2020-03-02 - The Story of Opal by Opal Stanley Whiteley ======================================================= The Story of Opal, The Journal of an Understanding Heart by Opal ================================================================ Stanley Whiteley ================ Image of Opal Whiteley mural in Cottage Grove Beauty Attends: The Heartsongs of Opal Whiteley by Anne Hills 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. ] 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 detail: LOC: PS3545.H625 source: tags: biography,ebook,non-fiction,outdoor title: The Story of Opal Tags ==== biography ebook non-fiction outdoor