THE MANNERS TART.
Reading edition
An old and worn out Tart once sat on the pantry shelf and as it dried and stiffened, thus it soliloquized: “In my youth men fought over me, not to possess me, but that each should pass me to his neighbor.
“I was a fair Tart, greatly to be prized, but the manners of all were such that I was left alone on the table, the last of my kind, the Manners Tart, and they all withdrew, feigning indifference.
“The cook, having made many of my brethren, cared not for me, so I, created to rejoice the soul of man, sit here, a cold and cheerless thing at which the rats gnaw nightly.
“There was a little boy at the table, but why speak of him? He stretched out his hand for me, but detecting a slight frown between the eyebrows of his mother, he withdrew it and my chance was gone.
“The little boy was the only one that sympathized with me; he knew that a Tart is short lived at best; that the only modest ambition of a Tart is to gladden some one in life and to overhear a few words of praise as it passes away.
“But alas! I am a failure, and all because I move in a circle that makes a merit of self-sacrifice. I do not understand such things, but——” here a pang of mold struck to the Tart’s heart and it relapsed into unconsciousness.
If it had understood it would have said—“there are many joys in the world that die unrejoiced over because no man will have the courage to do what he wants to do.”
Clara Cahill Park.
Detroit, August, 1895.
