Canutito finds ‘un grano de oro’

Canutito didn’t often think about silly things como el oro o la plata. Pero esa mañana, as he was watching a Grama Cuca desdecorar el Christmas tree from last winter, his eye was caught por el glimmer de las gold and silver decorations as grama took them off del pino navideño and packed them up. He was remembering a su amiguito Clarence en la escuela who had asked him: “Te gusta el oro?” When he answered that he did like gold, entonces el Clarence would ask him: “De ése que hace el toro?” Entonces Clarence would ask him: “Te gusta la plata … de ése que hace la gata?”

He smiled. Con razón que tenía gold and silver on the brain esa mañana. Cuando Grama Cuca saw him sonriéndose, she paused y le preguntó: “What are you thinking about, m’hijo?”

“Yo estaba pensando about gold and silver, grama,” he replied. “¿Qué no había minas de oro o de plata anywhere de por aquí in the olden days?”

“Well,” said Grama Cuca, pausing de recoger las decoraciones del Christmas tree viejo, “When I was just una mococita, mi papá told me que había una mina with veins or turqoise en ellas. He also said que la presencia de la turquesa indicaba que there was silver en la piedra.”

“Did anyone ever find any de esa plata over here, grama?” Canutito asked her.

“Algunas personas did, m’hijo,” grama replied, “pero silver in harder to extract de las piedras que el oro, de manera que nobody got much of it. Algunas personas dicen que silver is governed by the cold moon y por eso, es más difícil to extract it. El oro, on the other hand, is ruled por el sol y por eso es más pliable.”

“I think I would rather mine por el oro,” Canutito muttered a sí mismo.

“Many times no tienes que escarbar por el oro, m’hijo,” grama said. “El oro is heavier que la plata y a veces, después de una buena lluvia, the rainfall will carry away la arena and once the sand is gone, the heaiver gold nuggets remain visibles en los arroyos,” she concluded.

“I would really love to see algunos pedazos de oro,” Canutito said offhandedly.

Grama Cuca stood up and said: “Ven conmigo.” She walked over pa’l ropero and from the bottom del wardrobe, detrás de unas camisas she brought out un frasquito con algo shiny inside it. “I had almost forgotten,” she said, “que después que se murió mi papá, I found this small jar of gold nuggets entre sus cosas.”

Canutito gazed at the shiny granos de oro glittering in the small jar.

“Mi papá would sometimes go off solo y regresaba con assorted pieces de oro. Cuando yo le preguntaba where he found them, he would only say: ‘en el cañoncito, m’hija, en el cañoncito’. Unfortunately I never learned where el cañoncito was.”

“¡Ay, and there are like a hundred jillion cañoncitos aquí!” Canutito exclaimed.

“That there are m’hijo, that there are,” said Grama Cuca as she shoved el frasquito de oro back detrás de las old shirts en el ropero, where it would be safe o para cuando lo necesitara otra vez en el futuro.

Canutito stepped outside esa tarde, still pensando del oro. As he was walking, de repente he kicked algo que parecía un grano de oro grande. Pero when he stooped to pick it up, no era más que un pedazo de oro...de ésos que hace el toro. He didn’t want to pick it up ya más ...