by S. G. Harsha

Created on: August 31, 2011   Last Updated: September 12, 2011

“But it’s dirty, Mamma!” I said to my grandmother. Her name was Gertrude, but she liked us to call her Ma’am and we liked to caller her Ma. In the end, we started calling her Mamma as a joke, but she never protested.  She nodded and handed me a small shovel only slightly larger than my hand.  

“You like sand boxes right?” She said.  

I nodded.

She continued, “Dirt is just like sand. Only it smells better.”

I frowned. She smiled.

“Hand me that plant.”

At the foot of the rows of toiled and mounded dirt of my grandma’s garden was a large wooden picnic table covered with plants.  I looked for one sitting alone among the rest, but couldn’t find the one she was talking about. 

“Which one?” I said.

Mamma came behind me and put her arm around my neck, then kissed me on the cheek and said, “Which one do you like?”

I didn’t have a like or a dislike.  They were plants.  My mom pulled lots of them from the front yard and called them weeds.  So I shrugged my shoulders. 

“You know what they are?” she asked.

I wanted to answer weeds, but I never saw mom putting weeds in the ground: I only saw her pulling them.  So, I shook my head. 

“They’re tomatoes.” She said. 

“Uh uh!” I protested.  “Tomatoes are red and round. Like baseballs.”

Mamma laughed and said, “You’re a smart kid! No, these are tomato plants.  They make tomatoes.”

I was shocked! I had no idea you could use plants to make tomatoes.  I thought you had to buy them at the grocery store. Mom always complained that the tomatoes were getting expensive.  She wasn’t buying them as much as she used to.  Suddenly I had this great idea!  I could get tomatoes from plants for my mom when she came home from work. She would be so happy!

“How come the plants in our yard don’t have tomatoes?” I asked.

Mamma picked up one of the plants and bent down to the ground where a weed was growing.  She beckoned me to look closely and I did.  Watching closely because I knew she was going to make that plant give us a tomato.

“See the leaves of this plant and the leaves of this weed?” I nodded and she continued, “They are different plants. Just like you friend Nick is a different kid than you.”

I couldn’t believe it at

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