Grandma Gave a Beggar Two Buns; Leaving, He Foretold a Family Death

The northern countryside in the 1980s was a place of mud walls and dirt roads. The noon sun beat down mercilessly, glaring hard enough to make your eyes swim. A blind man in ragged clothes, leaning on a bamboo cane, felt his way to the gate of the Lawson farm. His voice was hoarse. "Have mercy. Spare me a bite to eat?" Matt's grandma was in the yard shelling corn. When she heard him, she got up and went into the house without a second thought. When she came back out, she was holding two big white buns, still steaming hot.