The Abandoned Orphan
Copyright © September 1, 2018 by Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E.
All Rights Reserved.
The following story is included in my book: Grandpappy's Stories for Children of All Ages.
In the year of our LORD 1685 there lived an orphan girl named Mary. She did not know when she was born or who her parents were. But each year at Christmas she would add one more year to her age in order to keep track of how old she might be. This past Christmas she had added a year and she now thought she must be about 9 years old even though she had never celebrated her birthday and she had never had a birthday party.
Mary had been left at the door of a small house in the village when she was just a newborn baby. The couple that lived in the small house were very old but they were good people and they are the ones who named her Mary. But Mary had no last name. The old couple took care of Mary until she was three years old and then the old man died. Two months later the old woman died. From that time forward Mary was shuffled from one family to another family in the village depending on who had enough extra food to feed a small child. The shortest time Mary spent with a family was 8 days and the longest time she spent with a family was 4 months. But sooner or later each family would start running low on food and they could no longer provide for Mary and then another family in the village would volunteer to take care of her for a little while.
Mary was a quiet child. She was obedient and respectful. She was very, very skinny because all she was usually fed were a few table scraps or leftovers and she had never known what a full stomach felt like. At least one or two days each week she received nothing to eat. She did any chore she was asked to do and that she was capable of doing, such as cleaning the pots and the dishes, washing clothes, sweeping the floor, hauling water, slicing and drying fruits and vegetables, skinning and butchering small animals and fish, tanning animal hides, making soap by combining animal fat, wood ashes, and rainwater, collecting branches and sticks from the nearby forest, and bringing wood inside the house for the fire. The only thing she owned was a pitiful looking dress that was nothing more than a few old rags that she had sewn together. She had walked barefoot her entire life. Her hair was cut very short like a boy because she had no comb or brush to properly take care of her hair. Mary had never had any type of toy to play with.
In the spring and summer of her ninth year there was very, very little rain for about six months and all the vegetable crops in the fields shriveled up and died from lack of water. The people in the village knew it was going to be a very difficult winter because all they had to eat was the trivial amount of food they had left over from the previous year. Just before the first snow the families in the village met together in the village church to decide how they were going to survive the winter. The family that Mary was living with explained that they didn't have enough food to share with Mary and that Mary would now have to go and live with another family in the village. But none of the other families had any food and none of them would volunteer to take care of Mary. Therefore the people of the village decided to send Mary to the next village which was about 15 miles away because they had heard rumors that there had been a little more rain in that village and the people there had a little more food to make it through the winter.
The next morning Mary was told about the situation in her village and she was told that if she wanted to have food to eat when winter arrived then she would need to walk to the next village and find a Christian family in that village that would be willing to share their food with her. There was a good dirt road that lead all the way to the next village and all Mary had to do was stay on the road until she got to the village. So Mary politely said good-bye to the family she had been staying with and she began walking towards the next village. She was barefoot and she was wearing her only dress.
Mary walked slowly because she was barefoot and she looked at the dirt road in front of her very carefully because she didn't want to step on something that would hurt her feet. She had walked for about six hours and she had traveled about seven miles when it began to get very cold and the wind started blowing. Gradually the sky became dark and a few small snowflakes began to fall. Mary began to shiver and her teeth began to chatter. She began to loose some of the feeling in her feet and Mary realized that she was going to freeze to death unless she could find someplace to stay until the storm passed.
Mary struggled to walk a few more steps along the road and then she saw a very small light way off in the woods. She didn't know what it was but she left the road and she began walking towards the light. As she was walking the snow began to fall faster. Mary was afraid she would not have enough strength to make it to the light she could just barely see in the distance. But about twenty minutes later Mary arrived at a very small home made out of dried mud bricks and it was built into the side of a big hill. Most of the small home was underground, like a cave, and only the front of the home was exposed. There was a door and a small window in the front of the house. Mary peeked through the window and she saw a small fire burning in the fireplace. The entire house only had one room and Mary could not see anyone in the house. Mary realized that if the curtain had been drawn across the window then she would never have seen this house because it blended in with the hill and only the glow from the fire made the house visible when the sky had become dark with clouds. Mary knocked on the door and waited. She knocked again and waited. When she thought she was going to pass out from the cold she pulled on the door latch and pushed the door open into the little house. Mary stepped inside and closed the door and then she went immediately to the small fire that was burning in the fireplace. Gradually she regained some of her strength and she began to feel a little better.
There was a pot of stew simmering near the fire and the food smelled delicious. Mary had not had anything to eat for two days and she really wanted to eat just a little of that stew. But she knew it would be stealing if she ate the food without permission. So she just sat on the floor and looked at the pot of stew. There was a stack of firewood near the fireplace but Mary knew it would only last about two days during this cold weather. Mary was thirsty so she found an empty teapot and she took it outside and packed it full of snow. She noticed a huge stack of firewood a few feet from the house. Mary carried her teapot back into the house and she put it near the fire so the fresh snow would melt into water. She knew it was safe to drink snow water, or rainwater, if it was freshly fallen from the sky and if it had not actually touched the ground, because there would be nothing in it that could make her sick. Any water or snow that had touched the ground had to be boiled to make it safe to drink. Then she went back outside and for the next hour she moved more firewood into the house and she stacked it near the other firewood until there was no more room where firewood could be stacked. Then she put two dry pieces of firewood on the fire and she warmed herself by the fire.
Mary sat beside the fire until it was almost dark outside. The hunger pains inside her stomach had become so intense that she decided to eat just a little of the stew. She found a bowl and she ladled some of the stew into the bowl. Then she poured the melted snow water that was in the teapot into a cup and she enjoyed a hot bowl of stew and a cup of warm water. It was delicious.
Mary put one more piece of firewood on the fire. Mary found some clean blankets on a shelf. There was one bed in the small house and Mary laid down on the floor near the bed. She wrapped herself up in one blanket and she used the other blanket as a pillow. Then she went to sleep.
When she woke up the next morning it was still snowing. She looked through the window and she could see that the snow was now about one foot deep outside. She was glad she had brought the extra firewood into the house the day before. She opened the door and filled her teapot with snow. She stoked the fire and she placed more wood on the fire. The stew was still just a little bit warm in the stewpot so she moved the stewpot closer to the fire and then she waited as her snow melted in the teapot. A short time later she had a bowl of hot stew and a cup of warm water. This was the first time in her life that she could remember having something to eat before she went to bed at night and then having something to eat again when she woke up in the morning. Mary was so happy that she began to sing. It was the first time she had every sung and she was surprised that she had a nice singing voice.
The snow continued to fall for several days until it was over two feet deep outside. But Mary wasn't concerned because she had enough firewood to last for at least two more weeks inside the house, and enough firewood outside the house to last the entire winter. And she had found dried meat jerky, smoked dried fish, dried vegetables, dried fruit, and dried acorns in the pantry so she was not worried about food. And she was never thirsty because there was so much freshly fallen snow just outside her door.
Mary often wondered who lived in the little house and if they were okay. Each day she said a very simple prayer and she asked God to help that person wherever he or she might be. But the days continued to pass and no one ever came to the house, not even a visitor.
Mary found some tanned deerskins on a shelf and some animal sinew and a needle. She knew how to use a needle and thread because she had always been required to sew whatever rags that were given to her into a dress that she could wear. She examined the animal sinew and she realized it would be as good as, or maybe even better than any thread she had ever used before.
Mary had never had any underwear. So she decided to make herself some underwear using one of the smaller pieces of soft flexible deerskins. She used a sharp kitchen knife to cut the deerskin into the correct shape and size. Then she started sewing one side of the underwear together. As she was sewing she stopped and stared at her hands. She had been eating well for four weeks and she could no longer see all the bones in her fingers. There was actually a little bit of meat between her skin and her bones. And the color of her skin was no longer a ghostly white. Her skin was now the same color as the skin of the other people in her village. Mary was so happy that she started singing again.
When she finished with the underwear she put it on, and tied the open side together, and it fit perfectly. Then Mary made herself a proper dress using one of the other soft deerskins. When she put on her new deerskin dress she felt as if she was beautiful. It was a good thing there was no mirror in the small house because she would have cried if she had been able to see how thin her body was and what her hair looked like. Finally Mary made herself some deerskin moccasins and she put them on her feet. She had never had anything on her feet before and Mary felt warm all over even though it was still snowing outside.
The weeks passed and Mary eventually decided to start sleeping in the one bed that was in the little house. She had never slept in a real bed before and she was completely unprepared by how soft and comfortable the bed was. She started crying tears of joy because she thought she was now the luckiest girl in the entire world.
Spring finally came and all the snow melted. She knew Christmas had come and gone even though she didn't know the actual day it happened. So she added a year to her age and she figured she was now about 10 years old.
A bow and some arrows were in the house so she began to hunt small game animals and birds. There was also a small book in the pantry that contained hand drawn color pictures of a variety of things that grew in the woods. Some of the things she immediately recognized and some of them she had not seen before. Beside each picture someone had put a checkmark or an “X” and she guessed that indicated which ones were safe to eat and which ones were poisonous. During the warm months she was able to restock the house with dried meat, dried fish, dried wild fruit, dried wild edible plants, and dried acorns. She also replenished the woodpile beside the house with sticks and branches that she found lying on the ground in the forest. By the time the first snow fell she had a full cupboard of dried food and plenty of firewood. She was not worried about starving to death or freezing to death no matter how long the winter might last.
Mary had grown healthy and strong. Therefore she made herself a new buckskin dress, underwear, and moccasins because she had outgrown the ones she had made the previous winter. Her hair had also grown longer and she brushed it gently every day with a hairbrush she had found on a shelf in the house. She liked to brush her hair because it gave her something to do as she sang songs to herself. She only knew two folk songs that she had heard people sing when she had lived in the village so she started making up some new songs. Her songs were about how God had been so good to her and her songs were very beautiful.
Seven more years passed and Mary was now seventeen years old. The kitchen knife she had been using was now almost worn out. She had sharpened the knife on a stone so many times that the blade was now thin and fragile. She had to be very careful when she used the knife because she did not want to break it. One day she decided she would walk to the village she had originally been told to go to and see if she could trade some of her deerskins for a new knife. She looked through her pile of tanned deerskins and selected the three best ones and she rolled them together and tied them to her waist. She hung her quiver full of arrows and her bow on her back. She attached her only knife to her leather belt. Then she walked out of the forest and onto the dirt road and she continued her journey towards the village that she had been told to walk to when she was just nine years old.
As she entered the village she noticed that everyone stopped whatever they were doing and they just stared at her. Everyone's chin dropped down and their mouths were wide open and they stared at her without blinking their eyes. Mary simply assumed that the village people did not see many strangers. Mary walked past one small boy who was holding the hand of his mother and Mary heard the little boy ask, “Mommy, is that woman a goddess?” And Mary heard the little boy's mother say, “I don't know. I don't think so.”
Mary did not realize that she had grown into an exceptionally beautiful woman with a strong but very attractive feminine figure. Her hair had grown down to her waist and as she walked her hair floated in the breeze behind her. Because she had survived alone for eight years in the wilderness she walked with the confidence of someone who knew how to take care of herself, and her eyes were constantly surveying and appraising everything she saw as she walked.
When she had walked about halfway into the village a handsome young man walked up to her and he introduced himself. He said his name was John and he was the son of the village Mayor. Mary told John her name and then she told him that she was looking for a new knife because her old knife was almost worn out. John told her they had lots of excellent knives at his house and he invited her to come home with him and look at those knives. When they entered John's house he introduced Mary to his father, the Mayor, and he told his father that she was looking for a new knife. John and his father then went through their entire house and they brought every knife they had and put them on the kitchen table for Mary to examine. Mary looked at the knives but she didn't touch them. Instead she asked how much they wanted for one of their knives. John said she could have any knife she wanted and he would be happy to just give it to her. Mary replied that she had not accepted charity for a very long time and she did feel like this was an occasion when she should accept something for free. Mary thanked them for their hospitality and then she turned to leave. But John asked her to stop for just a moment because he had something he wanted to say. Mary turned around and looked at John and then he said, “Mary, I know this is sudden but I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you. I hope you will allow me the privilege of courting you and after you get to know me then maybe you will agree to marry me.”
Mary replied, “I understand your offer but I need time to seriously consider what you have just said. If I decide to accept your offer then I will let you know.” And then Mary left the Mayor's home and she walked back outside.
When she stepped into the village street she immediately met another very handsome young man who was waiting for her to come out of the Mayor's house. He introduced himself and he told her that his name was Paul and that he was the son of the village Preacher. Mary explained that her old knife was almost worn out and that she was looking for a new knife. Paul invited her to come to his house beside the church and to look at his knives. When they entered Paul's house he introduced Mary to his father, the Preacher, and Paul explained that she needed a new knife. Immediately Paul and his father brought every knife in the house to the kitchen table for Mary to examine. Mary asked how much they wanted for one of their knives and Paul told her that she could have any knife she wanted as a gift. Once again Mary said she appreciated their kindness but she did not need charity at this time in her life. She removed the tanned deerskins that were hanging from her waist and she unrolled them on the table for Paul to examine. Paul looked at each deerskin very carefully and he said he had never seen such perfect workmanship before. There were no holes or cuts anywhere on any of the deerskins and each deerskin had been perfectly tanned and each one was very soft and flexible. John selected one of the deerskins and he told Mary that she could select any knife she wanted in exchange for the deerskin. Mary agreed to the bargain and then she carefully picked up each knife and examined it. After she had carefully looked at each knife she showed Paul the knife she wanted and the trade was completed. As Mary was getting ready to leave the house Paul asked her to stop for just a moment and then Paul told her the same thing that John had said and Mary responded to Paul exactly as she had to John. Mary now had two proposals for marriage and she had only been in the village for less than one hour.
As Mary stepped outside of Paul's house into the village street she was surprised to see 14 young handsome men standing in the street with knives in their hands for her to look at. They told her that John had mentioned that she was looking for a knife and they hoped she would consider accepting one of the knives that they wanted to give to her. Mary thanked them all for their kindness but she told them she had just traded for a knife with Paul and that she didn't need another knife. As she looked at the faces of the 14 young men she could see that each one of them was crushed by her words. Mary immediately decided it was time for her to leave the village and that is exactly what she did. When Mary got back to her little house in the forest she thought very carefully about everything that she had seen and done in the village.
This is where this story temporarily ends. The rest of this story now depends on you. You must decide what you think Mary should do next. You may select any one of the following three options:
- Mary should get better acquainted with John, the Mayor's son, and if he is a good man then marry him. John and his father live in the best house in the village. The quality of the furniture in their home and the quality of their clothes clearly show that they have a lot of money. Therefore Mary would probably have everything she could possibly desire for the rest of her life if she marries John.
- Mary should get better acquainted with Paul, the Preacher's son, and if he is a good man then marry him. Paul and his father live in a very humble home and it was obvious from their clothes, and the very few things they had inside their home, that they are relatively poor. But they smiled a lot and they appeared to be a lot happier than John and his father. Therefore Mary would probably have a very happy life is she marries Paul.
- Mary should remain alone in her little house in the forest for a few more years because Mary has been very happy living alone for a long time. And Mary is not sure if she can easily adjust to village life now that she has been living independently for such a long time.
Please take your time to carefully consider Mary's options and then pick the best option for her based on who Mary is and what her life has been like up to this time in this story. After you have made your choice then read the ending below that corresponds to your decision.
Ending One: Marry John (the Mayor's Son)
Mary thought about her village experience for several days. The following week she returned to John's house and she told him she would like to get to know him better and that she would visit him one day each week at his house. John agreed and he recommended Mondays because that was the day that he had the least amount of work to do. So for three months Mary visited with John one day per week and he introduced her to all the people in the village. After three months Mary agreed to marry John and the following month they had the biggest wedding ceremony ever celebrated in that village, and Mary received a very expensive wedding ring. For the first time in her life Mary now had a last name. John purchased a new home in the village for them to live in and they were very happy together. After Mary got to know the people in the village and the types of work they did, Mary suggested to John that they should start a freight business so that the village could more easily and economically engage in trade with other villages. John thought it was an excellent idea and soon he and Mary were managing a prosperous freight business that moved merchandise and food between all the villages in the area.
Two years passed and John and Mary did not yet have any children of their own. But Mary noticed that there were four orphans in the village who were being continually shuffled between families the same way she had been when she was young. Therefore she asked John if it was okay for her to start an orphanage to take care of the children on a full-time basis. John agreed and he used some of the profits from their freight business to buy a medium size home in the village. Mary then took over and she bought beds and tables and chairs and the other things the children would need. Then she invited all the orphans in the village to come live with her at the orphanage and every orphan child accepted her offer. Mary cooked and provided for the four children every day. Mary was able to learn how to read and write at the same time John taught the orphans this basic skill. Mary also taught the children a lot of the basic skills that she knew so they could provide for themselves as they got older, and so the older children could help her do some of the daily work of taking care of the smaller children. Over the next ten years John and Mary had five children of their own. Mary raised her five children with the same love she showed the orphan children. During this time her family and her community continued to prosper. As time passed each orphan grew up and started practicing a trade in the village. But there were always new orphans to take their place. When Mary died at the age of 72 everyone in the entire village attended her funeral and everyone was deeply and sincerely sorry that she had passed away. One of the orphan children who was now grown up took on the responsibility of providing for the little children in the orphanage for many, many years into the future.
Ending Two: Marry Paul (the Preacher's Son)
Mary thought about her village experience for several days. The following week she returned to Paul's house and told him that she would like to get to know him better and that she would visit him one day each week at his house. John agreed and he recommended Sundays because they could attend church together and enjoy Sunday dinner together. So for three months Mary attended church with Paul on Sundays and he introduced her to all the people in the village. After three months Mary agreed to marry Paul and the following month they had a very, very small wedding ceremony because that was all Paul could afford. Mary also received a very simple wedding ring. However, for the first time in her life Mary now had a last name. Paul and Mary lived with Paul's father in his small house and they were very happy together. Mary began singing songs in church on Sunday mornings and the number of people attending church continued to increase because they loved to listen to Mary sing. The weekly offerings also continued to increase. After Mary got to know the people in the village Mary suggested to Paul that they should start an undertaker business because their village was growing and no one in the village wanted the job of building coffins and digging graves. Paul thought it was an excellent idea and soon he and Mary were managing an undertaker business in a small room that they added onto his father's house.
Two years passed and Paul and Mary did not yet have any children of their own. But Mary noticed that there were four orphans in the village who were being continually shuffled between families the same way she had been when she was young. Therefore she asked Paul if it was okay for her to start an orphanage to take care of the children on a full time basis. Paul agreed and he used some of the profits from their undertaker business to buy a medium size home in the village and he and Mary moved into the home and they started living there instead of with Paul's father. Mary then took over and she bought beds and tables and chairs and the other things the children would need. Then she invited all the orphans in the village to come live with her at their home, which was now also an orphanage, and every orphan child accepted her offer. Mary cooked and provided for the four children every day. Mary was able to learn how to read and write at the same time Paul taught the orphans this basic skill. Mary also taught the children a lot of the basic skills that she knew so they could provide for themselves as they got older, and so the older children could help her do some of the daily work of taking care of the smaller children. Over the next ten years Paul and Mary had five children of their own. Mary raised her five children with the same love she showed the orphan children. During this time her family and her community continued to prosper. As time passed each orphan grew up and started practicing a trade in the village. But there were always new orphans to take their place. When Mary died at the age of 72 everyone in the entire village attended her funeral and everyone was deeply and sincerely sorry that she had passed away. One of the orphan children who was now grown up took on the responsibility of providing for the little children in the orphanage for many, many years into the future.
Ending Three: Remain Alone in Her Little House
Mary thought about her village experience for several days. The following week she decided she did not want to marry anyone at this time in her life. So she did not return to the village to see either John or Paul. Instead she continued living in the forest and every day she hunted or fished, and she looked for edible plants.
About a month later she was tracking a deer when she happened to see another hunter in front of her that had also discovered the tracks of the same deer. She didn't know what she should do so she coughed loudly and the other hunter turned around and looked at her. Then the other hunter walked over to her and told her that his name was David. He said he had plenty of deer meat at home and he would go the other way if she wanted to keep tracking the deer. Mary said she also had plenty of deer meat at home and she really didn't need any more. So David suggested that they hunt the deer together and if they killed it then they could share the deer meat equally. Mary agreed and they continued to track the deer. Eventually they saw it in the distance and David very quietly approached the deer and shot it with an arrow. Together they skinned the deer and divided up the deer meat. They did not want to cut the deerskin in half so they decided to play a game and the winner would get the deerskin. David won the game and he invited Mary to walk with him to his cave so she could see where he lived. When they got to David's cave he cut some of his deer into deer steaks and he began roasting the steaks over a fire for their dinner. He hung the rest of his deer in the back of his cave in a very cool area so it would not spoil and Mary also hung her half of the deer nearby for the same reason. Mary took some edible plants out of her bag and she cooked them in some water as the deer steaks continued to cook over the fire. During this time David told Mary his life story.
David's parents were very poor and they had lost their farm one year because they could not grow enough vegetables to pay the rent on their farm. That forced them to find someplace else to live and that is when they moved into the cave. Four months later David was born but his mother died giving birth because there was no midwife to help her deliver the baby. David's father had raised him and he had taught David everything he knew about surviving in the wilderness and he also taught David how to read and write. When David was 11 years old his father became sick and he died three days later. Since that time David had lived by himself in the cave and he had been happy there for the past eight years. David said he was now 19 years old.
When David finished telling his story Mary told him the story of her life. And then they ate dinner together. It had gotten dark outside so David invited Mary to spend the night in his cave. He said there were two separate beds in his cave and that nobody had slept in his father's bed since his father had died. Mary accepted the invitation and they talked beside the fire for three more hours before they both decided it was time to go to sleep.
The next day Mary invited David to come see where she lived and when she got home the first thing she did was to slice her deer meat into very thin strips and then she hung those strips of meat outside the front of her home in the shade where the heat of the sun would dry them but the sun's rays would not touch the meat. Then she and David talked all day. That evening she fixed them supper and about an hour before it got dark David said good-bye and he returned to his cave.
From that day on either Mary or David invented some reason to visit the other person. They enjoyed each other's company very much but they always said good-bye at the end of each day and they both slept in their own beds at night. Four months passed and the weather began to get cold and they realized that the snow would soon prevent them from visiting one another. That was when David asked Mary to marry him and she immediately said yes.
The next morning they walked to the village where Mary had lived as a child and they were married by the village preacher in the village church. For the first time in her life Mary now had a last name. David could not afford any type of wedding ring. But David and Mary went hunting together that afternoon and they killed a huge turkey and they cooked it for their wedding dinner. They were truly happy because they now had each other.
Mary and David moved all of Mary's stuff into David's cave and they spent the winter together in the cave. In the spring Mary told David that she was going to have a baby and David insisted that they move into the village where Mary had lived as a child because David wanted to make sure that there would be a midwife available when it was time for Mary to give birth. The next day they gathered a few of their things and walked to the village where Mary had lived as a child. They exchanged some of their tanned deerskins for six months rent on a very small house at the corner of the village. During the next week they made several trips back to their cave and they moved all their stuff into their new home. Once they got settled into their new home they realized the village did not have a Hide Tanner or a Trading Post and they decided to start a Trading Post and a Hiding Tanning business in their small home. Their business immediately became very successful and a few months later Mary gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
Two years passed but David and Mary did not have any more children. However, Mary noticed that there were four orphans in the village who were being continually shuffled between families the same way she had been when she was young. Therefore she suggested to David that they move into a bigger house, and expand their Trading Post and Hiding Tanning business, and use part of the house as an orphanage to take care of the children on a full time basis. David agreed and he used some of the profits from their Trading Post business to buy a medium size home in the village and they moved their business there. Mary then took over and she bought beds and tables and chairs and the other things the children would need. Then she invited all the orphans in the village to come live with her at their home, which was now also an orphanage, and every orphan child accepted her offer. Mary cooked and provided for her family and for the four orphan children every day. Mary was able to learn how to read and write at the same time David taught the orphans this basic skill. Mary also taught the children a lot of the basic skills that she knew so they could provide for themselves as they got older, and so the older children could help her do some of the daily work of taking care of the smaller children. Mary and David also took the children to church every Sunday, even during the winter months. Over the next ten years David and Mary had four more children of their own for a total of five children. Mary raised her five children with the same love she showed the orphan children. During this time her family and her community continued to prosper. As time passed each orphan grew up and started practicing a trade in the village. But there were always new orphans to take their place. When Mary died at the age of 72 everyone in the entire village attended her funeral and everyone was deeply and sincerely sorry that she had passed away. One of the orphan children who was now grown up took on the responsibility of providing for the little children in the orphanage for many, many years into the future.
The Moral of this Story
The moral of this story is that sometimes the choices we make can significantly change how our lives unfold. But there may be a divine presence that watches over us and we may still be able to accomplish the really important things that we need to do regardless of the decisions we make as we gradually grow older.
THE END
Grandpappy's e-mail address is: RobertWayneAtkins@hotmail.com