This was a book I had when I was very young. The illustrations had children dressed in early 1900 clothing and it may have been published in that time frame. It was a compilation of stories and poems. One poem was about a little girl eating her first peach. I do remember a line from that poem “I’ve eaten it cloth and all Mama but what shall I do with the bone?” She was referring to the peach pit. Another story in the book was about a little girl who was picking blackberries and could not reach the best ones high in the branches. A gentlemen offers to bend over leaning, on his walking stick and let her stand on his back to reach the berries and she refuses saying she would be to heavy etc. The young man remarks that it would be rude to refuse a kindness and the little girl accepts his offer. There was a picture of this scene in the book of the little girl standing on his back and picking the berries.
Stump the Bookseller
New format, same book stumper solving.
I don’t know about the anthology, but the poem is quite old – it appears in The West Virginia School Journal in February, 1893 as follows:
Mabel’s First Peach
To a little stranger from the north,
Who was timid and shy of speech,
We gave – the first she had ever seen –
A ripe, beautiful, downy peach.
We caught one glimpse of her big blue eyes,
From her drooping lashes beneath,
As into the peach’s curving side
Went the sharp little milk white teeth.
She spoke not a word till all was gone,
Then she cried in a joyous tone:
“I’ve eaten it, cloth and all, mamma,
Now what shall I do with the bone?”
I can’t make out the author’s name on the page, but it looks like it might have been Eleanor A. something. The last name looks like it starts with an “H”? Perhaps you’ll have better luck making out the name than I did. The publication is available on Google books and the poem appears on page 12.
The last two lines also appear by themselves under the caption “Gracie’s first experience in eating a peach” or “A child’s first experience in eating a peach” in several other newspapers or other publications from the 1880’s and 1890’s.
Yes! This is absolutely the poem that I have been looking for for over forty years. It would be wonderful to find the other story as well, but I was beginning to doubt that I would ever see this poem in its entirety again. Thank you so very much.