Reading with John

One of John's current favorite books is "A Saint and His Lion: The Story of Tekla of Ethiopia" (which I highly recommend, especially for boys, as it is an exciting, masculine story of a saint). The story begins thus:

"Long, long ago in Ethiopia, there lived a goatherd and his wife in the village of Zorare. All they had in the world was a vegetable patch, a herd of goats, and a tukul, or hut of sticks and mud. Despite this, they were happy except for one thing: they had no children."


The picture (above) accompanies this page of the tukul, which is as described except that there are two stones at the threshold of the door to the mud hut. Usually when I read the book, John interrupts me and says, "No, they also have two stones!" And inside I am laughing so hard because John says it as if having two stones in addition to a vegetable patch, a herd of goats, and a mud hut makes all the difference and really they're quite affluent.

We also have a chuckle every time at the next paragraph describing Baby Tekla being born in the tukul: "Suddenly a wail rose from the hut." John will say, "No, not a whale! That's silly!" And then I say, "Remember? /wale/ means two things. It can mean a whale in the ocean or it can mean . . ." John answers, "A cry!" And then we move on.