A Treasure Spurned
[This short story was originally a part of my occasional series, Nancy of the Tenderheart, in it we meet Nancy as a preteen and discover a little of the personality that eventually made her famous.]
It was a cold and bitter winter's day as the old man hobbled into town, his worn and ancient boots barely providing warmth for his feet, let alone protection against the weather. His clothing was poor too, tattered and patched many a time, and the only thing that would keep the weather from his old bones was a large waterproof, but it was wrapped tightly around the package he carried under his arm.
I watched as he headed for the door of the inn, and as he pushed the heavy oaken door inwards I raced to the side windows and wiped some of the grime and frost away so I could peer inside, for I was very curious as to the identity of the treasure that warranted such protection in this bitter weather.
As he entered everyone in the gloomy, candle-lit room turned to face him, and they sat there grim-faced, waiting for him to speak, as strangers were not well tolerated in these parts, and after a few moments, in a soft and gentle voice, he began to talk.
"I have little time left on this earth," He said with his old head bowed, "so I have come to give away my most treasured possession. This box is filled to the brim with stories written by my beloved wife. Although I have never learned to read, I know each story as if it were inscribed on my heart, for as she had written each for me, so did she read each to me as often as I asked that gift of her, and we spent many wonderful nights together dreaming of the tales she had spun. As my lovely wife is dead these long ten years past, I would give this gift to someone who would appreciate it as much as I have, to someone who knows the value of a box full of dreams."
To a man they roared with laughter. They mocked him for the way he talked, and for the fact that he could not spell even simple words. One thought it a great jest to offer him a whisky, but only if he could first spell the word. They made jests about his wife, and slapped each other on the back as they revelled in their own humour and self importance, but, as I watched, not one even bothered to look at the old man's treasure. Not one.
Beset by cries to go peddle his wares in another village, he finally left, to the tune of uproarious laughter that followed him into the street, a bent old man, tired and sick, holding the precious memories of his beloved wife tightly under his arm.
It was then that I approached him, scared as I was of strangers I wanted to see the pride in his old face once more, and I asked if I might have his treasure, although I was only a girl, and still yet not a teen.
He held my hand tightly and said that he would give me his most precious gift on the condition that I read them to him one last time, so that for one brief moment he could once again hear the words of his wife, and we sat in the drizzling rain for many hours as I read story after story to him, laughing and crying together, and then, as the light faded and darkness closed down over the moors, he left, his old feet shuffling over the worn cobblestones until darkness hid him from my sight. I was never to see him alive again.
**********************
I have read those stories over and over, and even to this day I still have them in the same box that he had presented to me as if it were full of pirates gold. I have laughed and I have cried and those stories have kept me warm on cold winter's nights, and they have taught my own children to read. They were indeed a wonderful treasure. Simply written, but so full of love that years later you could still feel it in every word. They taught me many things about myself and my own love for Robert McLeary that I might otherwise not have known, never having had a mother to teach them to me.
Each year since that day I have walked to the moors, where a lonely grave lies untended except for on that one day each year, and as I removed the weeds from atop the barely noticeable mound that had no headstone to mark it, I would recite a story from my own memory so that he could once again hear the words of his beloved wife.
