Naomi
and Ruth, while pouting, were furiously thinking of pranks to play to prevent
Naomi’s wedding. Naomi was next and they had to come up with some ideas
to stop the cabin from being built this weekend and the wedding in two weeks
because she had no intention of being forced into a marriage with Joel
Randolph. Her face burned when she remembered how she had behaved the day
of Esther’s wedding and she became even more furious with herself and with him
and even with her parents for putting her into this predicament. The more
she thought about it the madder she got and the more crabby she was with
everyone she came into contact with. She earned herself several reminders
from her parents to watch her behavior or else she would end up taking a trip
to the barn for a dose of the strap from her Pa when he got home that
evening. Luckily for her, she restrained herself, just barely.
“Oh but what can we do?” Naomi was pacing back and forth in their room.
“I just can’t marry Joel Randolph. We must stop this wedding. I
don’t want to end up like Esther. I feel so sorry for her being forced to
marry him, and now I’m next,” Naomi furiously hissed. “I won’t marry
him. I can’t!”
“Naomi, please calm down. Mamma will hear you if you don’t quiet down,”
Ruth admonished her sister. “And you’ve already been warned you’ll be
sent to the barn for the strap if you don’t calm down and stop stomping
all over the place.”
“I know, I know. But I feel so angry and frustrated. We had really
good pranks to stop Esther’s wedding, and they all backfired on us! We
have to come up with some better ones that will work, otherwise I will be
next! I can’t marry him Ruthie, I just can’t!” she wailed and collapsed
into her sister’s arms.
“I know Naomi. We’ll come up with something,” she soothed her. It
wasn’t often that Naomi got so distraught and Ruth didn’t know exactly how to
respond to her sister, but did the best she could.
“Hey, do you remember that time we played too close to a beehive and one of us
accidentally disturbed the bees in it?” Ruth asked her sister.
“Yes. The bees got so mad and each of us got stung before we got
away. Luckily it was only a couple of bee stings, but they hurt,” Naomi
replied. “But how does…” she started to ask, then her face lit up when
she realized how it would work. “Oh I see. That would be great, but
how can we get the beehive transferred there without getting stung?”
“Hmmm we’ll have to think about that. But just imagine, they start
working and someone ‘accidentally’ stirs up the bees and everyone will have to
run away from the cabin. I can just see it now, all those ‘manly’ men
hopping and running like scared rabbits away from the bees,” and they both
dissolved into giggles as Leah conjured up that picture for the both of them.
Mary heard the girls giggling and wondered what they were up to. They’d
been in such a bad mood earlier and now they were giggling which gave her a
sick feeling in her stomach while at the same time she was glad they were
laughing. But that giggle usually meant they were up to no good.
“Naomi, Ruth, what ARE you girls giggling about?” she called to them as she
knocked on their door before opening it.
Used to coming up with quick answers, Leah responded, “Oh Mamma, Naomi was so
upset and distressed about the upcoming cabin raising and wedding that I was
just trying to cheer her up. I was making faces and doing silly things to
make her laugh like I used to do.”
“Is this right Naomi?” Mary asked her daughter suspiciously.
“Yes Mamma. Leah was only trying to cheer me up. I’m sorry if we
disturbed you,” Naomi replied.
Mary was still suspicious, but they seemed sincere, so she let it drop.
But she made a mental note to keep an extra sharp eye on those two just in case
as she returned to what she was doing in the other room.
“That was too close. We need to keep it down when we’re planning pranks,”
they both agreed.
“Remember how we get honey from the hive? We could smoke the hive like
you do when you go to get the honey…” Naomi started.
“Yeah, and when the bees get all sleepy in the hive, we grab the hive and put
it in a burlap sack to keep them from escaping and stinging us and take it and
hide it where the cabin is going to be built where no one can see it… near the
lumber. They’ll have it stacked up at the site the day before so they
won’t have to move it while they’re working. Since they typically stack
it over under a tree near where they’re building to keep it drier if it rains,
we could hide the beehive in the tree nearby. We just need to find a way
to get the bees disturbed,” Ruth finished.
“How about using the slingshot? Is there any way we can do that without
getting caught?” they wondered as they continued to muse over the
problem. “We’ll be watched very closely after last week. So we need
to find another way. How about spreading some honey over the
lumber? Or sugar water or something… it’ll attract ants and when they go
to pick up the lumber all those ants will be crawling all over it and in the
confusion of getting rid of all the ants that’ll be crawling all over their
hands and maybe up their pants legs, and one of us can walk over to see what is
going on and under the pretense of using a broom or branch to beat all the
ants, we can ‘accidentally’ raise the broom or branch, whatever we can get our
hands on, too high and hit the beehive and stir up the bees. And us being
women, no one will think twice when we shriek and run when we know what we’ve
done since we’ve been stung before,” Naomi added.
April
www.cddtakeninhandstories.com - for the rest of the story
No comments:
Post a Comment