Just an Old Jar of Buttons

by Penny Lane

Katy stared out the front window of Grandma’s house. She could just make out two distant shapes through the haze of the falling snow. “What if there’s a blizzard,” she said. “Chris and Jason might get lost out there.”

Grandma placed an arm around Katy and walked her away from the window. “I’m sorry you can’t go sledding today Katy,” said Grandma. “I’m sure it’s hard sitting around here with a sore throat when Jason and Chris get to go and have fun.” She handed Katy a coloring book and some crayons. “I’m going to go sew in the back room Katy. Why don’t you bring this coloring book back there and keep me company?

Katy watched as Grandma laid out her pattern. “Maybe I can help you with the pins,” she said, reaching for the funny tomato shaped cushion.

“Oh, no,” said Grandma, moving the pin cushion away from Katy. “I wouldn’t want you to prick you finger.”

Katy opened up the pages of the coloring book. She picked out a red crayon and started coloring a clown. Peeking up she could see that Grandma had finished pinning the thin pattern pieces to the material. Now she was starting to cut along the black lines.

“I’m really good with scissors,” said Katy, putting down her red crayon and scooting closer to Grandma.

“I’d bet you are,” said Grandma smiling. “But this is a bit too complicated. It’s kind of hard to cut through all these layers.”

Katy turned away from Grandma; her shoulders slumped as she picked out a crayon, this time blue, and began to color in the clown’s face.

Grandma looked at her pattern. “I’ve got a job for you,” she said, as she rummaged around in her sewing supplies. “Here it is.” Grandma was holding up a very large jar full of buttons.

“That’s just an old jar of buttons,” said Katy. She started coloring hard with the blue crayon.

“There’s a lot of fun hiding in this jar,” said Grandma. Closing up the coloring book and putting it aside, she poured all the buttons out on the floor in front of Katy. “Why don’t you begin by sorting these buttons by color?”

Katy made a pile of black buttons, a pile of blue buttons, a big pile of white buttons, a pile of red buttons, a pile of brown buttons, and a pile of shiny silver buttons.

Grandma’s sewing machine was whirring along; she looked up and smiled at Katy. “Now see if you can find any buttons that are exactly alike and put them in smaller piles.”

Katy found lots of buttons that matched. She had piles of buttons with four holes and piles with two holes and some with little metal rings in the back. Soon she had all the buttons sorted into matching sets.

“Now, show me your sets that have four matching buttons,” said Grandma. She paused from her sewing to look carefully at Katy’s sets. “Look closely Katy,” she said, “Some of these almost match but not quite.”

Katy and Grandma finally narrowed it down to three sets of buttons; one set of big round navy blue buttons, one set of pearl white buttons with rings in the back, and one set of gold buttons with ships carved on the front.

“Katy, which set would you pick if this dress were going to be for you?” asked Grandma.

“I like these pearly white buttons,” said Katy, smoothing the buttons between her fingers. “They shine like seashells.”

“That’s a good choice,” said Grandma with a wink. “Now Katy, let me show you a fun way to pick up all these buttons.”

Grandma pressed the edge of a large button onto a smaller button and popped the small button right into the button jar. “I used to be the ‘tiddly-wink’ champion of the world when I was just a bit older than you,” she said, as she handed Katy the large button. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

Grandma went back to her sewing. At first when Katy pressed the large button against the edge of the smaller one, nothing happened. She pressed a bit harder and all of a sudden the button went flying all the way up to the table where Grandma was sewing.

“You’ll get the hang of it, just keep practicing,” said Grandma.

Soon Katy figured out how to use just the right amount of pressure to send a button flying into the jar. Katy had a great time practicing. Before Katy knew it she heard her brother calling, “Hey, Grandma we’re back!”

Katy ran to meet her family. “I had so much fun today,” she said.

“There’s no way you had as much fun as we did,” said Chris. “The snow was just right for sledding, once we got it all packed down after a couple of runs we speeded like rockets down the hill.”

“Chris, be quiet,” said Jason, “you’ll make her feel. . . .”

“I don’t care,” said Katy. “I really did have a lot of fun in here. I bet I could beat you guys at tiddly-winks.”

“Tiddly-winks?” Chris asked.

Just then Grandma came out of the back room. She was carrying a package.

“A present for me!” said Chris.

Grandma handed the bag to Katy.

“No fair,” said Chris, grabbing the bag. He looked inside and pulled out a pretty sailor dress with four pearl white buttons down the front.

“Thank-you Grandma,” said Katy, throwing her arms around her and squeezing her tight.

“Wait, Katy, I have one more thing.” Grandma pulled a small jar of buttons out from behind her back.

Katy’s eyes lit up. Chris wasn’t impressed. “That’s just an old jar of buttons,” he said.

Katy winked at Grandma.

Grandma winked at Katy.

“There’s a lot of fun in that jar,” they said together.