“It’s all right to be a winter vegetable or to be a summer vegetable, and it’s all right to be any kind of a vegetable at all a vegetable wishes to be,” said the squash, “but it’s sad above everything to be a squash.”
“And why so?” asked one of the potatoes.
“Because there is something flat about being a squash.
“Just think of the family name, for example—squash! Doesn’t it sound flat and squashed and trampled upon and walked upon and squashed down flat? It has such a hopeless sound!”
“It does sound that way,” said the potato. “But still you aren’t all trampled upon and squashed down flat. In fact, I don’t know that I ever saw folks going around and trampling upon you. To be sure, your name has a flat, trampled-upon sound.”
“And, oh, dear,” said the squash, “we’re such a dull sort of family. There is no interest to us. We’re not fascinating and pretty, like the tomatoes, and we’re not even loved by some and hated by others, like the cucumbers.
“They are interesting, for they have both friends and enemies.
“Now we haven’t any who really love us. Most people think we’ll do and that we do no harm and that we’re all right, but no one even gets excited over squash. It is indeed sad to be nothing but a squash!”