Canutito learns cómo usar el salero

¿Habla Usted Spam-glish?

Esa mañanita, Canutito was watching the little hummingbirds

chupando el néctar de

las flores en el jardín. The little chuparosas eran tan cute-itas que Canutito tried to catch algunas de ellas, but of course, they hovered back and forth so fast que era imposible pescarlas. Grampo Caralampio was sitting en el portal watchando al muchachito chasing a las chuparosas and trying to catch them all. He cleared su garganta and he called out, “M’hijo, why don’t you try poniéndoles sal en la cola?” Canutito paused por un momento and he looked at his grampo. He asked him: “Grampo, why would I want to put some salt on their tails? “Yo no voy a

comérmelas. I just want to pet

them.”

“When I was little,” Grampo Caralampio replied, “mi papá me dijo that if I sprinkled salt

en la cola de los pajaritos, that then they would become tame

y entonces I would be able to pet them muy fácil.” In fact, he told me a poem que iba así: ‘A little bird stood on a clear trail, cheecoo, chee-coo, chee. Su canción was the sweetest que jamás yo

oí, chee-coo, chee-coo, chee. I ran por la sal para echarle en su tail, chee-coo, chee-coo, chee.

Mas, cuando me fui, then away flew the bird, chee-coo, cheecoo, chee’.” He paused to look at the hummingbirds volando con facilidad.

“Oh grampo,” smiled Canutito, “I think que eso no era más que uno de esos old wives’ tales. Did your dad tell you otras cosas about los pájaros, grampo?” he

asked.

“Well, he also told me que if I caught una urraca and snipped off the tip de su lengua it would be able to talk como una persona pero cuando yo pensé en ello,I

thought that it would hurt the magpie de manera que I never did cortarle la lengua.”

“He’s right,” m’hijo,” Grama Cuca said as she came out pa’l

portal to see what the boys were doing. “Los pajaritos are gifts de

Dios and we should never hurt them. I also learned un poema de los pajaritos cuando yo estaba en la escuela. It went like this: ‘Fly pajarito, fly into the eh-sky, singing y cantando un merry good-bye’.”

Just then, Grama Cuca looked over pa’l manzano que estaba allá en la huerta. She said, “M’hijo, do you see that apple tree way

out in the orchard? Tiene all kinds of pajaritos sitting on it. Go get el salero de arriba la mesa and

bring it to me.”

Canutito estaba poco confused. Was Grama Cuca going to try to echarles sal en las colas of all the little birds? He ran and got the salt shaker that was on top of the kitchen table y se lo trujo

a su grama. He followed Grama Cuca out hacia la huerta donde los pajaritos estaban cantando

all over the apple tree. Canutito gave her el saltero que traiba en la mano. “Here you go, grama,”

he said.

He could hardly wait to see cómo su grama would manage to

put salt en las colas de todos los

pajaritos. She sneaked over to the tree and she reached up, pero, instead of grabbing un pajarito, she plucked una manzanita verde from the branch del árbol.

She took a small bite from the little green apple and she salted it. Le ofreció la manzanita verde con sal al muchachito. Canutito took it y se la puso en la boca. Era la cosa más deliciosa that he had

ever eaten!

“No wonder que los pajaritos love las manzanitas verdes y las flores,” he said. “I would be happy también if I could eat cosas así todos los días!”…