The Child's Story: Happiness

A young man entered a baker's shop to buy a delicious cake he had seen in the window; he did not want it for himself but for his little brother. While he was waiting, behold, a small boy of no more than seven years, with the marks of sorrow plain on his face, knocked at the door and came in. The baker's wife welcomed him and said: "What do you want, Samir?" He answered shyly: "My mother sent me to buy a loaf of bread." The lady granted his request at once and gave him the best loaf she had, then said: "Have you the price of the loaf?" Tears welled up in his kohl-dark eyes and he murmured: "No, madam, but my mother said she would see you tomorrow." So the lady patted him on the shoulder and set his mind at ease, then turned back to her work. All this passed within the young man's hearing and sight. When his own request had been served, he turned his back and was about to leave, and was surprised to see the boy behind him standing stock-still, as though listening to some sound. Then the baker's wife looked at him, laughing, and said: "What are you doing here, my boy? Did the loaf not please you?" Samir answered: "Oh yes, yes, madam, it is very fine, and it smells sweet!"

"Then go home at once, for you are late, and no doubt your mother is waiting for you!" But our friend made no move; he stayed standing where he was. Then the baker's wife came forward and patted his cheek, saying: "What are you thinking about, instead of hurrying? Come along... come along..." He said: "Madam, what is that singing here?" She said: "No one is singing..." He answered: "Oh yes — don't you hear it?" The baker's wife listened, and the young man listened too, for he was waiting to see what would become of Samir. They listened, and heard nothing but the voice of the cricket — the zeez. The boy said: "Perhaps it is a little bird, or the sound of the loaves as they bake!" The lady said: "No, you little silly — it is the singing of the crickets. These little insects dearly love the sight of the fire, and when we begin our work, they begin their singing." Then the little boy's features changed, and his face shone bright after its sorrow. He said: "Would you let me have just one cricket?" The baker's wife wondered at Samir's request and said: "And what do you want with that insect?" He clasped his two small hands over the loaf and said: "I beg you to give me one cricket — one only — because they say this little insect brings happiness to the people of the house it lives in, and if I take it home, perhaps... perhaps my mother will stop crying, and joy will enter her heart." At that the young man looked at the baker's wife — and she was a kind-hearted woman — he looked at her and saw her wiping away her tears with the corner of her apron. She asked Samir: "And what makes your poor mother cry?" The boy heaved a deep sigh and said: "Ah, madam, she cries because of all the debts. My father died leaving a large family behind him, and my mother works and works, but she cannot pay them all off." Then the young man took Samir in his arms and gave him a long kiss, and handed him the cake, saying: "Take it — it is yours." But Samir did not eat the cake; he kept it, to share it with his mother and his brothers and sisters. Meanwhile the baker's wife had left them to fetch the crickets. She went to her husband and asked him to catch four of them for her, and she put them in a box, after making holes in its lid so that air could reach them. The boy was waiting for her return with the greatest impatience. When she came back, he took the box from her, thanked her and thanked the young man, and went off, glad and delighted.

Let us leave him, little ones, going home carrying his loaf and his precious box, and return to the shop. The baker's wife had begun to think, saying to herself: "What can I do, I wonder, to bring happiness to Samir? The crickets must not disappoint his hopes." Suddenly she went over to her table and opened her account book, in which she used to enter what Samir's family owed. She struck out the page, wrote at the bottom of it "Paid," then tore out the page and put it in an envelope. Meanwhile the young man had taken out all the money in his pockets — and it was no small sum that day. He put it into the envelope, with a short, heartening letter to Samir's mother. Then he asked the baker's wife to send the parcel with the servant at once, and to bid him hurry. The servant went off, and passed the little boy while he was still far from his house.

And so happiness reached Samir's house a little before he did. When he entered the house he found his mother smiling with joy. He marveled at it, and thought that the arrival of those little insects had worked that miracle! And I do not think he was wrong — for had it not been for the crickets, and had it not been for Samir's kind heart and his love for his mother, that change in their material condition would never have come about.

And so, little ones, Samir was the cause of his mother's happiness — if only for a while.