The story of Opal; the journal of an understanding heart

Front matter

THE JOURNAL OF AN

UNDERSTANDING

HEART

Preface

Vll

The entire diary, of which this volume covers but the two opening years, must comprise a total of a quarter of a million words. Upwards of seventy thousand — all that is contained in this volume — can be ascribed with more than reasonable definiteness to the end of Opal's sixth and to her seventh year. During all these months Opal Whiteley has been a frequent visitor in the Atlantic's office. With friendliness came confidence, and little by little, very gradually, an incident here, another there, her story came to be told. She was at first eager only for the future and for the opportunity to write and teach children of the world which she loved best. But as the thread of the diary was unraveled, she felt a growing interest in what her past had been, and in what lay behind her earliest recollections and the opening chapters of her printed record.

Her methods were nothing if not methodical. First, the framework of a sheet would be fitted and the outer edges squared. Here the adornment of borders in childish patterns, and the fortunate fact that the writer had employed a variety of colored crayons, using each color until it was exhausted, lent an unhoped-for aid. Then, odd sheets were fitted together; later, fragments of episodes. Whenever one was completed, it was typed by an assistant on a card, and in this way there came into being a card-system that would do credit to a scientific museum of modest proportions. Finally the cards were filed in sequence, the manuscript then typed off and printed just as at first written, with no change whatever other than omissions, the adoption of reasonable rules of capitalization (the manuscript for many years has nothing but capitals), and the addition of punctuation, of which the manuscript is entirely innocent. The spelling — with the exception of occasional characteristic examples of the diarist's Individual style — has, in the reader's interest, been widely amended.

Vlll

PREFACE

II

Opal Whiteley — so her story runs — was born about twenty-two years ago — where, we have no knowledge. Of her parents, whom she lost before her fifth year, she is sure of nothing except that they loved her, and that she loved them with a tenacity of affection as strong now as at the time of parting. To recall what manner of people they were, no physical proof remains except, perhaps, two precious little copybooks, which held their photographs and wherein her mother and father had set down things which they wished their little daughter to learn, both of the world about her and of that older world of legend and history, with which the diarist shows such capricious and entertaining familiarity. These books, for reasons beyond her knowledge, were taken away from Opal when she was about twelve years of age, and have never been returned, although there is ground for believing that they are still in existence.

Other curious clues to the identity of her father and mother come from the child's frequent use of French expressions, and sometimes of longer passages in French, and from her ready use of scientific terms. It Is, perhaps, a fair inference that her father was a naturalist by profession or native taste, and that either he or her mother was French by birth or by education.

After her parents' death, there is an interlude in Opal's recollection which she does not understand, remembering only that for a brief season the sweet tradition of her mother's care was carried on by an older woman, possibly a governess, from whom, within a year, she was taken and, after recovering from a serious illness, given to the wife of an Oregon lumberman, lately parted from her first child, — Opal Whiteley, — whose place and name, for reasons quite unknown, were given to the present Opal. *

From some time in her sixth year to the present, her diary has continued without serious interruption; and from the

PREFACE ix

successive chapters we shall see that her life, apart from the gay tranquillity of her spirit, was not a happy one. Her friends were the animals and everything that flies or swims; her single confidant was her diary, to which she confided every trouble and every satisfaction.

When Opal was over twelve years old, a foster-sister, in a tragic fit of childish temper, unearthed the hiding-place of the diary and tore it into a myriad of fragments. The work of years seemed destroyed, but Opal, who had treasured its understanding pages, picked up the pitiful scraps and stored them in a secret box. There they lay undisturbed for many years.

Ill

Such in briefest outline is the story Opal told; and month after month, while chapters of the diary were appearing in the Atlantic, snatches of the same history, together with descriptions of many unrecorded episodes, came in the editor's mail; and though the weaving is of very different texture, the pattern is unmistakably the pattern of the diary. Dates and names, peregrinations and marriages, births, deaths, and adventures less solemn and less apt to be accurately recollected, occurred just as the diary tells them. The existence of the diary itself was well remembered, though for many years Opal had never spoken of it; a friend recalled the calamitous day when the abundant chronicle of six years was destroyed; and a cloud of witnesses bore testimony to the multitudinous family of pets, and some even to the multicolored names they bore. There were many letters besides, which came not to the Atlantic at all, but were part of Opal's own correspondence with people "of understanding," members by instinct of that free-masonry which, as she learned long ago, binds folk of answering hearts and minds. Many of these letters (which rest for safety in the Atlantic's treasury) are messages of thanks for copies of that first book of Opal's —

X PREFACE

engaging letters, very personal most of them, bearing signatures to delight the eyes of collectors of autographs: M. Clemenceau, M. Poincare, Lord Rayleigh, Lord Curzon, members of the French cabinet, scientists, men of letters, men of achievement. Opal has sought her friends all through the world; but her lantern is bright and she has found them. Her old Oregon teachers also have been quick to bear witness to her talents, and to recall the formal lessons which often she would not remember, and the other more necessary lessons which she could not forget. They would ask too whence came the French which they had never taught her. An attempt to answer that would take us far afield. All we need do here is to recall that first time, when Opal, full of puzzlement over letters that simply would not shape themselves into familiar phrases, turned to her editors and was told that they were French.

"But they can't be French! I never studied French."

But French they are, nevertheless.

IV

If the story of Opal were written by another hand than her own, the central theme of it would be faith. No matter how doubtful the enterprise, the issue she always holds as certain, simply because the world is good and God loves his children. Loving herself all created things, from her barrel-full of caterpillars, whose evolution she would note and chronicle from day to day, to the dogs and horses, squirrels, raccoons, and bats which peopled the world she lived in, she would thank God daily for them, and very early in her life determined to devote the rest of it to spreading knowledge of them and of their kind far and wide among little children.

To accomplish this, needed education, and an education she would have. Those about her showed no interest; but by picking berries, washing, and work of all rough sorts. Opal paid for the books which the high school required. But she

PREFACE xi

must do more than this. She must go to college. To the State University she went, counting it nothing that she should live in a room without furniture other than a two-dollar cot, and two coats for blankets. Family conditions, however, made college impossible for her. After the illness and death of Mrs. Whiteley, Opal borrowed a little money from friends in Cottage Grove, Oregon, and started alone for Los Angeles, determined to seek her livelihood by giving nature lessons to classes of children.

The privations and disappointments of the next two years would make an heroic tale; but she persevered, and her classes became successful. The next step was her nature book, for which, by personal canvass for subscriptions, she raised not less than the prodigious sum of $9400. But the printers with a girl for a client, demanded more and still more money, and when the final $600 necessary to make the booty mount to $ 10,000 was not forthcoming, with a brutality that would do credit to a Thenardier, first threatened, and then destroyed the plates.

A struggle for mere existence followed, but gradually Opal triumphed, when she was overtaken by a serious illness and taken to the hospital. New and merciful friends, such as are always conjured up by such a life as Opal's, came to her assistance, and after her recovery she soon started eastward, to find a publisher for her ill-fated volume. The rest we know.

Yet, after all, our theme should not be Opal, but Opal's book. She is the child of curious and interesting circumstance, but of circumstance her journal is altogether independent. The authorship does not matter, nor the life from which it came. There the book is. Nothing else is like it, nor apt to be. If there is alchemy in Nature, it is in children's hearts the unspoiled treasure lies, and for that room of the treasure-house, the Story of Opal off'ers a tiny golden key.

Ellery Sedgwick.

The Atlantic Office, June, 1920.

Contents

Characters in the Narrative xvii

Introduction by the Author i

Chapter I

How Opal Goes along the Road beyond the Singing Creek, and of all she Sees in her New Home 5

Chapter H

How Lars Porsena of Clusium Got Opal into Trouble, and how Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael and Sadie McKibben Gave her Great Comfort 9

Chapter HI

Of the Queer Feels that Came out of a Bottle of Castoria, and of the Happiness of Larry and Jean 14

Chapter IV

How Peter Paul Rubens Goes to School 21

Chapter V

How Opal Comforted Aphrodite, and how the Fairies Comforted Opal when there Was Much Sadness at School 25

Chapter VI

Opal Gives Wisdom to the Potatoes, Cleanliness to the Family Clothes, and a Delicate Dinner to Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus 35

Chapter VII

The Adventure of the Tramper; and what Happens on Long and on Short Days 47

Chapter VIII

How Opal Takes a Walk in the Forest of Chantilly; she Visits Elsie and her Baby Boy, and Explains Many Things to the Girl th^t Has no Seeing 55 xiv CONTENTS

Chapter IX

Of an Exploring Trip with Brave Horatius; and how Opal Kept Sadness away from her Animal Friends 69

Chapter X

How Brave Horatius is Lost and Found again, but Peter Paul Rubens is Lost Forever 75

Chapter XI

How Opal Took the Miller's Brand out of the Flour- Sack, and Got Many Sore Feels thereby; and how Sparks Come on Cold Nights; and how William Shakespeare Has Likings for Poems 81

Chapter XII

Of Elsie's Brand-New Baby, and all the Things that Go with it; and the Goodly Wisdom of the Angels, who Bring Folks Babies that Are like them 91

Chapter XIII

How Felix Mendelssohn and Lucian Horace Ovid Virgil Go for a Ride; William Shakespeare Suffers One Whipping and Opal Another 100

Chapter XIV

How Opal Feels Satisfaction Feels, and Takes a Ride on William Shakespeare; and all that Came of it . 104

Chapter XV

Of Jenny Strong's Visit, its Gladness and its Sadness 114

Chapter XVI

Of the Woods on a Lonesome Day, and the Friendliness of the Wood-Folks on December Days when you Put your Ears Close and Listen 122

Chapter XVII

Of Works to be Done; and how it Was that a Glad Light Came into the Eyes of the Man who Wears Gray Neckties and Is Kind to Mice 1 27

CONTENTS XV

Chapter XVIII

How Opal Pays One Visit to Elsie and Another to Dear Love, and Learns how to Mend her Clothes in a Quick Way 131

Chapter XIX

Of the Camp by the Mill by the Far Woods; of the Spanking that Came from the New Way of Mending Clothes; and of the Long Sleep of William Shakespeare 138

Chapter XX

Of the Little Song-Notes that Dance about Babies; and of the Solemn Christening of Solomon Grundy 146

Chapter XXI

How Opal Names Names of the Lambs of Aidan of lona, and Seeks for the Soul of Peter Paul Rubens 158

Chapter XXII

How Solomon Grundy Falls Sick and Grows Well again; and Minerva's Chickens are Christened; and the Pensee Girl, with the Far-Away Look in her Eyes, Finds Thirty-and-Three Bunches of Flowers 1 65

Chapter XXIII

How Opal and Brave Horatius Go on Explores and Visit the Hospital. — How the Mamma Dyes Clothes and Opal Dyes Clementine 177

Chapter XXIV

How the Mamma's Wish Came True, and how Opal was Spanked for it; and of the Likes which Aphrodite Had for a Clean Place to Live in 185

Chapter XXV

Of Many Washings and a Walk 193 xvi CONTENTS

Chapter XXVI

Why it Was that the Girl who Has no Seeing Was not at Home when Opal Called 197

Chapter XXVH

Of a Cathedral Service in the Pig-Pen. — How the World Looks from a Man's Shoulder 204

Chapter XXVHI

How Opal Piped with Reeds, and what a Good Time Dear Love Gave Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus 212

Chapter XXIX

How Opal Feels the Heat of the Sun, and Decorates a Goodly Number of the White Poker-Chips of the Chore Boy 218

Chapter XXX

How Opal and the Little Birds from the Great Tree Have a Happy Time at the House of Dear Love. . . . 226

Chapter XXXI

How Lola Wears her White Silk Dress at Last 23 1

Chapter XXXII

Of the Ways that Fairies Write, and the Proper Way to Drink in the Song of the Wood 234

Chapter XXXIII

Of the Death of Lars Porsena of Clusium, and of the Comfort that Sadie McKibben can Give 242

Chapter XXXIV Of the Fall of the Great Tree, and the Funeral of Aristotle 249

Chapter XXXV .

How the Man of the Long Step that Whistles Most of the Time Takes an Interesting Walk 253

CONTENTS xvii

Chapter XXXVI

Of Taking-Egg Day, and the Remarkable Things that Befell thereon 259

Chapter XXXVII

Of the Strange Adventure in the Woods on the Going- Away Day of Saint Louis 270

Chapter XXXVIII

How Opal Makes Prepares to Move. How she Collects all the Necessary Things, Bids Good-bye to Dear Love, and Learns that her Prayer has been Answered 271:

Postscript 284

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Opal Whiteley Reconstructing her Diary Frontispiece

The Author and the Fragments of Her Diary . . i

A Specimen Page of Opal's Diary Written on a Paper Bag 13

Lumber-Camp Folk 33

At the Pasture-Bars 78

"After we were across the riviere we went in a more slow way" 108

"i wonder why it is the lumber-camp folk do cut off their overalls where they do meet the

BOOTS " 140

A Path to "Explores" in the Far Woods 187

CHARACTERS IN THE NARRATIVE

Agamemnon Menelaus Dindon, a pet turkey.

Adamnan of Iona, a sheep.

Alan of Bretagne, a fir tree.

Aidan of Zona come from Lindisfarne, the shepherd.

Alberic de Brian^on, a sheep.

Alcuin, a sheep.

Alfric of Canterbury, a sheep.

Anacreon Herodotus, a lamb a little more little than the

other little lamb.

Andromeda, sister hen of Clementine. Anthonya Mundy, Solomon Grundy's little pig sister that has

not got as much curl in her tail as has Solomon Grundy. Aphrodite, the mother-pig, Aristotle, a pet bat who died of eating too many mosquitoes.

Bebe William J ^

Bede of Jarrow, a sheep.

Ben Jonson, one of Minerva's baby chickens.

Brave Horatius, the shepherd dog.

Byron, a fir tree in the lane.

Cassiopee, a neighbor's pig.

Cardinal Richelieu, one of Minerva's baby chickens.

Charlemagne, the most tall tree of all the trees growing

in the lane.

Clementine, a Plymouth Rock hen.

Cynewulf, a sheep.

Dallan Forgaill, a sheep.

Dear Love and her Young Husband, neighbors and dear friends.

xxii CHARACTERS

Edmund Spenser, one of Minerva's baby chickens.

Edward III, a fir tree near the singing creek where the willows grow.

Edward, Prince of Wales, a younger tree growing near unto Edward III.

Edwin of Diera, a sheep.

Elidor, a- sheep.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a pet cow with poetry in her tracks.

Elsie and her Young Husband, neighbors and interesting friends.

Epicurus Pythagoras, a lamb.

Etienne of Blois, a fir tree in the woods.

Felix Mendelssohn, a very dear pet mouse.

Felix of Croyland, a sheep.

Francis Beaumont, one of Minerva's baby chickens.

Geoffroi Chaucer, a little squirrel that was hurt by the

black cat.

GoDEFROi of Bouillon, a fir tree in the woods. Good King Edward I, a fir tree growing in the lane. Grandpere, Mrs. Whiteley's father. Guy de Cavaillon, a sheep.

Gwian, a sheep.

Homer Archimedes Chilon, a little Iamb more big than

all the other lambs.

Hugh Capet, a fir tree growing in the lane.

Isaiah, a plain dog.

Jean de la Fontaine', one of Minerva's baby chickens. Jean Moliere, one of Minerva's baby chickens. Jean Racine, one of Minerva's baby chickens.

CHARACTERS xxili

Jenny Strong, a visitor with an interesting bonnet.

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, a tree growing near

unto Edward III.

John Fletcher, one of Minerva's baby chickens.

Keats, an oak tree in the lane.

Lars Porsena of Clusium, a pet crow with a fondness for

collecting things.

Lionel, Duke of Clarence, a tree growing near unto

Edward IIL Lola, a little girl in school, who had wants for a white silk

dress.

Louis II, le Grand Conde, a wood-mouse with likes to ride

in the sleeve of my red dress.

Louis VI, a grand fir tree in the woods. LuciAN Horace Ovid Virgil, a toad.

"Mamma, The," Mrs. Whiteley.

Marcus Aurelius, a lamb.

Mathilde Plantagenet, the baby calf of the gentle Jersey

cow, that came on the night of the coming of Elsie's baby. Menander Euripides Theocritus Thucydides, a most

dear lamb that had needs to be mothered. Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael, a grand fir tree with an

understanding soul.

Nannerl Mozart, a very shy mouse. Napoleon, the Rhode Island Red rooster. Nicholas Boileau, one of Minerva's baby chickens.

Oliver Goldsmith, one of Minerva's baby chickens.

Orderic, a sheep.

"Papa, The," Mr. Whiteley.

Peace, a mother hen that has got all her children grown up.

Periander Pindar, a lamb.

xxiv CHARACTERS

Peter Paul Rubens, a very dear pet pig. Pius VII, one of Minerva's baby chickens. Plato

■r> / twin bats

Pliny

Plutarch Demosthenes, a lamb.

Queen Eleanor of Castile, a fir tree in the lane growing

by Edward I.

Queen Philippa of Hainault, a fir tree growing by

Edward III,

Raoul de Houdenc, a sheep.

Raymond of Toulouse, a fir tree in the woods.

Sadie McKibben, a comforter in time of trouble. Saint Louis, a fir tree growing in the lane. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of Minerva's baby chickens. Savonarola, a sorrel horse.

Shelley, a fir tree growing in the lane. Sir Francis Bacon, one of Minerva's baby chickens. Sir Philip Sidney, one of Minerva's baby chickens. Sir Walter Raleigh, one of Minerva's baby chickens. Solomon Grundy, a very dear baby pig. Solon Thales, a lamb.

Sophocles Diogenes, a lamb with a short tail and a question-look in his eyes.

Theodore Roosevelt, a fir tree in the lane.

Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus, a most dear velvety

wood-rat.

TiBULLUS Theognis, a fuzzy lamb with very long legs.

William Makepeace Thackeray, a little bird that was hurt.

William Shakespear'e, an old gray horse with an understanding soul.

William Wordsworth, an oak tree in the lane.

The Journal of An Understanding Heart

INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR

Of the days before I was taken to the lumber camps there is Httle I remember. As piece by piece the journal comes together, some things come back. There are references here and there in the journal to things I saw or heard or learned in those days before I came to the lumber camps.

There were walks in the fields and woods. When on these walks, Mother would tell me to listen to what the flowers and trees and birds were saying. We listened together. And on the way she told me poems and other lovely things, some of which she wrote in the two books and also in others which I had not with me in the lumber camps. On the walks, and after we came back, she had me to print what I had seen and what I had heard. After that she told me of different people and their wonderful work on earth. Then she would have me tell again to her what she had told me. After I came to the lumber camp, I told these things to the trees and the brooks and the flowers.

There were five words my mother said to me over and over again, as she had me to print what I had seen and what I had heard. These words were:

What, Where, When, How, Why. They had a very great influence over all my observations and the recording of those observations during all the days of my childhood. And my Mother having put such strong emphasis on these five words accounts for much of the detailed descriptions that are throughout my diary.

No children I knew. There were only Mother and the kind woman who taught me and looked after me and dressed me, and the young girl who fed me. And there was Father in those few days when he was home from the far lands. Those were wonderful days — his home-coming days. Then he would take me on his knee and ride me on his shoulder and tell me of the animals and birds of the far lands. And we went for many walks, and he would talk to me about the things along the way. It was then he taught me comparer.

There was one day when I went with Mother in a boat. It was a little way on the sea. It was a happy day. Then something happened and we were all in the water. Afterward, when I called for Mother, they said the sea waves had taken her and she was gone to heaven. I remember the day because I never saw my Mother again.

The time was not long after that day with Mother in the boat, when one day the kind woman who taught me and took care of me did tell me gently that Father too had gone to heaven while he was away in the far lands. She said she was going to take me to my grandmother and grandfather, the mother and father of my Father.

We started. But I never got to see my dear grandmother and grandfather, whom I had never seen. Something happened on the way and I was all alone. And I did n't feel happy. There were strange people that I had never seen before, and I was afraid of them. They made me to keep very still, and we went for no walks In the field. But we traveled a long, long way.

Then It was they put me with Mrs. Whiteley. The day they put me with her was a rainy day, and I thought she was a little afraid of them too. She took me on the train and in a stage-coach to the lumber camp. She called me Opal Whiteley, the same name as that of another little girl who was the same size as I was when her mother lost her. She took me Into the camp as her own child, and so called me as we lived In the different lumber camps and In the mill town.

With me I took Into camp a small box. In a slide drawer In the bottom of this box were two books which my own Mother and Father, the Angel Father and Mother I always speak of In my diary, had written In. I do not think the people who put me with Mrs. Whiteley knew about the books in the lower part of the box, for they took everything out of the top part of the box and tossed It aside. I picked It up and kept it with me, and, being as I was more quiet with it in my arms, they allowed me to keep It, thinking it was empty. These books I kept always with me, until one day I shall always remember, when I was about twelve years old, they were taken from the box I kept then hid in the woods. Day by day I spelled over and over the many words that were written In them. From them I selected names for my pets. And It was the many little things recorded there that helped me to remember what my Mother and Father had already told me of different great lives and their work; and these books with these records made me very eager to be learning more and more of what was recorded In them. These two books I studied much more than I did my books at school. Their Influence upon my life has been great.

CHAPTER I

How Opal Goes along the Road beyond the Singing Creek, and of all she Sees in her New Home.

To-day the folks are gone away from the house we do live in. They are gone a little way away, to the ranch-house where the grandpa does live. I sit on our steps and I do print. I like it — this house we do live in being at the edge of the near woods. So many little people do live in the near woods. I do have conversations with them. I found the near woods first day I did go explores. That was the next day after we were come here. All the way from the other logging camp in the beautiful mountains we came in a wagon. Two horses were in front of us. They walked in front of us all the way. When first we were come, we did live with some other people in the ranch-house that was n't all builded yet. After that we lived in a tent, and often when it did rain many raindrops came right through the tent. They did fall in patters on the stove and on the floor and on the table. Too, they did make the quilts on the beds some damp — but that did n't matter much because they soon got dried hanging around the stove.

By and by we were come from the tent to this lumber shanty. It has got a divide in it. One room we do have sleeps in. In the other room we do have breakfast and supper. Back of the house are some nice wood-rats. The most lovely of them all is Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus. By the woodshed is a brook. It goes singing on. Its joy song does sing in my heart. Under the house live some mice. I give them bread-scraps to eat. Under the steps lives a toad. He and I — we are friends. I have named him. I call him Lucian Horace Ovid Virgil.

Between the ranch-house and the house we live in is the singing creek where the willows grow. We have conversations. And there I do dabble my toes beside the willows. I feel the feels of gladness they do feel. And often it is I go from the willows to the meeting of the road. That is just in front of the ranch-house. There the road does have divides. It goes three ways. One way the road does go to the house of Sadie McKibben. It does n't stop when it gets to her house, but mostly I do. The road just goes on to the mill town a little way away. In its going it goes over a hill. Sometimes — the times Sadie McKibben is n't at home — I do go with Brave Horatius to the top of the hill. We look looks down upon the mill town. Then we do face about and come again home. Always we make stops at the house of Sadie McKibben. Her house — it is close to the mill by the far woods. That mill makes a lot of noise. It can do two things at once. It makes the noises and also It does saw the logs Into boards. About the mill do live some people, mostly men-folks. There does live the good man that wears gray neckties and is kind to mice.

Another way, the road does go the way I go when I go to the school-house where I go to school. When it is come there, it does go right on — on to the house of the girl who has no seeing. When it gets to her house, it does make a bend, and it does go its way to the blue hills. As it goes, its way is near unto the way of the riviere that sings as it comes from the blue hills. There are singing brooks that come going to the riviere. These brooks — they and I — we are friends. I call them Orne and Loing and Yonne and Rille and Essonne.