A Bucket of Water and a Birthday Party

The little boy and his mother ran with buckets from downspout to downspout trying to catch as much water as they possibly could. There had been fifteen days over ninety degrees in the month of June, and July and August were usually warmer. On top of the heat, they had received almost no rain. The poor family depended on their garden for food, and the garden was struggling.

The next day, the little boy and his mother were walking back from the market, a few fish in tow. As they neared their neighbor’s house, the little boy could hear the little girl his age crying in the backyard. He and his mother stopped to listen. “Mother, my potatoes look so sick. They need more water, and we did not get enough rain yesterday.”

The little boy went to check on his potatoes too. They had used some of the buckets of water that morning, and his potatoes already looked better than the potatoes at the little girl’s house. He counted five full buckets of water at his house. The next morning the little boy dumped four buckets of water on his garden, leaving one and hoping to use it if they got desperate again.

The next day the two mothers that lived next door to each other were talking out of sight. The little boy had heard the little girl crying again the night before. She was worried they would starve if their potatoes did not survive. The little boy came out of his house and moved toward the last bucket of water. The two mothers stopped talking and watched. The little boy went to the little girl’s garden and looked around. Thinking no one was watching him, he dumped his last bucket of water on the little girl’s potatoes. The little girl’s mother hugged the little boy’s mother and said thank you.

The next day was warm, but just before the little girl woke up, rain began to fall. Unless her mother told her, she would never know the little boy had used his last bucket of water on her potatoes. The rest of the summer had some heat, but more importantly, it had more rain than June. The potato harvest was wonderful, and it was hard to say how much a bucket of water actually helped.

December rolled around and the little boy’s birthday came. As two of the poorer kids in school, the little boy and little girl were not popular in their cheap clothing and shabby shoes. The little boy’s birthday went largely unnoticed by everyone but his mother. She had the little girl and her mother over, and the two children had a lovely evening of playing together. They did not need a lot to be happy. Their potato harvest was still keeping them fed better than other years, and they knew to be grateful.

A week before his birthday, the little girl’s mother told the little girl the story about the little boy's last bucket of water. She took her largest potatoes and went to the market, trading them for a slice of chocolate cake. When the boy thought his birthday party was nearly over, she left the room and came back with the slice of cake. The little boy’s eyes lit up. He had rarely received such a treat in his short lifetime. Going forward, many birthdays would come and go. Almost all of them would have the little girl by his side as she became a woman and his wife, but none would compare to that wonderful birthday party and a slice of chocolate cake that they ended up sharing.