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# Preface
For those whom Nature loves, the Story of Opal is an open book.
[Opal was] the child of curious and interesting circumstance, but of
circumstance her journal is altogether independent. ... 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
offers a tiny golden key.
[Opal's birth mother liked to show and explain nature to Opal on
walks in the fields and woods. She asked Opal to write what she had
seen and heard. Opal's mother died in a boating accident. Opal was
given to the wife of an Oregon lumber-man who named Opal Whiteley
after their recently deceased daughter. Opal's foster mother
frequently spanked and punished her by putting her under the bed.
Opal's school teacher also frequently disciplined her.
Opal was a spirited child who had sympathy for plants, animals,
bodies of water, hungry tramps, and the world at large. She often
expressed gratitude for being alive in this magical world. More than
once, she wrote that when she grew up, she wanted to write books for
children. She named individual trees and had conversations with them.
Opal was, perhaps wrongfully, diagnosed with schizophrenia and lived
50 years of her adult life in a mental institution.
]
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Opal frequently uses the word "print" to mean "write."
# Chapter 6
Earth-voices are glad voices, and earth-songs come up from the ground
through the plants; and in their flowering and in the days before
these days are come, they do tell the earth-songs to the wind. And
the wind in her goings does whisper them to folks to print for other
folks. So other folks do have knowing of earth's songs. When I grow
up I am going to write for children—and grown-ups that haven't
grown up too much—all the earth-songs I now do hear.
I have thinks these potatoes growing here did have knowings of
star-songs. I have kept watch in the field at night and I have seen
the stars look kindness down upon them. And I have walked between
the rows of potatoes, and I have watched the star-gleams on their
leaves. And I have heard the wind ask of them the star-songs the
star-gleams did tell in shadows on their leaves. And as the wind did
go walking in the field talking to the earth-voices there, I did
follow her down the rows. I did have feels of her presence near.
And her goings by made ripples on my nightgown.
# Chapter 14
I so do love trees. I have thinks I was once a tree growing in the
forest; now all trees are my brothers.
# Chapter 16
It is lonesome feels I have. But I do try to have thinks as how I
can bring happiness to folks about. That is such a help when
lonesome feels do come. Angel Mother did say, "Make earth glad,
little one—that is the way to keep the fire-tongue of the glad song
ever in your heart. It must not go out." I so do try to keep it
there. I so do try, for it is helps on cold days and old days. And
I did have remembers as how it was Angel Mother did say, "When one
keeps the glad song singing in one's heart then do the hearts of
others sing."
And all the time the lichen folks are saying things. And the things
they say are their thoughts about the gladness of a winter day. I
put my ear close to the rocks and I listen. That is how I do hear
what they are saying. Then I do take a reed for a flute. I climb on
a stump—on the most high stump that is near. I pipe on the flute
to the wind what the lichens are saying. I am piper for the lichens
that dwell on the gray rocks, and the lichens that cling to the trees
grown old.
# Chapter 29
[After Opal finished her morning chores, she was about to go out
exploring. Her foster mother grabbed her and tied her up in the wood
shed. Opal overheated in the noon sun and became nauseous and
light-headed. She got a bloody nose and it got on her hair and
clothes.]
Every day now I do look for thoughts in flowers. Sometimes they are
hidden away in the flower-bell—and sometimes I find them on a wild
rose—and sometimes they are among the ferns—and sometimes I climb
away up in the trees to look looks for them. So many thoughts do
abide near unto us. They come from heaven and live among the flowers
and the ferns, and often I find them in the trees. I do so love to
go on searches for the thoughts that do dwell near about.
author: Whiteley, Opal Stanley |
