Grandma Rose, why are you so sad today? “Is your back hurting again?” – Anie, a young woman walking from the bus stop to her garden, asked her elderly neighbor.
Yes, my back hurts… – she sighed and wiped her tears with a handkerchief.
Grandma Rose, please calm down. – the woman, hugging the older woman by the shoulders, tried to find out the reason for her neighbor’s behavior. It was last weekend, they ate strawberries together from grandma’s vegetable garden, and she bragged that this year she had good potatoes, large enough for the whole winter and even to sell.
“Well, is it possible to live only on a pension today? I’ll come back next week for potatoes,” he said then, and the women parted in good spirits. By the way, he was already used to seeing Grandma Rose in this mood. no matter how hard it was for him, he always said. “God helps me, everything will be all right.”
And now he sits there wiping away his tears and sighing.
Here we got the potatoes out.
Did you take them off? – Pauline was surprised. But when did you have time with that back? Or who helped you?
Yes, they helped. – Screamed the poor man even more. – They dug out everything clean, took it away to wipe, or at least they left the poor old woman a row.
At last, Anie understood everything.
Who could have done this? It seems we have always had peace here,” and he added, “by your prayers.
Yes, dear. God has always kept my vegetable garden, for how many years I have gathered a good harvest, I live on it, and never, my daughter, you know, no one has ever stolen even berries, not to mention potatoes.
And this year I’m completely weak, God only knows what it took me to grow it all,” the old woman weakly threw up her hands and sighed heavily.
And also today I was walking around thinking. “How will I dig potatoes if my back breaks?” Turns out God heard my groans. But how will I survive the winter? It’s okay, God will take care of it.
But it was as if Anie heard nothing else. he paced back and forth, repeating the same question.
Who could it be? Maybe Alex, our village drunkard?
No, Anie, Alex wouldn’t do that, much less to me. He even helps me carry my bags to the bus. Did you say, Alex? No, he wouldn’t. I know that. And look,” the old woman pointed to her old robe, spread out on the doorstep. – See how dirty it is, see how the thief used my robe to keep his clean clothes clean? And where did Alex get his clean clothes from?
Yes, right,” Anie smiled, “right, not Alex. I thought I was going to his house to search every corner and find your potatoes. And now it turns out that he was a neat man, even wore a robe so as not to get dirty.
Don’t scold me, daughter. God, Himself will judge, but He commanded us not to judge anyone, so there is no need.
Anie grimaced and tried to contain her anger. It seemed that if you gave him freedom, all the curses to the thief would pour from his lips, but for the sake of his grandmother, he remained silent. How many times I was surprised that Baba Masha never judges anyone, you will not hear any curses from him, he only thanks God and tells how He helps him.
Why didn’t he help this time? After all, the thief could have picked someone else’s vegetable garden. Why her? Where was his beloved God? Why didn’t he save? – the woman wondered to herself as she watched her grandmother gather her things to get to the next bus.
Suddenly the dirty robe, which the old woman was trying to put in her bag to wash at home, fell out of her hands, and an enigmatic smile appeared on her grandmother’s face:
Look, Anie, what fell out of your pocket?
The woman ran up and could not believe her eyes. There was a gold ring in the palm of his hand.
But it is very expensive,” exclaimed Polina, looking at the ring more closely. Yes, the potatoes cost him dearly.
Thank you, Lord God,” the grandmother stretched out her hands to the sky, “You took pity on my back and did not leave me without money. Now I have enough for potatoes and a new robe.
Anie looked after her pious neighbor for a long time and thought.
God helped him this time, too.