Norwegian folktale

 Once on a time, but it was a long, long time ago, there were two brothers, one rich and one poor. Now, one Christmas Eve, the poor one hadn’t so much as a crumb in the house, either of meat or bread, so he went to his brother to ask him for something to keep Christmas with, in God’s name. It was not the first time his brother had been forced to help him, and you may fancy he wasn’t very glad to see his face, but he said —

“If you will do what I ask you to do, I’ll give you a whole flitch of bacon.”

So the poor brother said he would do anything, and was full of thanks.

“Well, here is the flitch,” said the rich brother, “and now go straight to Hell.”

“What I have given my word to do, I must stick to,” said the other; so he took the flitch and set off. He walked the whole day, and at dusk he came to a place where he saw a very bright light.

“Maybe this is the place,” said the man to himself. So he turned aside, and the first thing he saw was an old, old man, with a long white beard, who stood in a shed, hewing wood for the Christmas fire.

“Good even,” said the man with the flitch.

“The same to you; whither are you going so late?” said the man.

“Oh! I’m going to Hell, if I only knew the right way,” answered the poor man.

“Well, you’re not far wrong for this is Hell.” said the old man; “when you get inside they will be all for buying your flitch, for meat is scarce in Hell; but mind, you don’t sell it unless you get the hand-quern which stands behind the door for it. When you come out, I’ll teach you how to handle the quern, for it’s good to grind almost anything.”

So the man with the flitch thanked the other for his good advice, and gave a great knock at the Devi’s door.

When he got in, everything went just as the old man had said. All the devils, great and small, came swarming up to him like ants round an anthill, and each tried to outbid the other for the flitch.

“Well!” said the man, “by rights my old dame and I ought to have this flitch for our Christmas dinner; but since you have all set your hearts on it. I suppose I must give it up to you; but if I sell it at all, I’ll have for it that quern behind the door yonder.”

At first the Devil wouldn’t hear of such a bargain, and chaffered and haggled with the man: but he stuck to what he said, and at last the Devil had to part with his quern. When the man got out into the yard, he asked the old woodcutter how he was to handle the quern; and after he had learned how to use it, he thanked the old man and went off home as fast as he could, but still the clock had struck twelve on Christmas Eve before he reached his own door.

“Wherever in the world have you been?” said his old dame; “here have I sat hour after hour waiting and watching, without so much as two sticks to lay together under the Christmas brose*.”

“Oh!” said the old man. “I couldn’t get back before, for I had to go a long way first for one thing, and then for another; but now you shall see what you shall see.”

So he put the quern on the table, and bade it first of all grind lights, then a tablecloth, then meat, then ale, and so on till they had got everything that was nice for Christmas fare. He had only to speak the word, and the quern ground out what he wanted. The old dame stood by blessing her stars, and kept on asking where he had got this wonderful quern, but he wouldn’t tell her.

“It’s all one where I got it from; you see the quern is a good one, and the mill-stream never freezes, that’s enough.”

So he ground meat and drink and dainties enough to last out till Twelfth Day, and on the third day he asked all his friends and kin to his house, and gave a great feast. Now, when his rich brother saw all that was on the table, and all that was behind in the larder, he grew quite spiteful and wild, for he couldn’t bear that his brother should have anything.

‘“Twas only on Christmas Eve,” he said to the rest, “he was in such straits that he came and asked for a morsel of food in God’s name, and now he gives a feast as if he  were count or king”; and he turned to his brother and said —

“But whence, in Hell’s name, have you got all this wealth?”

“From behind the door,” answered the owner of the quern, for he didn’t care to let the cat out of the bag. But later on the evening, when he had got a drop too much, he could keep his secret no longer, and brought out the quern and said —

“There, you see what has gotten me all this wealth”; and so he made the quern grind all kinds of things. When his brother saw it, he set his heart on having the quern, and, after a deal of coaxing, he got it; but he had to pay three hundred dollars for it, and his brother bargained to keep it till hay harvest, for he thought, “If I keep it till then, I can make it grind meat and drink that will last for years.” So you may fancy the quern didn’t grow rusty for want of work, and when hay-harvest came, the rich brother got it, but the other took care not to teach him how to handle it.

It was evening when the rich brother got the quern home, and next morning he told his wife to go out into the hay field and toss, while the mowers cut the grass, and he would stay at home and get the dinner ready. So, when dinner-time drew near, he put the quern on the kitchen table and said, —

“Grind herrings and broth, and grind them good and fast.”

So the quern began to grind herrings and broth; first of all, all the dishes full, then all the tubs full, and so on till the kitchen floor was quite covered. Then the man twisted and twirled at the quern to get it to stop, but for all his twisting and fingering the quern went on grinding, and in a little while the broth rose so high that the man was like to drown. So he threw open the kitchen door and ran into the parlour, but it wasn’t long before the quern had ground the parlour full too, and it was only at the risk of his life that the man could get hold of the latch of the house door through the stream of broth. When he got the door open, he ran out and set off down the road, with the stream of herrings and broth at his heels, roaring like a waterfall over the whole farm.

Now, his old dame, who was in the field tossing hay, thought it a long time to dinner, and at last she said —

“Well! though the master doesn’t call us home, we may as well go. Maybe he finds it hard work to boil the broth, and will be glad of my help.”

The men were willing enough, so they sauntered homewards; but just as they had got a little way up the hill, what should they meet but herrings, and broth, and bread, all running and dashing, and splashing together in a stream, and the master himself running before them for his life, and as he passed them he bawled out, — “Would to heaven each of you had a hundred throats! But take care you’re not drowned in the broth.”

Away he went, as though the Evil One were at his heels, to his brother’s house, and begged him for God’s sake to take back the quern that instant; for, said he —

“If it grinds only one hour more, the whole parish will be swallowed up by herrings and broth.”

But his brother wouldn’t hear of taking it back till the other paid him down three hundred dollars more.

So the poor brother got both the money and the quern, and it wasn’t long before he set up a farmhouse far finer than the one in which his brother lived, and with the quern he ground so much gold that he covered it with plates of gold; and as the farm lay by the seaside, the golden house gleamed and glistened far away over the sea. All who sailed by put ashore to see the rich man in the golden house, and to see the wonderful quern, the fame of which spread far and wide, till there was nobody who hadn’t heard tell of it.

So one day there came a skipper who wanted to see the quern; and the first thing he asked was if it could grind salt.

“Grind salt!” said the owner; “I should just think it could. It can grind anything.”

When the skipper heard that, he said he must have the quern, cost what it would, for if he only had it, he thought he should be rid of his long voyages across stormy seas for a lading of salt. Well, at first the man wouldn’t hear of parting with the quern; but the skipper begged and prayed so hard, that at last he let him have it, but he had to pay many, many thousand dollars for it. Now, when the skipper had got the quern on his back, he soon made off with it, for he was afraid lest the man should change his mind; so he had no time to ask how to handle the quern, but got on board his ship as fast as he could, and set sail. When he had sailed a good way off, he brought the quern on deck and said—

“Grind salt, and grind both good and fast.”

Well, the quern began to grind salt so that it poured out like water; and when the skipper had got the ship full, he wished to stop the quern, but whichever way he turned it, and however much he tried, it was no good; the quern kept grinding on, and the heap of salt grew higher and higher, and at last down sunk the ship.

There lies the quern at the bottom of the sea, and grinds away at this very day, and that’s why the sea is salt. 

 

* brose = porridge

Christmas fairy tales

selected by Neil Philip

London: Little Brown, 1996

 

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Automatically translated into Swedish thanks to WorldLingo

Babu’s Song

 

Bernardi ran hard, kicking the ball toward the goal. His arms pumping and his heart racing, he didn’t care that he was the only boy on the field not wearing a school uniform. He loved soccer and his one concern was making a goal. With a final kick so powerful that it knocked him on his back, Bernardi sent the ball flying past the goalie and into the net.

Bernardi lay on the grassy field, catching his breath. A boy helped him up, then ran after the others going into the school. Bernardi wished he could go to school like the other children. He liked to learn, and thought he could be a good student. Besides, then he could play soccer every day, not just when the schoolboys needed an extra player. Bernardi lived with his grandfather, Babu, and they did not have enough money for school.

Slowly Bernardi walked home.

When Bernardi walked in, Babu gave him a hug. This was how he said hello, because an illness had taken his voice a long time ago.

“Hello, Babu,” Bernardi said. “I made a goal today.” Bernardi loved telling Babu his soccer stories.

Babu held up a figure made of wood. He pulled a string, and the figure’s jointed arms and legs popped up and down, making Bernardi laugh. Babu was a toy maker. He had only to look at an object and he knew what toy it would become, such as an airplane from a tin can or a whistle from a scrap of wood.

After Babu made his toys Bernardi would sell them. Together they made enough money to live on.

Babu made tea for Bernardi and himself. After they finished Bernardi took an old bag from beside the door, waved good-bye to Babu, and set off for the market. As he walked, Bernardi hummed a tune. It was a song that Babu had sung when he had his voice. Humming it made Bernardi wish Babu could still speak.

“Anything for Babu?” Bernardi asked the vendors when he reached the market.

The vendors gave Bernardi bits of string or paper, anything that Babu might be able to use to make his toys. Mama Valentina, who sold salt, called to Bernardi. She handed him a plastic gunnysack. Bernardi thanked her as he stuffed it into his bag, even though he didn’t think Babu could use it.

As Bernardi walked home, he passed a shop downtown and stopped to look in the window. There among the bright bolts of cloth and shiny pots was a new soccer ball. It was just what he had always wanted. Bernardi pressed his face against the window and looked at the price. It was more than it cost to go to school!

Slowly Bernardi backed away from the window. He did not hum as he walked home.

That evening Babu and Bernardi ate beans and rice by the light of the kerosene lamp. Babu put something by Bernardi’s plate. Bernardi picked it up and held it closer to the light. It looked like a tin of lard. He opened the lid and heard a small tinkling.

“A music box!” Bernardi exclaimed, and listened again. It was rough and tinny, but he recognized the tune. It was Babu’s song.

 Bernardi hugged Babu, and together they listened to the music. That night, for the first time in many nights, Bernardi fell asleep listening to Babu’s song.

The next Saturday was a busy one for Bernardi, as it was the day he sold toys to tourists. He set up shop on his favorite corner downtown, arranging the toys on the curb.

Bernardi cranked the music box and listened to Babu’s song tinkle out. He had sold a few things when a woman picked up the music box. She asked how much it was, but Bernardi said it wasn’t for sale.

The woman did not give up. She told Bernardi that she wanted the music box for her collection, but still Bernardi shook his head. The woman held out a handful of money. Bernardi’s eyes widened. It would be more than enough to buy the ball in the store window!

Bernardi picked up the music box. He thought about the brand-new ball and how it would feel when he kicked it. Surely Babu could make another music box.

Bernardi swallowed hard and took the money.

After Bernardi sold all the toys he did not go home. He took the money and headed for the shops down the street.

When Bernardi got home, Babu was cleaning. He looked up at Bernardi holding the empty bag.

“I sold everything, Babu!” Bernardi said, trying to sound cheerful, but then a tear rolled down his face. Babu went over to Bernardi. He wiped his grandson’s face and waited. He knew Bernardi would tell him what was wrong.

Bernardi sniffled. He told Babu about the music box and the soccer. Then he handed the money to Babu. “I couldn’t buy the ball, Babu. It’s your money.”

Babu patted Bernardi’s head. Then he placed the money in Bernardi’s hand and held it, to show him that the money belonged to both of them.

Bernardi hung his head. “I don’t want the ball anymore.” He held out the money. “Take it, Babu. You decide what to do with the money.”

Babu took the money and looked thoughtfully at Bernardi for a long time. Then he broke into a smile, signaled to Bernardi to wait, and walked out the door.

Bernardi sat quietly in the room as he waited for Babu. He wished he still had the music box. How could he have sold it?

Bernardi was sitting in the lamplight when Babu returned holding a paper bag. Babu pulled out a package and handed it to Bernardi.

Bernardi choked back a sob. He untied the string and pulled back the brown paper. His eyes opened wide when he saw what was inside. It was a school uniform!

Bernardi looked at Babu. “You paid for me to go to school?”

Babu nodded. Bernardi jumped up and hugged his grandfather.

While Bernardi held the new uniform to his chest, Babu went back outside. He returned holding something behind his back. With a flourish Babu held out a soccer ball made from string and Mama Valentina’s gunnysack.

Bernardi put down his uniform and held the ball. He bounced it on one knee and it felt like the real thing.

“Thank you, Babu. It’s wonderful!” Bernardi said to his grandfather and gave him a hug. Babu beamed. Bernardi decided that the ball was even better than the real thing.

Babu pulled one more surprise from the paper bag. It was an empty lard tin. As Babu began to make another music box, Bernardi put the water on the stove to boil. Then Bernardi hummed Babu’s song as they sat in the lamplight and waited for their tea.

 

Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen

Babu’s Song

New York, Lee & Low, 2008 

Tía Miseria, Aunt Misery 

 

Once there was an old woman known only to the people as Tía Miseria, Aunt Misery, who lived outside a small village. Tía Miseria was poor but happy. She had a garden with large vegetables, two big chickens, and most of all, she had her pear tree.

Oh, how she loved her pear tree! She would pick a pear and feel its smooth form. When she would bite into the pear, she’d sigh and say, “Ah, how delicious, how marvelous, how sweet!”

Tía Miseria was a proud woman who walked through the village with her back straight and her hair pulled back in a bun. Although she was very old, her skin was smooth except for a few wrinkles around her eyes.

But Tía Miseria had a problem with the children in the neighborhood. These children were the great-grandchildren of the ones who had named her Tía Miseria. Indeed, her life had been miserable for a long time. The children would run right through her garden, step on all of her vegetables, and taunt, “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria.”

They would climb her tree, pick some pears, and bite into them. With the juice running down the sides of their mouths, they would say, “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria.”

Poor Tía would get very upset. She would go under the tree and say to them, “Come down from my tree right now!”

But the children would just look down at her and laugh: “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria!”

Only when the children were good and ready would they climb down the tree. Then they would run through the gar­den calling out, “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria!”

Poor Tía! She had to replant her garden because the chil­dren had stepped on everything. Then she had to go look for the chickens in the bushes because the children frightened them so much. Worst of all, they were eating up her sweet, delicious pears.

One night as she was cooking supper, she heard a knock at the door. When she went to see who it was, there stood a short, thin man with friendly brown eyes. He wore a straw hat. “Can I please stay the night?” the man inquired. ‘‘It is so cold outside!”

“Of course,” said Tía Miseria. “Come in, come in.”

Tía served him a fine meal of rice, beans, and codfish.

In the morning the man said, “Tía, I am a magician, and because you have been so generous, I will give you a wish.”

“A wish—let’s see, what can I do? Maybe I will wish for silver; no, maybe I will wish for gold.” Then she stopped and smiled a very big smile. “I know what I want. Once someone is up my tree, they can’t come down until I say the magical words.”

“Fine,” said the magician. He said goodbye and went walking down the road.

That day the children came to the house. As usual, they ran through the garden taunting, “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria!” They climbed the tree and picked some pears. They bit into the pears and then threw the uneaten portions at the cats and chickens. They threw the pears all over the garden.

But Tía did not react as she usually did. Instead of stand­ing under the tree and yelling at them, she went into the kitchen and brought out a cup of coffee. She stood on the porch and drank her coffee with a big smile on her face.

The children knew something was very wrong. She never acted like this. So they did the one thing they knew would make her mad. They said, “Tía, Tía, Tía Miseria!”

But she just smiled and sipped her coffee and said, “Children, come down from the tree.”

“No, we are not ready,” they replied.

Finally the children were ready to come down from the pear tree. But as they tried to climb down, they found they couldn’t. The magic spell was working.

“Tía, Tía, please, let us down,” the children cried out to her. “It is very late.”

Tía sipped her coffee, looked at the children, smiled, and said, “No!”

“Please!” they called out to her again. “Let us down! It is getting late!”

Tía was enjoying this very much. She looked at the chil­dren, took a sip of her coffee, smiled, and said, “No!”

Oh, the children cried, begged, and pleaded. Finally Tía went under the tree and said, “If I let you out of that tree, will you promise me never to come back?”

The children responded immediately, “Sí, yes.”

So she said her magic words, “Come down, come down, come down from my tree.”

The children came down the tree as fast as they could. They ran around the garden instead of through it, and they did not return.

Now Tía was very happy. Her garden was quiet, her chickens were safe, and now she had her precious pear tree to herself.

One afternoon, when she was cooking supper and think­ing about what had happened, she heard a knock at the door. She thought, Oh, my friend has returned.

She went to the door. A man stood there, but he was not her friend. He was a tall, thin man, and when he looked into her eyes, she felt as though she were falling into a deep, dark hole. She felt a shiver come over her body and she stepped back.

The man moved toward her. He looked her in the eyes and said, “I am Death, and I have come for you!”

Tía Miseria thought quickly. “Well,” she sighed, “I knew you were going to come. Before we go, though, can we pick some pears to take with us?”

“No, no,” said Death. “I have a long list of people I have to get tonight. I don’t have time!”

But Tía continued to talk about her pears, how wonderful and delicious they were to eat. Finally Death could see he wasn’t ever going to get out of there unless he yielded. “Go and pick some pears,” he said. “I want to leave.”

“Me?” Tía said. “I am a little old lady. Look at you. You are tall and young—and besides, you look like you could use a pear or two.”

Death was so exasperated that he said, “Fine. I will pick some pears.”

So he climbed the tree and picked some pears. He picked a few here and a few there, and then he was ready to climb down. But he could not go anywhere. He was caught in the magician’s spell!

Oh, he called her the most terrible things you have ever heard—and probably some other things you have never heard.

“Old lady, let me down now!” But she did not obey. She just said to him, “Throw me a pear, please.”

She left him in the tree for a day, a week, a month, a year! Finally the village priest came to her. “Please let him down,” he pled. “No one is coming to church because they know they are not going to die!”

Tía just shrugged her shoulders.

Then the undertaker came by. “Please let him down,” he said. “I have no work and my children are hungry.”

Tía looked at the undertaker and said, “Change your trade.”

Finally, her very oldest friend came and spoke in a slow, halting voice. “Please ... let him down. I am very tired and I want to go ... Everything hurts me. Please ... I want to die.”

Tía could not refuse the request of her oldest friend. She went under the tree and said to Death, “If I let you down, will you promise never to return for me?”

“Yes, yes,” Death replied. He was tired of being in that pear tree.

She said the magic words, “Come down, come down, come down from my tree.”

Death came down, leaned over her old friend, gently, swooped her up in his arms, and went running down the road.

Death did keep his promise. So Tía lives on and on. And that’s why some say that as long as Death keeps his promise, there will be misery in this world.

 

 

Olga Loya

Momentos Mágicos, Magic Moments

Arkansas, August House Publishers, Inc., I997 

 ARNOLD, THE DRAGON

 

‘Who said that dragons don’t exist? I saw a little one coming from under a pot of geraniums. He stuck his tongue out at me and left in a hurry.

 ‘He’s still green. You’ll see when he grows up. His body will be all covered with real scales and on each scale a monogram: A D interlaced, Arnold, the dragon. Nice to meet you!’

 ‘What kind of a story are you making up?’ Joe’s mother asked him.

 ‘I saw a dragon, mother. A little dragon. When it grows up, he’ll be living on our balcony. You’ll see. When you want to hang out the clothes, you’ll have to ask the dragon ‘May I? May I?’ so that he’ll let you hang your clothes from those sharp horns that the dragons have on their backs.’

 ‘They’ll end up in rags.’ Said his mother, joining the game.

 ‘They will, mother. That hadn’t crossed my mind. On the other hand, you won’t have to use the gas of the stove.’

 ‘Why not?’ His mother asked, intriguingly.

 ‘Because whenever you want to roast a sea-bream or a piece of meat, you’ll only have to open the dragon’s mouth, which is the best fire ever lit.’

 ‘And if he swallows up my fish or my meat, what shall we have for dinner?’ His mother wanted to know.

 ‘You’re right, mother. That hadn’t crossed my mind. But they say that dragons are vegetarian.’

 ‘Are you sure?’ His mother asked.

 ‘I’m positive.’ That’s why they are green.

 ‘Where are we going to get the greens to feed the dragon?’ His mother asked. ‘If only one lettuce was enough...’

 ‘You’re right, mother. That hadn’t crossed my mind. We’ll have to walk him in Hyde Park, so that he feeds on grass and herbs. So he can graze.’

 At this, his mother said:

 ‘But... as soon as they saw him, the children would run away and Hyde Park would end up empty of people and vegetation. The trees would be leafless, because the dragon would have eaten everything up, and there would be nothing left behind.’

 ‘You’re right, mother. That hadn’t crossed my mind. After all, the dragon would only cause trouble. I’ll tell that gecko to stay as it is.’

 It no longer has to grow up.

 There and then, the gecko ran past us and so this story ends.

 

António Torrado

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Ain’t Nobody a Stranger to Me

 

A long, long time ago, when I was a little, little girl, my Gran’pa let me come along on his weekly visit to his apple orchard.

“It’s the last piece of land I kept,” he told me, waving his hand in a friendly “hello” at every passerby, “after I moved into town.”

“Gran’pa!” I called, running to keep up with him. “How come you know so many people?”

He stopped to let me catch up. “Don’t know’em by name—just by heart, Honey…. Ain’t nobody a stranger to me!”

“Why’s that, Gran’pa?” I asked, grabbing his hand in mine and holding on.

He grinned happily down at me. “’Cause both me and my heart is free.”

After a while of walking, he asked me: “Did you know, Honey, that way back in the sad, old days of slavery, I used to carry apple seeds in my pockets, to keep myself believing that when the great day of freedom came, I could plant’em in my own soil, on my own farm?”

I shook my head. I did not know.

“But finally, one day it came to me”, Gran’pa went on. “It weren’t never gonna happen ’til we struck out for freedom ourselves!

“So we got ready… and the first night we could, we run away!”

“Who’s ‘we,’ Gran’pa?”

“It was me, your Gran’ma Polly, and our baby girl—that’s your mama,” Gran’pa said, tousling my curly hair. “’Course we was afraid. But we was careful, quiet, sure of foot.”

He stopped walking, remembering how it was….

“Now, we had already come a long way north, dodging strangers and dangers all the way.

“We was coming close to the Ohio River, close to freedom! But bein’ too tired an’ hungry to go another step, we picked us out a barn nearby to hide inside.

“We slept there real quiet all that night—baby, too. Then at dawn, this man came down to the barn to milk his cows. And wouldn’t you know—just then, the baby cried out!

“We stood in the dark, arms tight around our hungry baby—so desperate, we was ready to run and swim the Ohio to freedom on the other side—die if we had to!

“We wasn’t goin’ back!”

“Oh, no!” I said, shivering at the thought, though I knew my Gran’daddy was safe here with me. I hugged his hand even tighter!

“’Course, even in the dark,” Gran’pa added, “the man felt somebody was there. But guess what?”

I looked up at him, still full of worry.

“That man sure didn’t see no color then! Only saw we was in trouble. The man was white, but he did right by us that day!

And he never asked my name, though he told me his: James Stanton. Turns out he was a secret member of the Underground Railroad!”

“Oh!” I shouted. “Those folks who helped the runaways travel north?”

“Yep! The folks who helped lift us up when we was down. The Quaker James Stanton and his wife, Sarah, never said, ‘That’s no white baby! That’s only a brown baby.’ To them, she was just a hungry little child.

“And so they fed us and helped us cross the river to freedom the very next night!”

“That sure was lucky for you, Gran’pa!” I said, feeling safer now, my hand resting in his.

“Don’t know if it was luck, Hon.” He shook his head. “We had to put our trust in the Good Lord. We’d set our hearts right, and all along the way help came when we needed it. And we got through. Yes, we got through . . . .

“Yep.” Gran’pa nodded. “I been on both sides. When somebody falls down, what kind of man gonna stop ’n’ say: ‘I don’t pick up no stranger! Let ’em lie there’? Leastways, not me!”

We walked together in silence.

Soon, the spring air began to carry the fresh, sweet smell of apple blossoms to us.

“Once we got north of south,” Gran’pa continued, walking faster, “me ’n’ Polly worked hard and long, hiring ourselves out as paid labor—blacksmithin’, plowin’, sewin’, pickin’ apples, milkin’ cows—’til we put aside enough to buy ourselves some land of our own—right here!

“And here it is!” Gran’pa beamed proudly as we came to a whole pink cloud of blooming apple trees. “Remember those seeds I carried with me?

“Well, I took those seeds and put ’em into our own soil. An’ every time I planted one, I thought of someone who’d helped us on our way. . . . And now we seein’ the blossoms!”

Now Gran’pa was pulling an apple from each pocket. “They be from our stone cellar, Grandpa?”

“Yep. Saved these to eat here with you, Honey!”

And we both sat down and munched away.

“Could I, Gran’pa,” I asked, “could I one day plant me a seed of memory here, too?”

Gran’pa laughed, touched. “Right now would be just fine!”

Then he watched as I planted new seeds in the family orchard from the apple I had just eaten.

I could tell he was remembering, too. . . .

“I won’t forget you did this, Honey.” Gran’pa smiled as we walked away.

I put my hand on my chest. “I won’t forget what you said, Gran’pa—not ever!” I knew I never would.

“And so now you see why”—Gran’pa paused, and I saw such joy rising in his face as he waved hello to heaven—“Ain’t nobody a stranger to me!”

  

 

Ann Grifalconi; Jerry Pinkney

Ain’t nobody a stranger to me

New York, Hyperion Books for Children, 2007