mother's day

In 1945, a 12-year-old boy named Reuben saw something pretty in a shop window. But the price—five dollars—was too expensive for him. He told the shopkeeper that he didn’t have the money now and asked him to hold it for some time.

Reuben decided to get the five dollars without telling anybody. He began to look for some waste sacks to sell them back to the factory for five cents a piece.

All summer long, Reuben did all chores for others: weeding, watering the garden, cutting wood, carrying water…At last, Reuben saved his five dollars and ran into that shop. Returning home, he put a small box with a pretty brooch on his mother’s hands. “Mommy, mommy, here is my gift for you!”

It was Mother’s Day, 1946.