Canutito learns to ‘darse sus mañas’

Canutito estaba teniendo un real bad day! He had tried de hacer un bow and arrow pa’ shootear just like los Indios de más antes, pero el stupid bow kept breaking cada vez that he bent it. Next, he tried to come up con un way of swinging de un árbol by tying una llanta to a rope, but the cabresto kept breaking and the tire would roll down la lomita. Como que nada de lo que he tried to do seemed to come out bien. He even had ganas de llorar because éste just wasn’t his day; he was all frustrão. Nonetheless, he pushed his tears away hoping que by some milagro de Dios finally todo iba a salir bien. Next, he tried to catch un conejito que estaba hopping around la yarda pero he tripped on the untied correas de sus zapatos and he fell down as the bunny hopped away mientras que Canutito tied his shoe laces.

Grampo Caralampio happened to be passing by en ese tiempo on his way to feed los marranos en el trochil when he found Canutito crying porque todo iba muy mal para él. Grampo put down the slop bucket que traiba for the pigs in the pen and went to see por qué el niño estaba llorando. “¿Qué te pasa, m’hijo?” he asked him, bending down and stroking the cabeza del niño.

“Oh grampo,” Canutito sobbed, “Yo no valgo pito pa’nada.”

“Why do you say que you’re not worth a whistle, m’hijo?” grampo smiled down at him.

“Todo lo que I try to do me sale pa’l quince; it all turns out wrong!” Canutito wailed.

“Maybe es porque tú no estás usando tu imagination, m’hijo,” grampo said, Picking up la olla del marrano and invitando a Canutito to follow him pa’l trochil.

“How should I be using mi imaginación, grampo?” Canutito asked as he tagged along.

“Well,” grampo began mientras que he dumped food en la canova donde comía el marrano, “Mi bisabuelo vino a New Mexico desde muy lejos. He started out en Conejos, Colorado, and he brought todas us posesiones in a horse cart.”

“Really, grampo?” Canutito asked him. “Did your great-grandfather really bring todas sus cosas en un carro de caballos?” He liked to hear las historias de más antes that his grampo told.

“Pos, chur, m’hijo,” Grampo Caralampio replied, “La familia de nosotros didn’t just spring out de la tierra aquí; we had to travel por muchas millas just to get pa’acá.”

“Pero cómo sabía su bisabuelo how many miles he had traveled, grampo?” Canutito asked him con mucha curiosidad.

“Oh, él era un real clever man,” grampo said. “He figured out que cada vez que las wheels del carro de caballos hacían una complete turn, he had traveled ten feet. Entonces, el día que he was going to set out de Conejos, Colorado, he took una bandana vieja y la hizo attach to one of the spokes del a wagon wheel de adelante. Every time que la bandana came around, mi bisabuelo would count ten feet, y luego twenty, y luego thirty and so forth hasta que llegaba a 5,230 pies. He knew que cuando llegaba a 5,230 feet él había hecho travel una milla completa y entonces he would start counting otra vez de diez a veinte, and so forth.”

“I guess que las personas used to really use their brains en los tiempos de más antes, didn’t they, grampo?” Canutito smiled.

“Sí, m’hijo,” grampo said. “Se daban sus mañas.”

“What does ‘se daban sus mañas’ mean, grampo?” the little boy asked.

“Eso hace mean que they really used their heads pa’ pensar las cosas,” grampo said as he finished asistiendo los marranos.

Canutito sat down pensando about el bow that kept breaking a causa de la pressure whenever he tried de shootearlo. He also thought about su ancestro who had tied una bandana a la rueda del carro de caballos. Suddenly, he got una buena idea. He ran and made himself un arco y flecha nueva but this time, he wound una bandana around the bow y esta vez when he bent it, it didn’t break. Grampo was right, “Tenía que darse sus mañas. …”