Every year at springtime Rebecca Estelle planted just enough seeds in her garden to grow vegetables for the long winter She planted carrots and beans tomatoes and peas corn and rutabagas She grew a little bit of everything except pumpkins Rebecca Estelle hated pumpkins When she was a little girl money had been scarce For an entire month all there had been to eat were pumpkins Baked pumpkins steamed pumpkins boiled pumpkins Stewed pumpkins mashed pumpkins rotten pumpkins Breakfast pumpkins lunch pumpkins dinner pumpkins Enough pumpkins When things finally improved and there was more money to buy food Rebecca Estelle decided she would never eat pumpkins again Or even look at one Not ever And she didn't until
one autumn day long after Rebecca Estelle's hair had turned snowy white She was raking the leaves that fell each fall from her black walnut tree and her cat Esmeralda was scattering them just as quickly All of a sudden the pumpkin truck passed by Oh she heard it coming And she knew what it was It rumbled by at harvesttime every year She turned her back and concentrated on picking up the last fallen leaf She managed to ignore the truck until
