Anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness are the great disconnectors of human relations. Here’s a story to help you reconnect when pain from the past severs a relationship in the present.

Old Joe lived way out in the countryside, and he had one good neighbor. They’d been friends all their lives long. It seemed that they had grown old together. And now that their spouses were dead and buried and their children raised and gone, all they had left were their farms and each other.

But for the first time in their long relationship, they’d had an argument. And it was a silly argument. It was over a stray calf that neither one really needed. It seemed as though the calf was found on Joe’s neighbor’s land and so he claimed it as his own. But Old Joe said, “No, that calf has the same markings as my favorite cow, and I recognize it as being mine.”

Well, they were both a bit stubborn, so the upshot of it was they just stopped talking to each other. That happened about a week before, and it seemed that a dark cloud had settled over Old Joe, until there was a knock on his door.

He wasn’t expecting anybody that morning, and as he opened the door, he saw standing before him a young man who had a box of wooden tools on his shoulder. He had a kind voice and rather dark, deep eyes, and he said, “I’m just a carpenter, and I’m looking for a bit of work. Maybe you’d have some small jobs here and there that I can help with.”

Old Joe wasn’t the kind of fellow to hire someone off the street. So he brought the carpenter into the kitchen and gave him some stew that he had on the stove. There was some homemade bread Joe had baked earlier that morning, some fresh churned butter, and homemade jam. While they sat, ate, and talked, Joe decided he liked this young fellow, and he said, “I do have a job for you. Look right there through my kitchen window. See my neighobr’s farm across the way? And you see that creek running right down between our property lines? That creek wasn’t there last week. My neighbor did that to spite me. He took his plow up there with a tractor and dug a big old furrow from the upper pond and then he flooded it.

“Well, I want you to do one better. Since he wants us divided that way, go out there and build me a fence–a big, tall fence–so I won’t have to see his place any more.”

And the carpenter said, “Well if you have the lumber and the nails. I got my tools, and I’ll be able to do a job that you’ll like.”

Joe had to go to town to get some supplies, so he hitched up the wagon and showed the carpenter where everything was in the barn. That carpenter carried everything he needed down to the creek side and he started to work.

His work went smooth and fast. It was about sunset when Old Joe returned and the carpenter had finished his work. And when Old Joe pulled up in that wagon, his eyes opened wide and his mouth dropped open because there wasn’t a fence there at all.

It was a bridge, going from one side of the creek to the other! It had handrails and all–a fine piece of work–and his neighbor was just starting to cross the other side of that bridge with his hand stuck out, and he was saying, “Joe, you’re quite a guy to build this bridge. I would never have been able to do that. I’m so glad we’re going to be friends again!”

And Joe put his arms around his neighbor and he said, “Oh, that calf is yours. I’ve known it all the time. I just want to be your friend too.”

About that time the carpenter started putting his tools in the box and then hoisted it up onto his shoulder, and he started to walk away. And Joe said, “No, now wait, come on back, young fellow. I want you to stay here. I have lots of projects for you.”

The carpenter just smiled and said, “I’d like to stay on, Joe, but you see, I can’t. I got more bridges to build.” So he walked on, but the tale stayed here.

How about you? Do you need to build a bridge?

“Old Joe and the Carpenter” is a tale from the United States retold by storyteller Pleasant DeSpain and found in Peace Tales by Margaret Read MacDonald

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The replay of Diane Eble interviewing me about  my book, The Cracked Pot:Finding Grace in the Cracks of Childhood Abuse, and my storytelling, Heart Tales, is available at http://www.askjimcyr.com/replay.php . If you order a copy of the book through the link on that page and send me your Amazon order number and a problem or issue you’d like a story for I’ll email you a story that addresses your problem or issue. Go there now, click the link, and follow the directions to order your book and request story.