib
By Annie Trumbull Slosson
Author of "Fishin' Jimmy"
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK . . . . . 1908
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Copyright, 1900 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS All rights
reserved
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CONTENTS
I. STORY-TELL LIB
II. THE SHET-UP POSY
III. THE HORSE THAT B'LEEVED HE'D GET THERE
IV. THE PLANT THAT LOST ITS BERRY
V. THE STONY HEAD
VI. DIFF'ENT KIND O' BUNDLES
VII. THE BOY THAT WAS SCARET O' DYIN'
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STORY-TELL LIB

I
Story-Tell Lib
That was what everybody in the little mountain village called her. Her
real name, as she often told me, ringing out each syllable proudly in her
shrill sweet voice, was Elizabeth Rowena Marietta York. A stately
name, indeed, for the little crippled, stunted, helpless creature, and I
myself could never think of her by any name but the one the village
people used, Story-tell Lib. I had heard of her for two or three summers
in my visits to Greenhills. The village folk had talked to me of the little
lame girl who told such pretty stories out of her own head, "kind o'
fables that learnt folks things, and helped 'em without bein' too
preachy." But I had no definite idea of what the child was till I saw and
heard her myself. She was about thirteen years of age, but very small
and fragile. She was lame, and could walk only with the aid of a crutch.
Indeed, she could but hobble painfully, a few steps at a time, with that
assistance. Her little white face was not an attractive one, her features
being sharp and pinched, and her eyes faded, dull, and almost
expressionless. Only the full, prominent, rounding brow spoke of a
mind out of the common. She was an orphan, and lived with her aunt,
Miss Jane York, in an old-fashioned farmhouse on the upper road.
Miss Jane was a good woman. She kept the child neatly clothed and
comfortably fed, but I do not think she lavished many caresses or
loving words on little Lib, it was not her way, and the girl led a
lonesome, quiet, unchildlike life. Aunt Jane tried to teach her to read
and write, but, whether from the teacher's inability to impart knowledge,
or from some strange lack in the child's odd brain, Lib never learned
the lesson. She could not read a word, she did not even know her
alphabet. I cannot explain to myself or to you the one gift which gave
her her homely village name. She told stories. I listened to many of
them, and I took down from her lips several of these. They are, as you
will see if you read them, "kind o' fables," as the country folk said.
They were all simple little tales in the dialect of the hill country in
which she lived. But each held some lesson, suggested some truth,
which, strangely enough, the child herself did not seem to see; at least,

she never admitted that she saw or intended any hidden meaning.
I often questioned her as to this after we became friends. After listening
to some tale in which I could discern just the lovely truth which would
best help some troubled soul in her audience, I have questioned her as
to its meaning. I can see now, in memory, the short-sighted,
expressionless eyes of faded blue which met mine as she said, "Don't
mean anything,--it don't. It's jest a story. Stories don't have to mean
things; they're stories, and I tells 'em." That was all she would say, and
the mystery remained. What did it mean? Whence came that strange
power of giving to the people who came to her something to help and
cheer, both help and cheer hidden in a simple little story? Was it, as I
like to think, God-given, a treasure sent from above? Or would you
rather think it an inheritance from some ancestor, a writer, a teller of
tales? Or perhaps you believe in the transmigration of souls, and think
that the spirit of some Æsop of old, who spoke in parables, had entered
the frail crippled body of our little