Canutito learns about ‘los mapaches’
La primavera era particularly beautiful! Canutito’s favorite season era el early springtime. He loved to see a los apple trees bursting forth con florecitas and then those blossoms would produce las manzanas más buenas y frescas in the whole valley. En la mañana Canutito went out hacia la yarda para ver to see if there were any manzanitas verdes that he could eat con sal. He really liked green apples with salt. Pero as he approached el manzano that morning, the apple tree had apples that were todas ruidas
“¡Grampo!” he called out, “Algún animal came and gnawed todas las manzanas! They are all bitten!”
“It sounds como que it was the work of un mapache,” grampo replied.
“Why would an Apache come and gnaw all the manzanas, grampo?” Canutito asked him, todo sorprendido.
“I didn’t say que un ‘Apache’ se comió las manzanas, m’hijo,” grampo replied. “I said que un mapache ate them. ‘Mapaches’ are raccoons.”
“I thought que los raccoons were called ‘racunes’, grampo,” Canutito remarked.
“That’s what we called those animalitos aquí, m’hijo,” grampo said, “pero en otras partes del mundo, they are known as ‘mapaches’.”
“The French call the raccoon ‘le raton laveur’, or ‘the rat that washes’,” Grampo Caralampio went on.
“Ése es un silly name for a raccoon, grampo,” Canutito smiled. “Habían any French people living en esta parte del mundo, grampo?” Canutito asked him.
“Oh sí, m’hijo,” grampo replied. “Después de la Louisiana Purchase en 1803, muchos French trappers came para estas partes a hacer trap animalitos y mandaban sus furs back to France para hacer sombreros elegantes para todas las French ladies,” he concluded.
“Are any of those franceses still around de por aquí, grampo?” Canutito asked.
“Algunos de esos Frenchies still are here, m’hijo,” grampo said. “They changed el nombre de una small town from ‘Willow Springs’ into Ratón, New Mexico. They had nombres como Grolet, which became el Spanish name Gurulé; nombres como Marquis que hizo become el nombre Márquez; también names like Jeantete, LeDoux y Desgeorges.”
“Eso es interesante, grampo,” Canutito said, un poco offhand. “Pero tell me, have mapaches always been such clean animalitos? I mean, have raccoons always washed todo antes de comérselo?”
“Había un tiempo,” grampo began, “when los raccoons no eran muy limpios, m’hijo. They would just gobble down everything before lavándolo. Cuando tenían dirty hands, they would just take those patitas and wipe them en sus ojos; that is why los mapaches tienen dark circles around their eyes como una máscara,” he said al muchachito.
“It’s funny que los mapaches wiped their manos en sus ojos, grampo,” Canutito said.
“Eso no es nada, m’hijo,” grampo remarked. “Después que they would wipe their manos en sus ojos, they would limpiarse las patas by rolling their colas between them también.”
“Oh, that’s why raccoons have dark rings around their tails!” Canutito exclaimed. “Ahora sí entiendo por qué tienen anillos negros a lo largo de la cola.”
Grampo Caralampio estaba todo pleased porque Canutito había understood que eran los ring-tailed bandidos who had gnawed las manzanas de los árboles.