All day, Elsie and Tom had been helping their grandmother prepare small gifts for neighbours who might be feeling a little lonely as the evenings grew longer.
They stirred blackberry jam until it was thick and glossy, tied checked cloth over each jar with pieces of string, polished rosy apples until they shone, baked cookies that filled the cottage with their delicious aroma, and tucked little harvest treats into wicker baskets. Last of all, they slipped a tiny white gourd into each basket.
“Why are we doing this?” Tom asked.
Grandmother smiled as she tied another ribbon around a jar of jam.
“Because tonight is an important night,” she said. “Our family has always kept the Harvest Rounds.”
“What are the Harvest Rounds?”
“By tomorrow, I think you’ll know.”
When everything was ready, she placed a gentle hand on each child’s shoulder.
“Off you go, my loves,” she said. “The woodland lanterns will be waiting.”
As the lanterns glowed and the forest settled into evening, Elsie and Tom pulled on their warm orange cloaks.
They hugged Grandmother goodbye, stroked Tilly the cat one last time, picked up their baskets, and set off along the winding woodland path. They were ready to deliver their harvest gifts – quietly and gently – just as their family had done every autumn for as long as Grandmother could remember.
Each basket held a jar of homemade jam, fresh fruit from the harvest, home-baked cookies, and a handwritten note that simply read:
Someone thought of you today and is happy that you are here.
The lanterns strung between the trees guided them towards cottages tucked deep among the trees, where people who sometimes felt forgotten were waiting without even knowing it.
One basket was left on a widower’s porch. Another beside the gate of a lady who missed her son since he had moved to Australia. A third outside the mushroom-keeper’s little cottage.
Their cloaks brushed softly against one another as they walked, but neither child spoke. They didn’t need to. The forest knew their purpose, and the lanterns seemed to glow a little brighter each time they passed beneath them, as though encouraging them onward.
Tonight was the first night of the Harvest Rounds.
It wasn’t really about the baskets.
It was about making sure no one felt forgotten.
When they had visited everyone on Grandmother’s list, Elsie and Tom made their way home through the moonlit woods with empty baskets and full hearts.
Grandmother smiled as she welcomed them back.
She never asked whether every basket had been delivered.
She only asked,
“Did you leave enough kindness behind?”
Elsie and Tom looked at one another and smiled. They thought about the smiles they had seen, the grateful waves from cottage windows, and the empty baskets swinging gently at their sides.
“I think we did.”
Outside, a warm light flickered in a cottage window where, only a little while before, the evening had seemed much darker.
Tomorrow, someone else would begin to believe they had not been forgotten.