fiction by Tom Carnegie
I have been living in Baton Noir since
1906, nearly fifteen years now. I'm
not going to tell you my name, because
that isn't important. The fact is,
I keep my ear to the ground and as
such I'm a great dispenser of gossip.
A while back Butch told me of a revelation
that he had. He had seen poles
in the lumberyard that were pointed at
one end and treated with something to
keep them from rotting. Butch is a
great one for telling us about his
dreams. He said that he was asleep
one night and it became crystal clear
how these aforementioned poles were
made. In the lumberyard is a very
large praying mantis that pulls a pole
from the pile and sticks it into a very,
very large pencil sharpener. After
giving the handle a few cranks the
mantis then hands the pole to a large
grasshopper who treats the pole with a
good load of tobacco juice.
But I digress.
I want to tell you about
Butch's attempts to win the favor of
Bettie. Butch always had a hankerin'
for Bonnie Doon, but he was outgunned by a
veteran of the Great European war. He wasn't too upset
though because he decided he liked
Bonnie's sister Bettie better anyway.
Early one evening he happened by the
Doon fox farm where Bettie lives.
"Just happened to be in the neighborhood",
he said. Bettie was there and
they were talking out by the driveway.
As they talked a family of skunks
came out from behind the woodpile
and started ambling across the driveway.
Butch pointed out their existence in such a manner as to startle
said skunk family. Mama skunk proceeded across the road while five or
so baby skunks decided to stay near
the woodpile.
It bothered Butch that
these skunks were separated by the 12
foot expanse of the driveway, so he
decided to take action. A more passive person
might have just left the divided family alone on the off chance
that they could reunite themselves,
but not Butch! He thought that maybe
he could just herd these baby skunks
out of the woodpile and across the
road to their poor lonely and anxious
mother. Butch wasn't too worried
about getting sprayed because he had
heard Joseph Vant say that baby
skunks don't spray. Well, these
skunks must have been young adults
because Butch did very little prodding
with a stick before one of them let go.
Bettie was not impressed.
Hayes Olson is a beekeeper. For the
fun of it he made a beehive with glass
sides so you can watch the bees work.
The hive is built into the side of his
shed with the glass side facing the interior
of the shed.
He had shown this
hive to Butch and Butch was intrigued.
One evening, with Haye's
permission, Butch decided to show
the hive to Bettie. Bettie had misgivings
about looking at bees, but Butch
convinced her that they were very
docile, especially in the evening.
They were talking and watching the
bees in the semi-darkness of the shed
when Butch noticed that the bees
would periodically start to buzz. He
soon realized that it was their breath
from talking that made them buzz.