The Coyote Under the Table/El Coyote Debajo de la Mesa by Joe Hayes

Gato Pinto. Se dijo: —A lo mejor le ha pasado algo a Juan. — Salió de la iglesia y se dirigió corriendo a la casa de Juan. Gato Pinto siguió haciendo doblar la campana, hasta que la mitad del pueblo estaba despierto y corriendo detrás del cura.
    Llegaron para ver que la casa de Juan empezaba a arder y que dos hombres huían corriendo. Apagaron el incendio y detuvieron a los dos hombres. Y luego despertaron a Juan.
    Juan reconoció a sus dos hermanos, pero le dijo a la gente: —Déjenlos ir. No creo que vuelvan a molestarme. —Y tenía razón. Sus hermanos sintieron tanta vergüenza que nunca más volvieron a ese pueblo.
    Pero lo más extraño es esto: Gato Pinto tampoco volvió a verse en el pueblo. Nadie sabía qué había sido de él. Algunos decían, “Ese gato de manchas era en realidad un ángel. Fue enviado por el padre de Juan para que lo ayudara y lo protegiera.” Eso es lo que casi toda la gente llegó a creer.
    Por su parte, Juan no sabía qué pensar. Lo cierto es que a través de los años Juan adoptaba muchos gatos extraviados, y los quería a todos, pero no encontró otro como el gran Gato Pinto.

 
T HE L ITTLE S NAKE

    H ere is a story about a man who had just one daughter. She was all the family he had in the world. The man worked as a woodcutter, and he and his daughter lived very simply.
    One day the girl asked her father to bring home a head of cabbage for her to cook for their supper. Although the woodcutter was very poor, he always tried to please his daughter, so when he returned home that evening, he brought with him a big head of cabbage.
    â€œThis big head of cabbage is more than we can eat at one meal,” the woodcutter told his daughter. “Cut it in half, and we can get two suppers from it.”
    The girl took the head of cabbage into the kitchen and with a knife cut it in two. And in the very heart of the cabbage she found a little snake. It was shiny and black, with a round head, and it was no bigger than a worm. The girl covered the snake with a cabbage leaf, and then called for her father to bring her a jar to keep it in.
    But her father told her, “That animal will hurt you some day. You’d better kill it right now.”
    â€œPapá!” the girl exclaimed. “How could I kill this snake? It’s going to be my best friend.”
    So her father brought her a jar. She fed the snake each day and held it in her hand and talked to it. The snake grew so fast that in a week’s time she had to ask her father for a larger jar.
    Again her father warned her, “That animal will hurt you some day. You’d better kill it right now.”
    And again she answered, “How could I kill this snake? It’s going to be my best friend.”
    Her father brought her a larger jar and she put her snake in it. She continued to feed and care for her snake and every week she asked her father for a bigger and bigger container. Finally she asked her father for a barrel for her snake.
    For the final time her father told her, “That animal will hurt you some day. You’d better kill it right now.”
    â€œHow could I kill this snake? It’s my best friend,” the girl said.
    The woodcutter brought his daughter a great round barrel to keep her snake in. Each day she would take her snake out of the barrel and spend hours talking to it. It told her many wonderful things. It told her that whenever she cried, she made rain fall from the sky. Whenever she laughed, she made pale flowers grow—blue and pink and white flowers. And when she sang, bright flowers grew—red and orange and yellow flowers. The girl’s happiest hours were the ones she spent talking to the snake.
    But the snake continued to grow, and one day when she returned it to the barrel, the girl saw that it was too big for even such a large container. That night the snake told the girl that it would have to