The Tracks Beside the Garden Bed

Chapter 1The Bent Seedling

Dovi came into Grandpa's garden with Totty.

Yesterday, Grandpa had shown him a small seedling near the edge of the bed. Today, two leaves bent toward the soil.

In the damp path beside it were shoe marks.

Dovi recognized the striped pattern. His brother Shaya's shoes made marks like that.

Shaya had visited Grandpa that morning.

Dovi looked from the prints to the leaves.

He felt sure he knew what had happened.

"Shaya stepped on it," he said to Totty.

Totty looked at the garden bed.

"Did you see him do that?"

"His shoes were here."

"That tells us he walked here. It doesn't tell us what bent the plant."

Dovi wanted to explain that the marks were very close.

But Totty had asked about something he had seen happen, not something he had fitted together afterward.

Grandpa was in the shed putting away his watering tools.

Totty asked Dovi to leave the seedling alone until Grandpa could check it.

Dovi stood beside the path without pressing new marks into the wet part.

He remembered Shaya showing him the striped soles when the shoes were new.

The prints still looked like Shaya's.

He could keep noticing that without saying it proved his brother had damaged the leaves.

Grandpa came out carrying an empty watering can.

Totty pointed out the bent leaves.

Grandpa looked at the large pot beside the seedling.

"I moved this pot after Shaya left," he said. "The hose caught behind it, and the pot tipped toward the bed. I saw it brush the leaves."

He had straightened the pot but had not yet checked the little plant closely.

Shaya had walked along the path to bring Grandpa a packet of labels.

The shoe marks belonged to that errand. The bent leaves belonged to a later moment.

Grandpa checked the seedling and said they would watch it for a few days.

He moved the large pot farther from the bed himself. Then he showed Dovi where to put a label reminding him which plant needed checking.

Dovi placed the label where Grandpa pointed.

He had come ready to name someone to blame. The useful job now was making room and remembering to look again.

Totty asked him what he would say if Shaya asked about the plant.

Dovi answered carefully.

"Grandpa's pot brushed it. We are waiting to see how it does."

Shaya came to supper that evening and asked about the garden.

Dovi told him about the seedling and the moved pot.

He did not accuse him of stepping on it. He had never seen that happen.

Shaya asked whether Grandpa had used the labels.

"One is beside the seedling now," Dovi said.

Next visit, Dovi would look at the plant with Grandpa. The tracks could stay what they were: marks of someone walking past.