"Ansleigh's Money"

by Bill Andrew
(Roswell, Georgia, USA)

My son and his family were getting ready to go shopping. Ansleigh, our five-and-a-half year old granddaughter begged permission to get money from her piggy bank.

“Okay,” Bryan said, “you can go get $2.00.” She squealed happily, hugged him then raced upstairs to her room.

When she'd not come and we were going out the door, I volunteered to see why she was not ready. I found her with the bank emptied in the middle of the floor in her bedroom, the coins pushed into a pile. She was anxiously going through the bills (she calls them “tickets”). After studying each one she would put it aside and pick up another.

“Pa,” she asked me when I came in, “what am I going to do? I can't find any with a '2' on them.”

Choking back my tears, I fished money out of my pocket, reached for her hand, and said, “Never mind, Pa has what you need.”