There's a fairy tale about a boy who lost his dog (which he loved eversovery much, much more than anything else in the world) and he buried it in the pumpkin patch in early spring, his tears watering the earth. All summer, the pumpkins grew, large yellow flowers that bloomed and wilted and died, leaving behind little green buds that swelled until they were large and pump and orange all over. Then, on All Hallows Eve, when all the other pumpkins had been picked and had little faces carved in their orange surfaces, the boy picked the largest pumpkin growing over his dog’s grave and took it home. At the very stroke of midnight, the pumpkin shook and burst open and the dog was born again from inside the pumpkin, shaking wet stringy gobs of plant-guts off his fur.
Elanor knows this story off by heart. And even though she knows that it's just a story and not true, it doesn't stop her from planting a pumpkin seed in Goodwill's grave early in the spring, watering it every day and waiting for a pumpkin to grow. A pumpkin large enough to bring back the hobbit she lost to Old Man Willow.
~
Pretty Good Year