At the fair, grandchildren urged their grandmother Ruth to enter a guessing game. A glass jar held hundreds of buttons. Ruth wrote down 417 without counting, handed in her ticket, and went to find the cake stall.
Her grandson Ben asked how she’d chosen the number. She said it was the bus she used to take to work. He said the bus route was 41. Ruth said the seven was for luck, not geography.
By afternoon the announcer declared her the winner. The jar contained 419 buttons, and nobody else had come within ten. Ruth returned to collect a prize: a large stuffed bear. She looked at it, looked at the jar, and asked whether she could have the buttons instead.
The organizer explained that the jar was part of the display, not the prize. Ruth said she had no room for a bear. Ben said he’d take it. Ruth replied that his bedroom already looked like a soft toy had exploded in it.
The organizer offered a voucher for the cake stall. Ruth asked if she could choose the jar. He said the game needed it for tomorrow. She asked about the buttons after tomorrow. He said he’d have to ask the committee.
Ben couldn’t understand her interest. Ruth had sewn all her life and had a tin of spare buttons at home. She said that’s exactly why she wanted these. One was missing from her late husband’s favorite coat, and she had spent years looking for a match. The coat still hung in the hall, waiting for a button nobody would notice except her.
The committee chair arrived and examined the jar. She offered to let Ruth choose one button. Ruth sorted through them carefully and found a dark blue one that looked promising. The chair said she could keep it and the bear. Ben carried the bear; it was nearly as tall as he was.
At home Ruth took down the coat. The blue button was the right size but the wrong shade. She laughed at herself and put it in her tin. Ben asked why she kept the coat if she never wore it. She said she wore it sometimes when walking to the market. It had deep pockets and still held a peppermint from a trip they had taken together.
Ben checked the pockets. Under the lining of one was a small hard circle. Ruth unpicked a few stitches and pulled out the original button. It had been there all along.
She sewed it on while Ben watched. Then she put the stuffed bear beside the coat stand. Her daughter came in and asked why there was a bear in the hallway.
Ben carried the bear around the fair while Ruth checked the remaining stalls. It drew comments from children who assumed he’d won a difficult game. He tried to explain that his grandmother had guessed buttons and rejected the prize. Nobody believed him. At the dart stall he tried to win a tiny bear that would fit beside the big one. He missed every balloon. Ruth said the fair had already taught him the important lesson: the large prize was easier to get when he wasn’t trying to win it.
“Ben won him for me,” Ruth said.
“I thought you won the game,” Ben protested.
“I did. You found the prize.”
The next morning Ben brought her a card with a new number: 420. “For next year’s game,” he said. Ruth crossed it out.
“Next year,” she said, “we’re guessing how many things are hiding in your pockets.”