Weeds in Bloom Read Free Page A

sat, about seven feet apart.
    Selecting a small stone, Mr. Carliotta tossed it into the water. Plop! A ring grew and then melted away, ignoring its cause.
    “Robert,” he asked, “where is the stone?”
    “Gone. It sunk.”
    “All of it, or just a part?”
    “All. The whole thing.”
    “That,” he said, “is what can happen to the money most people earn. It has a way of vanishing. Never to be reclaimed.” Not understanding what Mr. Carliotta was explaining, I told him so. “Well,” he said, “first let me invite you to throw a stone into our little lake.” I picked one up, cocking my arm. “Please do not throw it out into the deep. Instead, drop it very close to the shoreline, into an inch of water. And no more.”
    This I did.
    “In a sense,” he said, “we still have it. Close enough to fetch back to possession, anytime we wish.”
    I agreed.
    “You are a polite boy, and you’re not afraid of work. So I will tell you my secret. Not really a mystery at all; easy to understand, yet difficult to master.” I leaned closer. “A fellow who earns money may often complain that he doesn’t earn enough. Because the money is soon spent, and nothing is left. Were his employer to double his wage, or triple it, nothing would be left to save.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “His problem, Robert, is not the level of his income. It’s the level of his discipline.”
    “You mean he throws it all away.” I pointed at the lake. “Like your stone.”
    Mr. Carliotta nodded. “The secret is three little words.”
    “What are they?”
    “Always … save … half.”
    It was my turn to nod.
    “The poor man who only saves pennies will become far richer than the highly paid man who spends every dollar he earns.”
    “That holds sense.”
    “Learn,” he said, “to deny yourself. People who must
have
a lot of things end up having very little.”
    I informed Mr. Carliotta that I was saving the loose change he paid me. Already I almost owned a dollar.
    “Do you have a bank?”
    “Sort of. It’s a little tin box that used to have chewing tobacco in it.”
    “I also started with less than a dollar. As soon as you save five dollars, go to the bank in town and save your money there, where it will grow. It’s time you learned the difference between income and capital.”
    I grinned. “A capital is like Montpelier.”
    Slapping his knee, Mr. Carliotta smiled at me. “Income is what I pay you. Capital is having that money in the big bank, where it will earn you interest. The bank pays you money to keep it there. And someday, when you are my age, your capital savings will have grown so large that it will pay you all the wages you’ll ever need.”
    I said nothing.
    “Income is what you earn. Capital is what you save. And if you deny yourself and wait, you will prosper. Discipline plus patience equals wealth.”
    “Is that how you did it?”
    My first Greek philosopher pointed at my stone, nearby, where it still rested in the shallow shoreline water.
    “Robert, it is within your grasp.”

Aunt Ida
    S HE LIVED UPROAD .
    Aunt Ida had resided in her tiny shack for near about all of her life. No amount of family persuasion could convince her to abandon the place. Or her independence.
    From our farm it was most a mile. Uphill.
    To visit her I had to hike a double-rutter, as Aunt Ida herself described it, two mules wide. It had been years since the last wagon had ventured up a mountain road fit only for hikers or goats. During the winter set, some of the loggers might use the trail to skid a few logs of rough spruce down to a sawyer, or to the pulp-and-paper mill.
    Today I was using it.
    As it was August, a winding furrow of fresh ferns had turned the bumpy strip between the wagon ruts a tall green. Amongst the ferns there were weeds,and blue daisies taller than I was, even though my age was coming up eleven. The year was 1938.
    It was hot.
    Good weather for growing.
    To my right, a stand of goldenrod was reaching for the