Naji Borrows Grandpa's Big Garden Gloves

Every Friday morning, Naji went to his grandfather's house. And every Friday morning, Grandpa Saleem was in the garden.

Grandpa's garden was the best place Naji knew. It had a fig tree with leaves as big as hands, a row of tomato plants tied to sticks, a patch of mint that smelled wonderful when you brushed against it, and a wooden bench painted sky blue. At the back, there was a little shed full of tools, flowerpots, and seed packets.

This Friday, Grandpa Saleem was kneeling by a long, empty bed of brown earth.

"Today," he said, "we are planting beans."

Naji clapped his hands. "Can I help?"

"Of course," said Grandpa. "Every garden needs a helper."

Grandpa wore a pair of thick brown garden gloves. They were old and soft and a little bit muddy, with a patch on one thumb where Grandma had sewn them long ago. Naji had always wanted to wear them.

"Grandpa," he said, "may I wear your gloves? Then I can be a real gardener, like you."

Grandpa smiled and pulled them off. "Here you are."

Naji slipped his hands into the gloves.

They were enormous. His fingers only reached halfway. The empty glove fingers flopped over like the ears of a sleepy rabbit. When he held up his hands, the gloves almost slid right off.

Naji tried to pick up the little trowel. It slipped out of the floppy fingers and fell, thump, onto the grass.

He tried again. Thump.

He tried to pick up a bean seed. He could not feel it at all. It was like trying to pick up a crumb while wearing two big pillows.

Naji's lip wobbled. "These gloves are too big for me," he said. "I cannot do anything. I am too little to be a real gardener."

He sat down on the sky-blue bench and looked at his shoes.

Grandpa Saleem did not say anything right away. He sat down on the bench beside Naji. A blackbird hopped across the grass, looking for worms in the soft earth.

"You know," said Grandpa after a while, "when I was a boy, I wore my father's gloves too. They were even bigger than these. I could not hold anything."

Naji looked up. "Really?"

"Really," said Grandpa. "But then my father showed me something. A garden does not need big hands. It needs the right hands for each job."

He pulled the big gloves gently off Naji's hands and put them back on his own. Then he wiggled his fingers in front of Naji's nose.

"Look at my hands," he said. "They are big and strong. They are good for digging deep and lifting heavy pots. But they are not so good at small jobs. Now look at your hands."

Naji held out his hands. They were small, with short fingers and a little scratch on one knuckle from the playground.

"Your hands," said Grandpa, "are just the right size for the most important job of all."

"What job?" asked Naji.

Grandpa reached into his pocket and took out a paper packet. He tipped it, and out rolled a handful of bean seeds into his palm. They were smooth and speckled, purple and cream, like tiny painted eggs.

"Planting," said Grandpa. "Each seed must go into its own little hole, not too deep and not too shallow, with its eye facing down. My big fingers are clumsy. They drop the seeds, or push them in too far. But small fingers can be very gentle and very careful."

Naji looked at the seeds. Then he looked at his hands. A slow smile spread across his face.

So they worked together.

Grandpa wore the big gloves and dug a long, straight line in the earth with his strong hands. He moved the heavy watering can into place. Then he poked small holes along the line with a stick, one, two, three, four, all in a row.

Naji knelt beside him with his bare hands. He picked up one bean seed between his finger and thumb. He found the little eye on the side of it, just as Grandpa showed him. He dropped it into the first hole, eye down, and gently pushed the soil over it with his fingertips, as if he were tucking it into bed.

"Perfect," said Grandpa.

Naji did the next one. And the next one. The earth was cool and crumbly and smelled of rain. A worm wriggled past, and Naji said hello to it and let it go on its way.

Soon there were twenty beans tucked into the row. Naji's fingers were brown with soil, and his knees were brown too. He had never felt so useful in his whole life.

Then came the watering. The big watering can was too heavy for Naji to carry. So Grandpa lifted it, and Naji held the end of the spout and guided it along the row, so each seed got a gentle shower. The water sparkled in the morning sun and made a tiny rainbow.

When they were finished, they sat together on the sky-blue bench and looked at their row.

"Grandpa," said Naji, "when will the beans come up?"

"In about one week," said Grandpa. "First a little green loop will poke out of the earth, like a tiny elbow. Then two leaves will open, like hands saying hello."

Naji kept checking every Friday. And on the very next Friday, there they were: twenty little green loops, standing in a neat row in the brown earth.

"They are just where I put them!" cried Naji.

"Of course," said Grandpa, smiling. "You have exactly the right hands for planting."

When summer came, the beans climbed up tall sticks and grew long green pods. Naji and Grandpa picked them together and carried a whole basket into the kitchen for Grandma.

And for Naji's next birthday, Grandpa gave him a present wrapped in brown paper. Inside was a pair of small green garden gloves, just the right size.

But when it was time to plant seeds, Naji always took them off.