Life Changes When the Doorbell Rings
From “Twenty-One Greens”
Rose puttered in her farmhouse kitchen while the evening meal bubbled away. She’d spent the day combining herbal scents from the flowers she grew. The lavender always soothed. She pondered her addition of passion flower in the mix. Maybe she should change it because the flower served as an herbal sedative. She was so calm she practically floated around the kitchen, placing each jar carefully in the rack. Experimenting was the best part of her herbal business. And she loved it. The sound of the rusty doorbell shattered the tranquility.
Some Adventures Raise the Stakes
From “A Nutty Adventure”
Grampa finally came.
Some people hardly ever heard Grampa talk. See, that’s why they called him the quiet one. But we knew he could talk a lot when he wanted to. He chatted with the animals in the park. And he told us all sorts of things—like why dandelions get gray hair.
Grampa looked tough, but he had a wide smile that traveled all the way to his eyes when he watched the squirrels and turtles, and us—if we were good.
“Who wants to go on an adventure?” he asked when he came in the door.
“Me, me. I do,” said Izzy.
“What kind of adventure?” asked Hank. He looked a little wary.
“A walnut hunt.”
That sounded a lot better to me than looking for worms in the dark.
“But first you need to gather up some cardboard boxes and newspapers and work gloves,” he said. “And bring your wagon.”
Izzy got the wagon while Hank and I found the other stuff. We could hear her coming a mile away with those squeaky wheels.
“It looks like we’d better oil those wheels before we go,” Grampa said with a twinkle in his eye.
“Why?” I asked.
Grampa raised his eyebrows and said, “You’ll see.”