The Gingerbread Man, or: The Difference Between Ages Three and Six

In the grocery story I can’t resist slipping a package of gingerbread men into the cart. On the way home I tell Huck and Rilla the story—Huck’s never heard it, Rilla barely remembers. Huck is appalled by the ending, how the fox promises to carry the gingerbread man safely across the river, and then halfway there he snaps him up and gobbles him down.

Huck, distressed: “I don’t LIKE that fox!”

Rilla, eyes narrowed in a kind of scheming appreciation: “I do. I’d have done the same thing.”