“Starting from Ineu, the country road sets off through forests and over plough lands, leaving on

its right and left sides the villages which lie in the corners of the valleys. For an hour and a half
the road is good; then comes a slope which you have to climb and after you have climbed down
into the valley again, you have to make a stop, water the horse or the cattle from the yoke and let
them catch their breathe, because the road was quite hard, and farther away the places are evil.
Here, in the valley, there is the Lucky Mill. No matter the part he would come from, the traveler
is happy to see it from the top of the bald hill, because, coming from evil places, it lets him know
that he has had a lucky escape, while walking towards them, he can find or wait for other
travelers at the mill in order not to go farther by himself.
And because all travelers stop here, little by little, weft was made in front of the mill, and almost
without noticing, the mill stopped grinding and turned into a pub and shelter for any tired
traveler, especially for the one who was caught on the road during the night. At last, the
leaseholder built the pub in a more suitable place, a few hundred steps further from the stream,
and the mill was left abandoned, with its broken shovels and its roof holed by the times which
had passed over it.
There are five crosses standing in front of the mill, two of them made out of stone and three
others carved from oak wood, decorated with the halo(țircălam?) and painted with holy icons; all
of these are signs which let the traveler know that here, the place is blessed, because wherever
you see this kind of cross, it means that somebody may have heard some good news or escaped
from danger. But this was a blessed place, especially since the new innkeeper, with his young
wife and his old mother-in-law had come, because they didn’t welcome a traveller as a stranger
from the wide world, but as a long-expected friend in their house. Barely had a few months
passed after Saint George’s Celebration when the more experienced travellers said that they were
not going to shelter at the Lucky Mill, but that they would stay at Ghiță’s, and everybody knew
who and where Ghiță was, and there, in the valley, between the slope and the evil places, there
wasn’t the Lucky Mill anymore, but Ghiță’s pub. And, for Ghiță, the pub was lucky. Four days a
week, from Tuesday evening till Saturday, the pub was always full, and everyone would stop at
Ghiță’s, and everyone would buy something, and everyone would pay fairly .
On Saturday evening, the place would get a bit more empty, and Ghiță, having some time for
himself, would start counting money together with Ana and the old woman, and then, he looked
into Ana’s eyes, Ana looked into his, both of them looked at their two children, as now there
were two of them, and the old woman admired the four of them and felt blessed, because she had
a hardworking son-in-law, a lucky daughter, two lively grandchildren, and their prosperity came
from God, from a well-earned income.”
 Nume și prenume elev: Vornicu Cătălina-Maria
Clasa a IX-a
Școala: Colegiul Național Emil Racoviță Iași
Localitatea: Iași, județul: Iași
Adresă e-mail elev: catalinamar2006@yahoo.com
Nume și prenume profesor îndrumător: Irimia Lorena
Adresă e-mail profesor: lorenairimia@yahoo.com