One Afternoon In Switzerland

A young friend asked me for help completing a homework assignment...

 

ONE AFTERNOON IN SWITZERLAND

      “Goodman, I’m off!”, Samantha Goodwife Brown hollered at her obstreperous, ne’er-do-well husband. “I’ve put Lucifer in the kitchen, as the sow’s in season, plus the flies are about to carry him off. Make sure he gets a little to eat, and DO try not to make TOO much of a mess, will you?” That said, she hefted the scythe over her shoulder, and walked out the door.

      Now, Brown and Lucifer had never been best of friends. The Goodman swore the hog understood what he said, particularly the bits that referred to bacon, and barbecue.

      “You be’s a nice piggy, you understand? I’se gwine down t’cellah, t’fetch up the beer tappah." Lucifer sneered. “WU-U-UR-R-RNN-N-NT!”, was his only reply.

      As Goodman Brown reached the top of the stairs, tap in hand, the pig, a 700-pound boar, gave him a malevolent glare, followed by a wink. The Goodman knew he was being mocked; the pig, in effect, was saying, “Oh, yeah? And just what do you think you’re gonna DO about it?” Now, the Goodman wasn’t too long in the self-esteem department, and was, in fact, as earlier noted, of a generally sour disposition anyway.

       Brown advanced slowly upon the swine, flailing the keg tap before him. The boar snorted in disdain, and with a playful flip of the snout, sent the large wooden churn, loaded with four gallons of partially clabbered cream, hurtling into Goodman’s shins. Brown leapt up, shrieking imprecations at the by-now-happily-slurping hog, who was oblivious to the chaos he’d created. Goodman’s screeching took on a more hideous timbre when he struck his head on the ceiling’s low beam and fell resoundingly to the floor, narrowly avoiding being impaled on the handle of the churn. The pig, more than slightly off-put at all the commotion, tenderly gored him in the heel, causing him (with yet another startled hoot), to roll backward through the still-open cellar door, landing headlong in the ale cask, where, after several minutes of muffled moaning, he drowned. His last conscious thought had been, “Won’t the Goodwife be pleased, that those many prophecies she made about ‘all-that-beer’ finally being the death of me have come true?”

       The pig, utterly unconcerned with the Goodman’s now-ended problems (as they were no longer within his line of sight), and, having finished the last of the curds, now fell into a fitful sleep. Fitful, because the milk in the uncooled churn was already quite fermented. An hour later, the blissfully-unaware hog, by now well-bloated with the by-products of rotting milk, exploded.

      Mind ye now, only a couple of  hours  had elapsed since Samantha Goodwife, scythe in hand, had headed down the road to the rye field, and fully eight hours more would pass before she could return home. Eight hours, mind, of hog and husband decomposition, cream clabbering and ale souring. One might well imagine her consternation, upon arriving home following a day’s hard reaping, to find her once-tidy home in a state substantially messier than she had left it, not to mention her shiftless husband nowhere to be found. “Probably crocked somewhere!”, she might mutter. Had she but known that yet another of her prophecies would have been borne out!

       Fortunately, it would be a problem she’d not have to face. When, well before the day was through,  the alcohol from the strong beer, combined with the methane from the various viscera flung about the kitchen and cellar eventually filled the top two-thirds of the room, finally lowered to the level of the yet-burning candle on the kitchen table, the house all at once leapt into the sky on a pillar of blue, white and red, causing a report that was heard for miles around, even unto the rye fields.

       Goody raised her eyebrows, lowered her scythe, mopped her brow and, heaving a heavy sigh, watched the roiling mushroom ascend. “Bring up the new cask, and mind the pig. Is that so much to ask? Is there anything so simple that that idiot could do it right?” Then she hefted her scythe for another stroke, and a ceiling beam stove her head in. Altogether, not one of the Brown family's all-star days... 

Reviews

[Kaylor Mason]

I gotta admit I laughed when I read this . . . reminds me of tales of some of my relatives. I still help out at the family hog slaughters sometimes, down on the family farm . . . that's where we get a lot of our porkchops and briskets from. Delicious :)

[Mark]

Thanks, Kailer...I've only eaten hours-old pork one time, when a friend killed a wild hog from the woods behind our house, and one of the conditions of allowing him to hunt there was that we get part of the proceeds. Baked that puppy fourteen hours at 200 degrees, tenderest meat I ever put in my face!!

[Shep]

This was great adventure to behold, now I wonder I have met people this dumb in my lifetime or people that trouble always finds. my favorite line is this.

“Won’t the Goodwife be pleased, that those many prophecies she made about ‘all-that-beer’ finally being the death of me have come true?”

Very well written my friend very well written.

[C.M.]

LOVE IT!

[Through the Gateway]

Wonderfully maccabre, Mark. Brothers Grim with a twist of lemon.

[Gregory Hill]

Great story Mark. The only part I would change would be the first part, like Scott said because it its too much telling rather than showing, and the last part about allstar kind of throws you off when its put in a "older" type story like this. Other than those two things great job :0

[Ellen Hammond]

I love this! Knowing your wonderful sense of humor, I knew from your first sentence it was going to be a fun read and you didn't disappoint me. But you never do. It is a hoot to read, just what I needed tonight.

[David Lewis Paget]

Well. this would be worthy of the Brothers Grimm, a full on black comedy that just gets worse as events succeed each other. This tale is told in such a believable manner that the reader is swept along by events. Great stuff, Mark. I doff my hat!
David.

[lost inside]

Such a wonderful story here, I enjoyed treading this.
I found hunor in this. An enjoyable read.

[Samuel Dickens]

What a hoot! Mark, I have to wonder where your fertile mind wanders to gather such gems as this. It has a lot of that old-fashioned fairy tale aura about it--you know, farmers and their wives, chopping and killing, etc, etc. Or the children that jump out of the wolf's stomach when the farmer cuts him open. I love it!