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Little Stories for Tiny People: Anytime and bedtime stories for kids
The Late Summer Jam: A Wandering Sleep Story
00:17:34
A Story for Kids
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Transcript3 lines
- [00:00]
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Hello everyone. This is Rhea with a quick note. This is a full episode preview of a story featured on Little Stories for Sleep, an exclusive bedtime podcast just for my Little Stories Premium subscribers. The episode I'm sharing with you today is part of a series I'm calling Wandering Sleep Stories. These new stories are peaceful, calm, calming, and perfect for that last track on a bedtime playlist on Little Stories for Sleep. Wandering Sleep Stories have no intro or outro. It's just the story framed by soft music. Now grab your weighted blanket, snuggle up, and fall asleep to this sweet tale.
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Rose looked at the door every minute or so, as if at any second it might burst open and her sister might enter the cottage as she had done a thousand times before. But Blossom had only just moved with her family to a distant forest, one with better trees and fresher air. Rivers supposedly teeming with fish. Mountains. Apparently, she wouldn't be dropping by anytime soon. Still, Rose kept looking because if her sister did not materialize, she'd have to do something she had not done before and did not wish to do. Rose sighed. She turned her focus to the book in her lap. It was about a beaver who accidentally built his dam near a fox den. An intriguing premise and rather comical to Rose, as she herself was a fox. But there were pages and pages describing the moonlight glinting off the river. She yawned and flipped ahead, only to find a lengthy description of moss. Rose glanced at the door. Blossom did not come through it. Rose sighed again and snapped the book shut. I think I'm going to have to make that jam, rose grumbled as she ran out the door minutes later into the summer forest. She was nearly halfway to the farm when she realized she'd forgotten her wagon. She grumbled all the way back to the cottage, pulled the wagon out from under its resting spot beneath a bush, and set out once more. By then she was tired of grumbling, so she stopped. It was barely dawn, but the forest was steaming. A thick mist hovered in the tree canopy. Rose shuddered to imagine the dense heat. The day promised she'd be in her cottage, which was half underground, for the most blazing of hours, but sleep, she knew, would be elusive in the damp summer dark. At the moment, the forest was tolerable. She made her way steadily through the reedy grass. Every now and then a startled frog leapt away from her oncoming stride. The ground was soft after a recent downpour, and puddles remained here and there, reflecting the early morning light. Rose heard a rustling from the base of a tree to her right and glanced there to see a squirrel scurrying up the trunk. She stopped walking and watched it for a long moment, deciding. Gnats circled her head and she batted them away. The squirrel settled on a branch, nibbling something it would be so easy to catch. Already the air was hotter than when she'd set out. Soon the mist would dissipate and the sun would climb higher and the forest would and everything in it would roast. And there were the berries to consider. It wasn't as if they were reserved for her. Those awful goats, the ones that had showed up two years ago, could be munching on them that very minute. Rose heard Blossom's voice in her head. Come on, Rose, let's get a move on. If we don't get enough berries, we won't have enough jam. And if we don't have enough jam, we yes, rose muttered. Yes, I know. I'll never hear the end of it. She took a last look at the squirrel, who calmly gnawed on a walnut, oblivious to the fact that he'd sparked such a dramatic internal battle with in a nearby fox. Then Rose continued on her way. Upon reaching the farm, Rose felt both relief and annoyance come in waves, one after the other. Relief because the berries blackberries the color of night and raspberries the color of Rose's namesake, her mother's favorite flower, were clearly ripe and undevoured. There was not a rabbit or a goat in sight, but the annoyance followed because now she had absolutely no excuses. A large wooden sign planted in the ground read, you pick berries in crisp white paint. I pick berries Indeed. All of this, Rose thought as she sent one berry after another plunking into the wagon, is different from last year and the year before that and before that. It was very different from every other year because it was the first time Blossom wasn't there with her every step of the way. Rose spent the next hour going up and down the line of plants, picking and sweating and remembering. She could not recall who had been the first to suggest making the jam. It was as if the idea had bubbled up in both of their minds in the very same instant when they stumbled on the pick your own berry farm at the southern edge of the woods. It had felt like some kind of wild madcap adventure. Two young foxes with not a shred of experience decide on a whim to make 200 jars of BlackBerry jam to sell at the Forest Fair. They had to work to keep giggly smiles off their faces when they went to reserve a half sized booth at the Forest Fair planning office located in an underground den. Jam, you say? Said the Wolverine, working at the desk. Yes. Business name, the Wolverine said without looking up. Her paw hovered over a clipboard, pen poised, ready for an answer. The sisters exchanged blank looks. Blossom raised her brow in question. Rose shrugged in return. The silence stretched on long enough that the Wolverine looked up. Business name, she said. As if for the first time together, the sisters said rose Blossom Jam. And in that moment Rose Blossom Jam was born. It was not a business, really, but for two weeks every summer, when the sisters picked the berries, cooked the jam, jarred it, loaded it into two rickety old wagons, and spent a magical two weeks selling it at the fair alongside tea cakes and scones. Every year for five years they'd reserved a booth. Every year for five years they had sold out of jam on the final twilight of the fair, much to the disappointment of the latecomers. Tell me you have more jars hidden away back there. Don't you hold back on us. We promise. They're no more. We're so sorry. It was a tradition that seemed like it would continue forever. Rose imagined they'd hand it down to their daughters someday, until Blossom had announced she was moving. We need a change, is all. And taking her daughter and the rest of her family with her. We'll be back to visit, of course. But they had not been back. Not yet. It had only been a few weeks. It was all so new to Rose, so searing to the touch, like a fresh wasp sting that had yet to calm. And so Rose had dawdled and hemmed and hawed and waited until the last possible minute to reserve a half sized booth at the fair. Business name, the wolverine had said without looking up. Rose had paused for a long while. There was no one to consult. Business name, the wolverine repeated, glancing up at her. Rose Blossom Jam. She couldn't bear to change it, even if she was a Rose. Without a Blossom, she had gone through the motions. She had forced herself up, away from her book, into the forest to the berry farm. She had dragged the wagon home, weighed down with fruit. She had set a pot to boil alone. Now Rose stood over the pot, watching it. She knew she shouldn't watch it, knew it would take double the time to boil if she did. But there was nothing else to do. She stared down at the berries, mostly blackberries, but she and Blossom had discovered that if they added a portion of raspberries, the jam developed a deeper flavor. An unbidden thought flitted through Rose's mind. Two berries better than one. Two sisters better than one. Rose sighed for the third time that day the pot boiled. Just as the surface of the mixture was overtaken with bubbles, the door of Rose's cottage creaked open and Blossom entered with a sheepish smile. Oh, Rose, I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I should have sent word. I just. You're here now. I'm not too late then. Not too late. I brought someone. Did you come in, dear? The door opened once more. In stepped Blossom's daughter, Petal, smiling shyly. The three foxes spent the rest of the day catching up and pouring the berry mixture into 200 jars. They spent the next two weeks at the forest fair. They ran out of jam on the final twilight. The latecomers were incredulous. You can't be serious. Tell us you have another jar under that booth. Petal giggled. I wish we did, rose said. Twilight, that most in between of times, was rapidly darkening into night. At booths around the fair, vendors lit lanterns that put out lovely warm glowing lights. Don't worry, blossom said, nodding at the would be customers will be back next summer. Rose looked at her sister, her eyes shining. We will? Yes, blossom whispered, giving her sister's paw a light squeeze. Yes, we will. The three foxes packed up their wagons and headed home into the nighttime forest together.
- [16:11]
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This has been a special full episode preview of a Wandering Sleep Story. To hear more Wandering Sleep stories, you can join Little Stories Premium by visiting little stories premium premium.com and thank you as always for listening in.