CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL ( Anh ngữ)

Ruby’s Roses – Hoa hồng của Ruby

The neighborhood kids nicknamed the cranky old
couple CrazyJack and Ruby Rednose. Rumor was
that they sat inside and drank whiskey all day.

It was true that Jack and Ruby Jones preferred to
keep to themselves. About the only words we ever heard from them were
"Keep out of our rosebushes!"

The rosebushes were seventy beautiful floribunda shrubs that served as a
fence between our house and theirs. The rosefence took quite a bit of abuse,
since our house was the neighborhood hangout.

I was eleven at the time and the oldest of six active girls. We should have
played our softball games elsewhere to avoid hurting the roses, but we
secretly enjoyed irritating Crazy Jack and Ruby Rednose.

Jack and Ruby had a son whom we nicknamed Crazy Jack Junior. He was
due to come home from Vietnam. We heard he had been discharged because
of a nervous breakdown. The neighborhood had thrown a big party for
Jimmy Brown when he came home from the war, but no one offered to have
a party for Crazy Jack Junior.

The day Crazy Jack Junior was scheduled to come home, we had a
neighborhood softball game in our yard. Johnny McGrath was trying to
catch a fly ball. He stumbled over one of Ruby Rednose's thorny rosebushes
and fell on top of several more. Boy, did he yell. But theroses were the ones
that really suffered.

While Mom examined the damaged roses, my sisters and I hung back,
plotting how to get out of the thorny job. As we whispered back and forth,
the Joneses' garage door opened and Ruby slowly walked out. She looked
sad. And it wasn't her nose that was red, it was her eyes.

Ruby walked over to my mother. The two women stood looking at each
other through the new gap in the rose fence. We girls held our breath,
waiting to see who would shout first and what terrible things would be said.
How much trouble would we be in when it was all over?

Suddenly my mother stepped forward and hugged Ruby. "I'm glad your son
came back home," she said gently. "It must have been a horrible experience
in Vietnam. We're sorry about the flowers.

"The girls will replace them if we can't fix them. In return for all the bother,
they'll help you weed the roses this summer."

My sisters and I looked at each other in horror, but Ruby smiled at my
mother through her tears.

"I know we're particular about these roses," she said, "but they're very
special to us. When my mother came from England, she brought one tiny
part of her favorite rosebush. That was her reminder of home."

She paused for a minute, then said sadly, "My mother had a magic touch
with flowers. Over the years that one plant multiplied into all these bushes.
Since she died, I've tried to keep them up, but I just don't have her magic
touch."

Her voice was all choked up. "Mom died while Jack Junior was in Vietnam.