There's no playgrounds or malls for the local kids to play at so we are forced to create our own entertainment. The boys were wont to playing practical jokes like the one Mary Susan's older brothers played on her. The one that got them a rather unique punishment.

   Mary Susan was dressed in her prettiest party dress as the family was going to see Granny Wolfe on her 90th birthday. It was a lovely little pink dress with a puffy slip that pushed out the skirt and pink bloomers that just peeked out when she bent over.

   The boys were dressed in their Sunday finest too but that didn't stop them from swingin' on a rope over the creek by the garden which at this time of the summer was reduced to mud and a little trickle.

    Now the boys were always bugged by Mary Susan following them around and wanting to play with them so they decided this time they'd let her. They grabbed the rope and swung over the creek and came down on the other side and encouraged Mary Susan to do the same.

    Mary Susan was surprised the boys would let her play with them and was afraid she'd get her dress dirty but they showed her it was really simple - just step up on the rock, grab the rope and swing over the creek and let go. So she grabbed the rope and swung.

    Disaster! Unknown to her the boys had greased the lower part of the rope with pig's fat. When they swung they grabbed the rope above the grease but poor Mary Susan grabbed right where they'd greased the rope and in the middle of the creek her hands slid off the rope and down she came!

    She was more frightened than hurt but her pretty dress was splattered full of mud and she began bawlin' and carryin' on so that her mom came out to see what was the matter. The boys tried to look innocent and say it was her fault for not hanging on but Mary Susan wailed, "My hands was slippery and I cain't hang on and fell!" Mom checked her hands and felt the fat and then checked the rope. Sure enough the rope was coated with fat.

    Now normally their pappy would have taken them out behind the woodshed for a swift beatin' with a birch branch but mom had another idea. She whispered to paw and he guffawed and told the boys that they'd better do as their mom said or they'd wish they were never born.

   I don't know where she came up with them, probably left over from when their big sister Michele had gotten married and moved away but a couple hours later Mary Susan was in a clean new dress and holding her hands were her two red-faced brothers. Each of them was wearing his own pretty dress and slip. They had ribbons in their hair and gulped deeply when mom said, 'C'mon girls let's go visit Granny."

Granny, who many thought was a bit senile, fawned over her new grandaughters and insisted mom take pictures of them together. You never saw such faces. The boys were mortified and just thankful that Granny didn't recognize them. They were wrong but Granny didn't want to make things worse for them than they already were.

    They nearly had a heart attack when mom said maybe next Sunday she'd take her girls to church instead of those miscreants she had for sons. The boys were on their knees promising mom to be on their best behavior if only she would let them back in their own clothes.

    Now all Mary Susan's mom has to say is, 'do you want to visit Petticoat Junction" and those boys straighten up like a shot!!

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Thanks to Mary Beth Sanford for allowing me to borrow her image

This is the latest episode of the Farm Town Chronicles, a non-TG set of vignettes posted over at Fictioneer inspired by the interactive Facebook game 'Farm Town.'