Tallow Follows the Blue Button — Under the alders, Tallow kept a blue coat button tucked beneath his mane, smooth as a raindrop and warm from his neck. Read the full story →
Under the alders, Tallow kept a blue coat button tucked beneath his mane, smooth as a raindrop and warm from his neck. He wanted to hear the creek’s night-song before sunset, because the button always quivered when water talked. Across the bank, the stream chuckled over stones, and curiosity pulled him forward like a silver thread.
The first step was cold enough to sting. The second stone wobbled, and Tallow’s button slipped free, plip, into a swirl beside a fern. “Wait for me,” he whispered. He stretched, splashed, and nudged it from the eddy, but the creek had washed its blue paint thin as sky.
When Tallow came back, he carried the faded button carefully between his lips. It no longer shone, but it hummed with the creek’s low song. Next time you trace the water curling around the stones, can you find the little path curiosity pulled through the alders?
