Giving

To All Ye Pilgrims: Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now, I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th of the year of our Lord one thousand

I distinctly remember the day I gave my grandma the nickname “ Ole’ Money Bags.” I was probably 6 or 7 years old, and I was spending the day with Grandma Mayhew, my favorite person in the world. We had just walked home from the bank where Grandma cashed a check. I followed her into the bedroom where she pulled a silver box out from under her bed. She unlocked the box with a tiny key and, when she opened it up, I saw a huge treasure! Inside her safe deposit box were several twenty-dollar bills as well as a few one-hundred dollar bills. I couldn’t believe it! Grandma was rich!