A seed pot, or anyway a Navajo seed pot, is a pot especially made to store seeds. It is usually flat and has a hole in the top large enough to pour seeds through and small enough to permanently plug. We had occasion to learn that one afternoon in early Autumn.
It was a very quiet afternoon, as most of them are, and we were both in the workshop. Rose was painting a pot, once fired, and to be fired again after painting. I was working some clay getting it ready to make something out of it.
We can hear the school bus roar by about this time of the afternoon on school days but usually don't notice it. This time we did. Both of us did. We looked at each other, each processing the sound and wondering what was happening in our quiet world. Then we both got it at the same time. The bus had stopped. We got that when we heard it start up again.
The school bus does not stop at our house. We have no school children. We knew that.
"The school bus stopped," I told Rose, uselessly, then went on. "Did you hear the school bus stop? Why did it do that?"
"To let somebody off," she said impishly, cocking her head at me. Then we both realized what that could mean, leaped for our housecoat dusters, and charged out the back door to the back door of the Castle. I threw on clothes. Rose hid in the kitchen. I peeked out the window and saw a pickup truck with an Indian sitting in it, inside the gate. Then I saw Edward Toadlena walking purposely up to the door. He had a small brown bag in his hand. He walked through the porte-couchere out of my sight and the doorbell rang.
I answered the door. I had to. I lived there.
"Edward. How nice to see you? Won't you come in?"
Edward looked at the Indian in the pickup truck, and then came in very reluctantly and stared around him. "You live here?" he asked incredulously.
"I live here. It isn't mine. I take care of it for somebody else. They own it, but they don't live here.
Edward seemed to remember what he had come for and handed the paper bag to me. "This is for you. I'm supposed to tell you what it is. Uncle Joseph is here. In a little while he will take me home.
I took the package.
"Open it." he commanded.
Thus instructed, I opened the package. It was a pot. In fact, it was a seed pot. "It's a seed pot," I said.
"Yes," Edward said approvingly, "It's a seed pot. It has seeds from all the things we grow. It has beans, and squash and corn seeds."
"But I'm not a farmer. I don't know how to grow anything." I smiled, and didn't mention that I had no intention of learning either.
"Mother knows that, but she said it would tell you that we are grateful because of what you did for us, and besides, you might want to plant them someday. Mother says they will stay good for a long time if you keep them sealed up in that pot. Years, even."
Edward would have no idea how long I would keep those seeds safely in that pot. Safe from spouting in any case. Just then another knock announced the arrival of Uncle Joseph, explaining the pickup truck with the Indian in the driveway. We exchanged words, uncle Joseph made sure Edward had explained everything correctly, then said that they had to leave for home without delay.
Once the pickup left the drive way, Rose and I shed our clothes and looked at the pot. It was pretty in a simple sort of way. More utilitarian than decorative, and it was good to know what was in it. For some outlandish reason I remembered Pandora's box and inspected the plug. It was in there all right, and either cemented in or sealed with slip.
Either way the plug wasn't going to fall out. Truly, the only way to get at the contents of a seed pot is to break the pot. I put the pot on a shelf in the great hall, but I didn't forget it. It even gave me another idea, besides Pandora's box, I mean.