JANUARY 21: Poor Prunes
“My life is a sad one,” said the stewed prune.
“How is that?” asked the orange, near by.
“Oh, dear, no one loves me. People usually eat me when they can’t get anything else.”
“But I saw them eat you, and buy you, of course I mean members of your illustrious prune family, when a member of my family was around.”
“Once in a while that happens,” said the prune, “but it is very, very seldom. One morning,” continued the prune, “some one at the breakfast table apologized and said, ‘I’m sorry, but we only have prunes this morning.’
“Wasn’t that sad? Enough to break the poor heart of a prune.”
“You haven’t a heart, prune, dear; you only have a stone as your heart—heart of stone—that means hard-hearted, and so forth,” said the orange.
“Ah, but that’s wrong,” said the prune. “I felt dreadfully to think that such a thing should be said of us. ‘Sorry, but we only have prunes.’ You’d have thought she had said, ‘Sorry, but we only have bricks for breakfast,’ from the tone in which she said it.
“And then what was our joy and a thing the family has never forgotten nor ever will forget when in reply the person at the table said she actually and really liked prunes.
“That event will be put down as the greatest event that has happened in a long time.
“And following that great event are a number of others, and we plan to erect a monument made of prune stones and made only of those stones left by people who’ve enjoyed the prunes!
“Isn’t that a good idea?”
“Yes, indeed,” said the orange.
Just then the orange was called for and the prune with its brothers and sisters stayed behind.
“Poor prunes,” cried the prune who had been talking, “our great monument may not go up so fast as for a moment I had hopes that it would.
“Ah, well, we have the ever-ready prune juice to receive the sad tears of the prunes.” And then they sang this ditty: