Of all the special days in the year, Will liked adoption day best. This was the day the town’s folk gathered homeless pets for adoption. Last year Will brought a mouse and went home with a kitten.
Adoption day had come again but this time Will had nothing to offer. He was searching the streets for a stray when something caught his eye. A clump of earth moved and beneath it he spied a worm. “I’ll bring a worm,” thought Will hopefully! Squatting low he snatched the creature up. Then he hurried home, put the worm in a glass jar and ran off to the Town Hall. Little did Will know that in hollows beneath his feet, that worm was missed.
Worm hollows was an underground system of tunnels and gathering place for local worms. It was also home to the worm that now peered through glass at a crowded Town Hall. A presiding official, gavel in hand, stood by a table with two cages. One held a gerbil; one a brown rabbit.
“Bang” went the gavel. “Who wants a rabbit?” commanded the official. A man nearby jumped to his feet, adopting the rabbit. “Who wants a gerbil” came the next command. A little girl took the gerbil. Then Bill rose, jar in hand.
“What have you there?” asked the official, spying a pinkish little something. Giggles came from children in the crowd. Bill tipped the jar and out rolled the contents. “Who wants a worm,” he asked?
Now giggles turned to roars of laughter. “Who wants a worm,” mocked the official?
“Who wants a worm,” roared the crowd!
Trembling near the table’s edge, the worm saw a gap in the floorboards below. In a flash he dove to the ground and through it into the silent earth below.
Oh, the relief! He lay there a while, downhearted. Then he wormed his way beyond the Town Hall to the Town Park meadow. In the hollows there he slept and dreamed a wonderful dream.
He dreamt a message was sent from worms to people - a message written in letters of gold, stating the worth of worms.
He awoke and tunneled to the hollows centre. There fellow worms gathered to hear his sad tale. All agreed a message would be sent. They chose the spot and they set to work. They loosened and enriched the soil where buds would bloom. Soil for an acre around the message went wormless - a dark frame where nothing grew.
And so it happened that the earth spoke. In the Town Park meadow, in large block capitals, in golden dandelions against dull brown earth, lay the message: