Grandma Iryna’s Little Rhymes

Stone — Book One: First Steps Toward the Light and Back — Chapter 3

by Volodymyr Shablia

November 1923. The village of Tomakivka.

As usual, around eight in the morning, Peter felt himself waking. But he did not want to leave that warm feeling of bliss and security.

'I’ll try to sleep a little longer,' he decided, squeezing his eyes shut.

It was no use, though. Sleep had already gone, and the familiar routine of the day was insistently knocking at the boy’s consciousness.

Peter opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the window, with the grey, gloomy sky of late autumn beyond it. The air outside seemed almost saturated with a fine, cold rain. Bare black-and-brown branches loomed above the curtain. Like the tentacles of some monster that had just barely surfaced from the water, they swayed forlornly in the wind, then suddenly jerked, shaking off heavy drops of rain.

Still, Peter did not want to get up, and he decided to stay in bed a little longer. He turned onto his side and looked around the bedroom. There was no one there. The child listened. From the kitchen came the sounds of dishes being moved about, along with rustling and other little noises.

'Grandmother must be getting breakfast ready,' he guessed. 'If only she’d come and look in on me. Then I’d get up right away.'

The little boy looked hopefully at the door, and, as if by magic, it swung open, and his grandmother’s smiling face appeared in the doorway. Iryna saw that her grandson was awake, and her smile widened. She walked softly over to the bed, ran a hand over his head, and kissed him. Delighted that his grandmother had somehow sensed what he wanted, the boy threw his arms around her neck and kissed her back.

Touched, Iryna sat down on the edge of the bed and, in a tender, teasing voice, began reciting one of her little rhymes:

“Who is it that’s awake?

Who has had such a sweet stretch?

Peter, you’re my honey-bun!

You're my dear little…”

At that point Iryna paused and, smiling mischievously, looked questioningly into the boy’s eyes.

“Grandson!” he cried happily.

“Grandson!” his grandmother echoed. “Well done!” she praised him at once for finding the right rhyme.

And Peter, delighted that he had passed his grandmother’s customary little test, flung himself into her arms again. He adored Iryna’s rhymes. She knew a great many of them and was always coming up with new ones. And even when, after a couple of weeks, some of the verses were repeated, they would already have changed a little.

Iryna hugged her grandson too, then, without letting go of him, carefully set him on the bed. Peter knew all his grandmother’s tricks. Realizing what she was about to do, the boy eagerly joined in: playing along with Iryna, he rose onto his tiptoes and lifted his arms above his head.

In response, her gentle hands began moving up the child’s body, as though stretching him from his feet to the top of his head, while her voice continued to pour out the little verses he loved so much:

“Stretchy-stretchy, grow and grow,

From your little toes up to your crown.

Peter stretches, stretches tall—

He won’t stay…”

“Small!” the boy cried, then disappeared into her embrace once more.

Running her hands up the sides of his body from his feet to his arms, Iryna would finish by letting her grandson grip her thumbs. Then she would lift him into the air and give him a little shake, making him work his muscles.

When she lowered him back onto the bed, Peter would dissolve into laughter, hug his grandmother, and then demand that the game continue. The performance would begin again. Iryna, meanwhile, had an excellent sense of when enough was enough. Whenever she decided that it was time to stop, she could always turn her grandson’s attention to something else just as interesting.

And now she put that skill to use:

“And why are we playing around without washing our faces? Have we forgotten?” she asked, looking at her grandson in mock bewilderment. “Oh, what an ugly, sleepy little face! Come on, let’s quickly play our little hand-clapping washing game, then go wash up and become nice and pretty!”

Iryna grabbed a stool, and she and her grandson sat facing each other and began their hand-clapping game, slapping each other’s palms in the precise order they had established between them. At the same time, the child and his grandmother recited the little rhyme together:

“Clap your hands, clap-clap-clap,

Water? We’re not scared of that!

Wash ourselves from top to toe,

Smile at Grandma—there we go!”

As soon as the rhyme was over, Peter jumped off the bed and dashed headlong toward the washstand, with Iryna following at a leisurely pace.

Carefully cupping his hands, just as his grandmother had taught him, the boy scooped up some water and brought it to his face. But the moment the cold liquid touched his skin, he grew excited and continued washing as if he were competing with the washstand itself. He snorted and grunted, and droplets flew in every direction.

By the time his grandmother caught up with him, she helped the little boy finish washing properly. Then, smiling at each other, they wiped up the water he had splashed across the floor.

“Peter, do you know what I’m making for breakfast?” Iryna asked once the job was done, deliberately arousing her grandson’s curiosity. “Come on, guess!”

“Pies!” he suggested, thinking of his favorite foods.

“No.”

“Napoleon!”

“Not that either.”

“Cutlets!”

“Not at all.”

“Porridge!” the boy announced, with less enthusiasm now.

“That’s right, porridge! But what kind of porridge? Guess!”

“Millet porridge!”

“Not that!”

“Pumpkin porridge!”

“Wrong!”

“Buckwheat!”

“Yes, you got it!” Iryna laughed. “And do you and I know the little hand-clapping rhyme about porridge?”

“We do! We do!” her grandson squealed.

Now, in the kitchen, they sat facing each other again and began reciting the verses, clapping their hands:

“Clap your hands, clap-clap-clap,

Where were we? At Grandma’s lap.

What did we eat? Some porridge!

What did we drink? Some brew!

 

The porridge was delicious,

And Grandma was so gracious:

She fed us little pies—

Then chased us with a stick!

She fed us tasty seeds—

Then chased us with a broom!”

Peter did not entirely understand what the rhyme meant. For one thing, he did not know what brew was, and the explanations he had heard from Iryna did little to clarify the matter.

For another, the child could not accept that his grandmother might beat her grandson with a stick or a broom. His grandmother was the dearest and kindest person in the world, and she had never done anything of the sort. So the boy could not even imagine that such a thing might ever happen.

Afraid of offending his grandmother by making an unfounded accusation that she used a stick, he did not dare ask Iryna directly what those words meant. Instead, one day he shared his doubts with his mother. She told him that some other children had grandmothers who beat their grandchildren. Peter did not believe her. 'They must have put those words into the rhyme just to make it rhyme,' he decided, and from then on that was how he understood the verse.

“Peter, I need your help,” Iryna said to her grandson. “I want to salt the porridge, but I just can’t tell how much more salt it needs. Will you help me?”

“I will!”

“Then here’s a spoonful. Taste it!”

Grandmother brought a spoonful of fragrant, fluffy porridge to the boy’s mouth. It had been dressed with butter and allowed to cool. Peter chewed thoughtfully, trying to make out the flavor.

“Well? Does it need more salt?” Iryna asked.

“Yes,” the young taster replied authoritatively.

“Then take some salt with the spoon and add it to the porridge!”

Together with Iryna, the boy took a little salt from the bowl and personally sprinkled it into the pot.

“Well, thank you for your help!” his grandmother said as she stirred the porridge, reciting:

“We’re cooking porridge thick,

We’re pouring in some milk,

Hey-ho, hey-ho,

And we feed our little…”

“Boy!” Peter finished the rhyme, and was rewarded with another spoonful of porridge.

“Well, I think the porridge is salted just right now,” Iryna declared. “What do you think? Is it tasty?”

“Tasty,” her grandson confirmed.

“So, is it ready to feed the family?”

“It is,” Peter assured her.

“Then I’ll go call Mother and Dad, and you get ready to tell them the little rhyme about the magpie. Remember how she fed her babies?”

“I remember!”

Iryna went outside to call Danylo and Mariia in for breakfast, while Peter, determined not to lose face in front of his parents, began repeating the rhyme his grandmother had assigned him aloud. That was how the adults found him.

“Well, are you ready to tell us who the magpie gave porridge to and who she didn’t?” Mariia asked from the doorway.

“Yes,” her son replied eagerly.

“Then tell us, and we’ll listen and decide together who has earned the right to eat the porridge.”

And Peter began to recite, carefully and with great solemnity:

“The magpie cooked her porridge,

Cooked it in a pot,

Fed her little children…”

Then he raised one hand and began curling down his fingers, stroking them to mark the good deeds of the little magpies and tapping them to mark what each one had failed to do:

“This one gets some—he chopped the wood,

This one gets some—he carried water,

And this one gets some—he stoked the stove.

But this one gets none—where were you?!

You chopped no wood,

You stoked no stove,

You carried no water,

You cooked no porridge,

And came home last of all!”

“Well, Dad, tell us what you did today to earn your porridge?” Mariia asked with mock sternness, though the corners of her mouth were smiling.

“I chopped wood and stoked the stove,” Danylo reported.

“Well, what do you think? Has our Dad earned his breakfast?” she asked again, addressing the question primarily to her son, though she glanced at the others for good measure.

“Yes!” young and old alike answered in unison, and Iryna filled a plate with porridge and handed it to her son-in-law.

“And you, Grandma?!”

“I cooked the porridge!”

“Well, shall we give Grandma some porridge?”

“Yes!” came the unanimous reply, and another plate of porridge was served.

“And what did you do, Mother?” Iryna joined in the game.

“I fed the pig.”

“Well done, Mother!” Grandma responded. “I suppose we should give Mother some porridge too?”

“We should!” everyone answered together.

“And what did little Peter do? Has he earned his porridge?” his father asked with a smile.

“I tasted the porridge and salted it!” the little boy replied with dignity.

“Well, what do you think? Shall we give Peter some porridge?”

“Yes!” the adults shouted in unison, and the child received his portion from his grandmother.

Iryna, for her part, could not resist adding yet another little rhyme:

“The porridge is steaming hot,

Peter loves it quite a lot.

We eat porridge, spoon by spoon—

Oh, this porridge is so…”

“Good!” Peter confirmed, giving voice to the general verdict as he shoveled the food into his mouth.

The family members smiled contentedly and continued their breakfast.

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