One day, when Rakesh was six, he walked home from the Mussoorie bazaar, eating cherries.They were a little sweet,a little sour;small bright red cherries, which had come all the way from the Kashmir Valley.
Here in the Himalayan foothills where Rakesh lived, there were not many fruit trees. The soil was stony and the dry cold winds stunted the growth of most plants. But on the more sheltered slopes, there were forests of oak and deodar.
Rakesh lived with his grandfather on the outskirts of Mussoorie, just where the forest began. Grandfather was a retired forest ranger. He had a little cottage outside the town.
Rakesh was on his way home from school when he bought the cherries. He paid fifty paise for the bunch. It took him half an hour to walk home and by the time he reached the cottage there were only three cherries left.
'Have a cherry, Grandfather,'he said as soon as he saw his grandfather in the garden.
Grandfather took one cherry and Rakesh promptly ate the other two. He kept the last seed in his mouth for some time, rolling it round and round in his tongue until all the tang had gone. Then he placed the seed on the palm of his hand and studied it.
'Are cherry seeds lucky?'asked Rakesh.
'Of course!'
'Then,I'll keep it.'
'Nothing is lucky if you put it away. If you want luck, you must put it to some use.'
'What can I do with a seed?'
'Plant it.'
So Rakesh found a small spade and began to dig up a flowerbed.
'Hey, not there!'said Grandfather.'I've sown mustard in that bed. Plant eat in that shady corner, where it won't it be disturbed.'
Rakesh went to a corner of the garden where the earth was soft and yielding. He did not have to dig. He pressed the seed into the soil with his thumb and it went right in.
Then he had his lunch and ran off to play cricket with his friends and forgot all about the cherry seed.
When it was winter in the hills, a cold wind blew down from the snows and went whoo-whoo-whoo in the deodar trees and the garden was dry and bare. In the evening, Grandfather and Rakesh set over a