Granny’s Teapot

     When I was a little girl, my grandmother and I would occasionally have “Afternoon Tea.”  It was always just the two of us and it involved sandwiches (with the crusts cut off) and cookies and tea in the blue teapot.  It was special.
     As part of the teatime ritual, my grandmother would tell me the story of the teapot.  My own mother had given it to her for her fortieth birthday.  (That always sounded very old to me.)  My mother was six-and-a-half.  (That, of course, sounded impossible.)
     My mother had saved her pennies and nickels for the occasion and had ridden her horse, all by herself, clear to Trondsen’s Store in Nahcotta, four miles away.  There, she chose the blue teapot which cost all of twenty-five cents.  Her mother’s friend, Deane Nelson, worked at Trondsen’s, and she wrapped the teapot carefully in layers of brown paper and tied it with string.
     My grandfather didn’t believe in children riding with saddles.  Too dangerous he thought.  So the packaged teapot could not be tied to a saddle horn.  Instead, Mrs. Nelson tied it around my mother’s waist for the long journey home.
    I love Granny’s teapot.  It’s hard to believe that it is almost a hundred years old now.  I don’t have many regrets in my life, but I am sorry that I don’t have granddaughters to invite to tea and tell the story to.  It’s a tradition I would love to continue.  And, perhaps I will with the newest generation of Red House cousins.  Perhaps next summer…