Era unos cuantos días before St. Patrick's Day y Canutito was sitting at the table cortando una shamrock to wear pa'la escuela. His lengüita sticking out the side of his boca made Grampo Caralampio realize that el muchachito was concentrating.

¿Qué estás haciendo, m'hijo?" he asked the little boy, plopping down beside him. "No me digas que its time for Christmas again y que tú estás cutting out a green tree."

"No, grampo," dijo Canutito looking up briefly. "I'm trying to cortar una shamrock to wear pasando mañana. Es el Día de Saint Patrick and I don't want any of my classmates to pinch me."

"Oh, I remember how that was," reminisced Grampo Caralampio. "Una vez when I was en la escuela de las hermanas, I forgot to wear green and all the kids pinched me until I was all moreteão and empinchão. I tried to make them stop by telling them que I had something green. Cuando me preguntaron what it was, I pulled out a big old moco from my nariz. The girls got all bent out of shape when they saw my tapón and went and reported to the teasher that I had a booger en la mano."

"Y, ¿quién era la teacher?" asked Canutito, laying his handiwork aside. Was it una hermana also?

"Pus chur, m'hijo," replied his grandfather. And she was a mean one. We used to call her Sister Mary Bulldog of the Order of the Vicious Blood, porque era murre mala. She didn't like for me to play no jokes on las muchachas. I tried to remind her that she wasn't wearing green either and I came up to her, ready to peliscarla también. Pero entonces that sneaky nun pulled out a green rosario from her secret pocket and held it up to me like I was some kind of a demonio or a cosa mala o un vampire. She made me 'hincarme en un leño."

"Why did she make you kneel on a log, grampo?" asked Canutito puzzled.

"Oh, ese era el standard punishment for breaking the rules," he replied. "I tried to pretend that no me importaba and in order to show the rest of the class que I was somehow above the rules, I started rocking on the log. Pus that made a la Sister Mary Bulldog furiosa. She ordered me out of el cuarto and over to the principal's office."

"Le llamaban, Sister Mary Golgotha."

"Y por qué was she called Sister Mary Golgotha, grampo?" asked the little boy.

"Pues porque," began Grampo Caralampio clearing his throat, "if she got a hold of you, you were as good as dead! I knocked on her door todo escurridito and then I walked in just in time to see her wiping something white from her chin. I figured que she had either been eating a Twinkie® or she was foaming at the mouth!"

"What did she do, grampo?" asked Canutito in a state of suspense.

"She also had me sacudir all of the chalk dust de los erasers and pray a thousand 'Hail Marys' while I scraped all of the old chewing gum from under los pews de la iglesia. By the time I had finished I had a big ole plastota de chíquite of all different colors and flavors in my hand."

"Well, grampo," smiled the little boy, "I think you really learned your lesson on that St. Patrick's Day."

"You think?" said Grampo Caralampio slyly to him. "That afternoon, before I returned to class, I sneaked over to el convento and put the whole plastota de chíquite under Sister Mary Golgotha's pillow. The next day she woke up con el cabello todo pegão pero in order to save face, she just sent out un reporte que she had gotten up under the weather and wouldn't be coming to school. Only I knew la verdad." He smiled ... ."

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