There once lived
a carpenter, who was not very skilled at his work. He could complete projects
here and there, but the projects where either ugly or misshapen. The carpenter
knew nothing else, so could only use what little skill he had in carpentry to provide
for his family. He had a son who wanted to go along with him on his work, but
the carpenter never took him
“He will only
hinder what little capability I posses,” said the carpenter.
One-day the boy’s mother had to
leave for town, and she persuaded the carpenter to take his son with him today
“The boy needs
to see what you go through for us,” said the mother, “He needs to learn how to
do this later on anyways.
The carpenter reluctantly agreed. He
and the boy gathered the equipment for the day and headed out. The first
project they had was to repair their neighbors’ table. The legs of the table
were uneven, and their job was to level an uneven table. The carpenter was
shorting through the bag of tools, when the boy walked up to the table and
stretched the wooden legs like they were gum. The boy completed the job with
perfection in only 2 minutes.
The carpenter,
completely dumbfounded, thought, “How was that possible, wood can’t do that and
the child did that good without any tools or help?”
After the carpenter witnessed what
the boy can do, he took him everywhere. Any projects the carpenter couldn’t
complete or messed up on, the boy (using only hands) would go fix his
errors. The work quality of the
carpenter spread throughout the country, and he was getting more projects than
ever before. The kind himself even heard of the carpenter!
“I am in need of
a new throne,” said the king, “I will request that this carpenter and his son
make it for me.”
The king summoned them to his throne
room to show them the original throne. He wanted an exact recreation of his
original one. The carpenter knew that this project would be difficult. The
design of the throne was so intricate that it would be impossible to recreate.
To top it all off, the king said that they would be put to death if they made
any errors. The carpenter started to build the throne, and when he was
finished, every detail was identical to the original. When he went to put it in
its place, he realized the diminutions where off! The carpenter made the throne
too narrow. The boy stepped up to the throne and told the carpenter to grab the
other side. They began to pull and pull, finally the throne gave way and
stretched out to fit the original size. Once again the boy saved his dad’s
hide.
“You will make a
fine carpenter son, and very fine carpenter,” said the carpenter.
(Image from Bringing It All Back Home)
Author’s Notes: This story is an adapted version from TheLost Books of the Bible by Rutherford H. Platt, Jr. (1926). I took the section
“Jesus and Joseph” and created a more detailed story of the two reacting. I
also tried to turn the focus to Joseph, instead of Jesus.
Cameron: I haven't read the original story that you've retold here, but I do wonder whether it is much different than your version. Throughout the reading, I was struggling to imagine the scenery and the relationship between the boy and his father; although the dialogue was present, it didn't really carry the story very fully.
ReplyDeleteGrammatically, I noticed that many of the sentences follow the same basic structure: they have two clauses, split by a comma, and this effect is especially evident in the first paragraph. I think that mixing up the sentence structure - and perhaps reading the story aloud as though you were hearing it being read to you - would help in achieving a narrative voice that is both varied and nuanced.
I also noticed that some of the sentences are not punctuated; the end of the first sentence and then another sentence a few lines later both do not end with any punctuation mark. This was a bit distracting for me. Also, when you say "2 minutes" later in the text, it should be "two," since the number is below 100 (I know there are various rules for that but single-digit numbers should usually be spelled out completely).
One more thing: As I mentioned above, I think that perhaps the general outline of your story is probably quite close to the original tale. This was concerning, because if this is the case, your version reads more like a synopsis with dialogue. Perhaps consider setting the story in a new context, changing the project that the boy and his son are working on, and you will distance the retelling from the original version while still retaining the overall message of the story.
Hey Cameron- I really enjoyed your story. You may want to read over it one more time, there was a few spelling and grammatical errors. Otherwise I really enjoyed the plot of the story. The picture of the throne was almost exactly as I would have imagined it when I was reading the story. You chose a great unit to read. I’ll have to look into it.
ReplyDeleteHey Cameron. I enjoyed this story and I liked the relationship between the father and son. I also enjoyed how the story ended with the boy, once again, saving the day. The image you put at the end is great. Like Cole and Sarah said, there are some errors, but hey, the content is the most important part and that was good. Good job on the overall story.
ReplyDelete