The Old Man and His Grandson

There was once a very old man. His eyes had grown dim, his ears were hard of hearing, his knees trembled, and when he sat at the table he could hardly hold his spoon. He spilled soup on the tablecloth or let it run out of his mouth.

His son and his son's wife were disgusted by this, so the old grandfather had to sit in the corner behind the stove. They gave him his food in an earthenware bowl, and not even enough of it. He would look toward the table with tears in his eyes.

Once his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it fell to the ground and broke. The young wife scolded him, but he said nothing and only sighed. Then they bought him a wooden bowl for a few pennies, and he had to eat from that.

They were sitting like this one day when their little grandson, who was four years old, began to gather some pieces of wood on the ground. "What are you doing?" asked his father. "I am making a little trough," answered the child, "for father and mother to eat from when I am big."

The man and his wife looked at each other for a while, and then they began to cry. They took the old grandfather to the table, and from then on they always let him eat with them. They said nothing if he spilled a little bit of anything.