The Ambitious Guest

 
(MUSIC)

 
The family lived in an especially cold and dangerous spot. Stones from the top of the mountain above their house would often roll down the mountainside and wake them in the middle of the night.

 
As the young man took his place by the fire, something like heavy footsteps was heard outside. It sounded as if someone was running down the side of the mountain, taking enormous steps.

 
"But we are old neighbors," he smiled. "And we manage to get along together pretty well. Besides, I have made a safe hiding place outside to protect us in case a slide brings the mountain down on our heads."
 
As the father spoke, the mother prepared a hot meal for their guest. While he ate, he talked freely to the family, as if it were his own.

 
She was very shy, and her face became pink with embarrassment. "It is better to sit here by the fire," she whispered, "and be happy, even if nobody thinks of us."
 
Her father stared into the fire.

 
"You see!" the young man cried out. "It is in our nature to want a monument. Some want only a stone on their grave. Others want to be a part of everyone's memory. But we all want to be remembered after we die!"

 
The firelight fell on the little group around the fireplace: the father's strong arms and the mother's gentle smile. It touched the young man's proud face, and the daughter's shy one.
It warmed the old grandmother, still knitting in the corner. She looked up from her knitting and, with her fingers still moving the needles, she said, "Old people have their secrets, just as young people do."
 
The old woman said she had made her funeral clothes some years earlier. They were the finest clothes she had made since her wedding dress. She said her secret was a fear that she would not be buried in her best clothes.