Why Pumpkins Keep Curly Stems — Beside the old rail fence, Hazel pressed her nose to the cool morning grass, searching for one pumpkin round enough to carry to the harvest table. Read the full story →
Beside the old rail fence, Hazel pressed her nose to the cool morning grass, searching for one pumpkin round enough to carry to the harvest table. The lane smelled of damp oak leaves and nut shells, and every pumpkin she found rolled away with a soft thump, bump, thump. “Stay, please,” Hazel whispered, setting her paw on the smoothest one.
A tiny voice answered from under an acorn cap. “It cannot stay if the wind has nothing to hold.” Out stepped a wind-mender no taller than Hazel’s whiskers, dragging a silver thread that hummed like a sleepy bee. She had been tying loose breezes to tree branches all night, but the pumpkin patch had no knots, no hooks, no handles.
Hazel took the ribbon from her tall hat and looped it gently around the pumpkin’s stem. The wind-mender twisted it once, twice, three times, until the stem curled like a fox’s smile and caught the breeze without letting go. Ever since, pumpkins have kept curly stems, so they know exactly where they belong beside the old rail fence.
