The Little Cold House

There was once an old man who lived in a little old house, all alone. During the summer, he tended to his garden and took care of the harvest, putting it up for the winter.

In the fall, he walked here and there, looking for wood to keep the little house warm all winter. Sometimes he came across a tree that had fallen and he went home to get his saw and cut it up. Some of the neighbors left odd pieces of scrap lumber and other wood for him.

The little stove was enough to warm the house, but the windows were loose in their frames, so when the wind blew, they rattled and banged and the wind blew right in and the little house got very cold.

He didn't know what to do, but he thought he could use some of the small wood pieces to stop the windows from rattling. He hammered in a few around the edges of the frames and that stopped the rattling, but the wind still blew through the frames because they didn't fit the little house very well.

One cold, windy day, a little girl came walking along; dawdling, really, because she was a good little girl on her way to see her aunt and she wasn't in any hurry. Her aunt was very old and the little girl thought her house smelled funny.

As she passed by the man's old house, she saw him working on the windows and stopped to watch.

The old man looked up and said hello and she answered hello.

Then she asked why he was driving wood between the window frame and the house. He told her that he was trying to stop the wind from blowing through.

The little girl went along with new purpose and soon came to her aunt's house. She asked her aunt how to keep the wind from blowing through windows. Her aunt told her to get some old cloth and cut it into strips and poke it between the frames and the house with a butter knife.

So she did.

No, that's not the way to end a story. What she did was go home and tell her mother about the old man and his troubles and what her aunt had said. Her mother went to the rag box and soon, loaded with strips of rags, they went to see the old man. Between the three of them, they figured the best way to stuff the rags into the loose frames.

The old man was so happy that he cooked a big pot of soup and sent it home with them.

And... they lived happily ever after. Now, THAT'S the way to end a story.