“This’n be your room.”
She stepped through the doorway and looked at the log walls,
the single bulb dangling from the end of a wire hanging from the ceiling, and
the threadbare blankets scattered over the mattress. A small wooden night stand carried a white
water jug and basin. The rest of the
room was bare, save for two faded yellow cotton curtains covering a dusty four
pane window. During the day, they took
away enough sunlight to cast a pall of doom over the room.
“It‘s not very homely, Gramps.”
“Better’n any I had when I was young’un like you. And, in any case, it only be for the
summer. Your folks said you can go back
come fall. Fair thinking, that.”
She looked up at the tall dungaree clad man, his white
shaggy hair topped by a well-worn brittle straw hat.
“Gramps – where do I put my clothes?”
His dark blue eyes almost twinkled as he gave a toothy grin.
“Best just keep ‘em in your’n overnight case, I reckon.”
She sighed, and shook her pony tail sadly from side to
side. She was wearing the dark green
jeans and pink gingham blouse her mother had insisted was the right and proper
attire for this trip. She was sure it
had been chosen to make her look as unattractive as possible to any boys who
might also live miles away from civilization in this wooded wilderness.
“And you has some privacy as well. The door don’t lock, but it does shut. Be thankful for that, missy.”
“Thanks, Gramps.”
She sighed, and tugged her carryall into the middle of the room.
Banished to live with her Grandpa for the whole summer. This was utter hell.
“Would you like a cup of milk cocoa?”
She smiled a tight lipped smile and nodded. “That ‘d be nice.” She had the pale white skin, almost ashen,
of a city dweller. A summer in the
country would correct that. And perhaps
give her some of that muscular health that country dwellers are famed for. That would be a good asset to have in any
High School anywhere. And at least, there was not an ounce of
puppy fat to shed from her wiry frame.
“Some chocolate chip cookies?”
“That‘d be very nice indeed, Gramps.”
“You jump into bed.
I’ll bring them to you in a few minutes.”
---oo0oo---
“Do we have to have rabbit stew every night, Gramps?” she
asked on the third evening.
“I like rabbit stew.
Plenty of rabbits round here, plenty of fixings too. Easy on the wallet ‘n’ on the cook pot.”
“I heard turkeys gobbling around here earlier on. If you could bag a turkey, I could fix us a
very nice dinner.”
“Thanksgivings is ways away, but that notion sure sounds
good. I’ll take Betsy tomorrow ‘n’ see
what we can pick up.”
“Betsy?”
“My bestest shot-gun.
Came from my pa. Has a wicked
aim.”
They returned to the task of chomping down on rabbit stew.
---oo0oo---
It was barely past sunrise that Gramps set off the following
morning, carrying a shotgun that must have stretched eight feet from its stock
to the end of its flared muzzle. A
blast from an armament so monstrous would surely take down a flock of geese in
one go. A single turkey would probably
be blasted out of existence, one would have thought.
The day was long, and after some oatmeal, Ashley was reduced
to whiling away the hours by roaming around the small clearing that surrounded
the log cabin, and playing checkers against herself on the porch.
She went to the little kitchen to make herself some lunch,
and perhaps prepare a plate for Gramps.
The continued silence from the woods suggested the turkeys
were finding it easy to hide from him.
If he came back soon, she could quickly reheat a plate of rabbit stew for him. In the meantime, eggs and ham seemed very appropriate for her own repast.
After she had eaten, she washed the plate and pan in the
sink, in tepid water with minimal help from the dregs of the washing up liquid. To put the pan back up on the top of the
shelf, she pulled out the chest to stand on it.
As she stepped down, she looked with renewed interest at the
wooden box that usually lived tucked under the side table. Its clasp was held shut with a wooden
peg. Just a few tugs, and it came out.
She opened the lid and stared down in disbelief at the horde
of bottles full or half-full of bourbons and whiskies.
Gramps sure liked a drop of the hard stuff, the rascal!
She started to close the lid, and then paused. She took out a bottle labeled “Wild Turkey”
– that seemed appropriate – and decided to pour herself a very small glass to
see what pleasure there was in drinking liquor.
Gramps had no small glasses, so she decided to have a small amount in a
large glass.
As she was about to finish pouring herself a modest amount,
the whole cabin rocked to the roar of a near-by cannon-like explosion. Gramps had unleashed the weapon, and its
recoil had inadvertently doubled the size of Ashley’s helping of Wild Turkey. Ah well, nothing ventured nothing gained she
reminded herself.
She resealed the bottle, returned it to its place among the
rest, shut the lid and pushed the chest back under the table.
A quick sip, a screwed up grimace, and then a ladle at the
water tub was used to dilute her drink to a more acceptable level of heat. Now she understood why a cold drank could
get the nickname of “firewater”.
Like
tabasco sauce – all very innocent until it hit the tongue…
She sat on the porch once more, continued to try to outwit
herself at checkers as she swung her legs back and forth under the oak stool,
and sipped happily at her drink. It was
not impossible that she could actually get to like this country life that had
been forced upon her.
The glass was almost empty when Gramps appeared walking down
the clearing between the trees that represented the road to the cabin. The shot gun was across a shoulder, and in
his other hand he was carrying a turkey that must have been near thirty pounds
in weight. The turkey was surprisingly
intact.
She raised her glass, and beamed the happy beam that those
unused to alcohol beam when they have sampled it for the first time. “Here’s to
you, Gramps – we shall dine well for a week!”
Gramps came over at the double.
“What in tarnation is you drinking, Miss?” The verbal capitalization of “miss” warned Ashley
that trouble was brewing. She ignored
the omen. This day was just wonderful.
“Its ‘Wild Turkey’ Gramps – isn’t that just wonderful, when
you’ve been out after a wild turkey?”
“Where’n you get yourn ‘Wild Turkey’?” he asked with deep
suspicion.
“From the chest in the kitchen.”
Gramps carefully placed the turkey on the table, and laid
his shotgun on the verandah floor. He
took out a wicked looking bowie knife, strode just a few yards into the woods
and returned seconds later brandishing a long, thin switch.
“Gramps….?”
“Inside, Missy.”
“What did I do?”
“You went in my chest.
That’s pryin’. You took my
liquor. That’s thievin’. And you drank some. That’s drinkin’. Under age drinkin’. Any one would be enough for me to have to
larn you a lesson. You has gotten
yourself a switchin’ comin’, Missy.”
“Please no, Gramps – I won’t do it again!” She pulled her whole body to face him in an
arch of defiant rebellion, fists clenched outwards on either side.
“You wan’ me to drive over to the Jacksons’ and call your
daddy on their telephony? You will be
here for a year if I do.”
Her shoulders dropped.
This was not going to be a just wonderful afternoon after all.
“Gramps – I’m a good girl – really I am.”
He nodded sternly in the general direction of indoors. The fate was determined.
She led the way into the interior of the log cabin, assumed
her position face down over the kitchen table, and shortly afterwards, the
surrounding woodlands echoed to the crisp sound of a switch making contact with
its target.
---oo0oo---
That evening they sat facing each other over the small
dining table that bore their dinner.
Turkey was for the morrow, and once more they tucked into rabbit stew.
“We are gonna hafta have rules, around here, you know.”
“Yes Gramps. If you
say so – but I’m really a good girl.”
“A good girl yourn sayin’?
You broke a lot of rules today, and I don’t like havin’ to do what I has
to do for rule breaking.”
“Yes, Gramps. I get
it. But does it have to be on the
bare?” The stripes on her bottom
tingled at the memory of it being bare when being switched with a switch.
“Family tradition.
Can’t break a family tradition.
E’en your mom got whupped on the bare when she was your age and broke
the rules.”
Good heavens – what a sight that conjured up. She could not help smile at the thought.
“I didn’t mean to break any rules, Gramps – it is just that
it gets so boring around here with nothing to do.”
“Way it goes when you live off the land…”
“I would not be bored if I had a pet!” she interjected.
He looked at her if she had sprouted deer antlers.
“That is one wild ‘n’ pretty perpost’rous idea, missy.”
“A little kitten would take up no room, and I’d take it home
with me in the Fall.”
“Kittens turn into cats.
We aint having no smelly cat fouling up this cabin.”
She resisted making the obvious retort. That switch was mighty mean and making the
obvious retort might make it necessary for her to have further acquaintance
with its savage bite. No point in
taking the chance.
“A puppy then. A
puppy. You could train it into being a
hunting dog!”
His eyes misted over, much to Ashley’s surprise. “Caspar were’n the bestest hunting dog a man
could ever share his life with. He
passed on, seven years ago. Much too
soon to let another one into my life,” he forlornly explained, with a heavy
choke to his throat.
She shrugged off the rebuttal and stared around the room and
up at the ceiling for any inspiration of any kind.
“How about a parrot?
Parrots don’t smell. Or a
bunny. Bunnies take up no …”
“A rabbit? Have you
lost all your senses? No – we’re not
havin’ no domestic animal for no stupid pet, ‘n’ that’s now a house rule! Break it, ‘n’ I’ll break your butt!”
“Yes, Gramps.” The
matter was clearly closed. For now.
They returned to chomping on their rabbit stew, which had
suddenly become less tasty than usual.
Probably the thought of pet bunnies had made it a little less wholesome
on the tongue.
---oo0oo---
A week passed, and it sure seemed that Ashley had adjusted
to her new life style.
Gramps could be out for hours, and when he returned there
was not a single sign that any boredom inspired mischief had led to any rules
getting broken. The walks around the
woods had grown longer, and a hint of tan hovered around her snub nose, which
she inspected closely every morning for any hint of an outbreak of
freckles. If there was ever such a
hint, she was resolved to spend the rest of her time here wearing a muslin
drape over her straw hat to protect her face, and herself, from such a scourge.
There had been a long and very heated discussion over the
merits and non-merits of opossum stew, but had been settled fairly
amicably. Just a few threats, no
physicals. It took some effort but she
was able to sway Gramps enough that he did not skin the hapless creature, and
she did not have to cook the thing.
The storm had moved in quickly that evening, and thunder and
lightning filled the air until the early hours, for peace and quiet to return.
Except for Gramps – he could not settle back down for there
was a distinct and persistent rustling going on somewhere within the
cabin. Mice, may be?
He got out of his bed and went into the main room. The noise was definitely louder in the main
room than it was in his bedroom. Louder
than mice would make. Surely not rats? No – definitely not rats.
He wandered thither and yon, checking the increase and
decrease in volume as he moved around the room.
He found that as he moved closer to Ashley’s room the
rustling noise became more and more distinct.
Were there mice or something in Ashley’s room? And if there were, then what on earth was she
up to?
He knocked. “Ashley,
you alright?”
“Yes Gramps, I'm OK.
Night, night.”
“Are you decent?”
“Of course I am, Gramps, just very tired. Night, night.”
He opened the door and switched on the light.
She was already sitting up, her black hair combed out for
sleep-time, sparkly white teeth clean of any remnants of supper. Her pink pajamas were perhaps a size too big
for her, to allow for growing room her mom had said, so she looked quite
swallowed by them in the middle of the tangle of blankets. Her blue eyes sparkled in the glow of the low
watt bulb.
By her bed was an open wooden crate. In the wooden crate was a grass bed. On the grass bed was a raccoon.
He stepped back.
“That’s a raccoon,” he stated confidently and yet with some
confusion. “Why’ve you gotten yoursel’
a raccoon in your bedroom?”
“This is Rackie – she’s my pet.”
The raccoon reared up on its hind legs, waved two fore-fists
full of long razor sharp claws in his general direction and bared her fangs to
show she was not afraid of him.
“Rackie…?!” he spluttered.
He reached out as if to take the animal so that he could throw it into
the woodlands from the porch. An angry
barrage of hisses, and sharply swung claws convinced him to stay at least six
feet from the pesky varmint.
“I’ve been looking after her for the last two weeks. She just loves chocolate chip cookies. The storm must’ve made her restless. I’ll get her some and she’ll go back to
sleep.” She smiled her best beaming
winsome smile - one that had come to her quite naturally, much to everyone’s
surprise. Most young ladies have to
practice for hours to achieve that exact mix of open winsomeness.
“But … But … No pets!
That’s a house rule. No pets!”
“No, Gramps, you said no domestic animals. Raccoons aint domestic animals.” She raised her eyebrows into an ‘isn’t that so?’
expression.
He stood very still and said very calmly, over calmly
perhaps, “I’m going to go and find Betsy.
When I get back, if that raccoon is still here, I‘ll deal with it. My way.
You’ve two minutes at the most.”
He turned and left.
And when he returned a few minutes later, there was no sign
of Rackie. He stood his shotgun against
the wall
“She really gone, your’n not hiding her around here some
place?”
“She’s really gone.
I’ll miss her.”
“I reckons so, but it weren’t right for you to make a pet
out of her.”
“I know Gramps. But,
you aren’t going to switch me for this,
are you?”
“No missy – you broke no house rule, not as such. You just got yoursel’ up’n to some mischief by mixin’ my words. In this family you don’t get switched for getting
up’n to some mischief – not mischief like’n that anyways.”
She looked relieved.
“This is what we do,” he continued.
As he sat himself down on the end of her bed, he grabbed her
by the wrist and swung her face down over his knees. A second later her somewhat baggy pajama
bottoms and then her panties were around her knees.
Now, a spanking from a city gent may be easily cast
aside. Delicate pink palms that are too
sensitive for them to impart any real sting without them tingling back twice as
much. That leads to a citified spanking. All very dainty and gentile. But he was not a city gent, and his hands
were like two leather covered wooden boards.
These hands could whale away for a long time without the owner getting
distressed in any way at all. A
countrified spanking was nothing that could ever be easily cast aside.
While his hands were in no danger of becoming distressed, the
pink bottom - rapidly turning bright red -of the young woman on the receiving
end, however, quickly got most distressed.
“Gramps, enough already” and similar plaintive and ineffective
pleas to desist were to be heard for the next five minutes as Gramps did his
duty as only Gramps new how.
As he pulled up her panties and pajama bottoms back up, he
announced “House rule – no animals as pets, not domestic, not wild – no
animals. Understood?” She nodded a tearful nod. He sat her up and gave her a hug. “Back to bed, now, and get some sleep.”
When he was gone, she lay face down on her bed and tenderly
massaged her bottom. There were no
welts standing proud, but even so, it would be very hard to judge which of the
two spankings he had given her, so far, was the worst of the two.
---oo0oo---
“Reddit!”
The mating call of the bull frog rang around the cabin. It was two a.m. or thereabouts. It was very loud, so loud that Gramps spent a
good five minutes searching his own bedroom before he was satisfied that the
creature had not invaded his room
He staggered into the main room, wearing grey faded long
johns and peered into the gloom to try to spot the intruder. He armed himself with a fly swatter, and
crawled around at floor level, under the table and around the chairs. It had to be in here, he thought to himself.
“Reddit!”
His heart sank. It was
clearly in Ashley’s room.
He went and put his ear to her door.
“Reddit!” Yes it was
definitely in there.
“Shush will you?
Shush up for heaven’s sake.” He heard her say that – which meant she
knew it was in there.
He knocked, opened the door and, as expected there was a
very large bull frog sitting on the counterpane.
He raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“It aint an animal, Gramps, it’s a reptile.”
“A reptile, yep – and one tryin’ to attract itself a mate,
as I see it. When you snare it?”
“This afternoon, Gramps.
I aint even got it a cage nor nothing as yet.”
“It goes. Right now. Get rid of it.”
She took it out to the porch and let it hop down the
steps. For a moment she thought it said
a final “Reddit!” as a good bye to her, but a nearby answering call made it
clear that her bull frog was about to find itself another bull frog to spend
some time together.
When she returned to the living room Gramps was sitting on a
dining chair.
Not a word was exchanged as she lowered herself across his
lap.
The spanking was not as long as the last one, but burned
just as fiercely.
She pulled up her panties and her pajama bottoms herself. “Can I go to bed now?” she asked, somewhat
annoyed at the outcome, as she rubbed relief into her butt.
“Yes – but first let’s make it quite clear. No reptiles, no amphibians, no insects, no
snakes, no bats, no owls, no critters of any shape nor of any size, animal or
non-animal.”
“No snakes?”
“Nope, no snakes.”
He shook his head sternly.
She went to her room and returned carrying a banded grass
snake to set off to its new found freedom as well.
“You’d a snake in there as well as a bull frog?” He was taken aback at the enormity of two
pets hidden in her room.
“I didn’t see why not, Gramps.”
“You are one stubborn girl, missy.”
“You’re not going to spank me again, are you? Not so soon after whaling me like that?”
“Not right now. But I’ve
gotten to deal with you. Tomorrow
afternoon. You’ve earned yoursel’
another switchin’ Missy.”
She nodded, pressed her lips firmly between her teeth, and exited
proudly, head held high, to go and get as much sleep as was possible when
knowledge of an imminent fate worse than death kept interrupting one’s slumbers.
---oo0oo---
She found that the switching was not that bad, as switchings
go. A lot of yelps and dancing from
foot to foot – that was a given. And desperately
wanting to rub her bottom before it was all over – that was nothing new.
It was the waiting all day for it to happen that was really
unpleasant.
---oo0oo---
They dined well on turkey variations for almost a week, and
then they went back to the old routine.
On the third evening after the last turkey bone had been picked clean,
they sat on opposite sides of the dining table, large deep dishes full of dark
brown liquid in front of them.
“I’m really getting very tired of rabbit stew, Gramps.”
“Full of good stuff is rabbit stew. Your’n maw was allus complainin’ about it,
too, but it aint did her no harm.”
“But it is full of rabbit!”
“Yep. Now, let me
explain. If you wanna stroll to the
village and buy some other meats, you can put the cost on my tab. My treat.”
“Seven miles! You
expect to walk seven miles each way?? When
you’ve got a truck!”
“I drives there once a month. Picks up my pension and my vittles. You want anything sooner than that, you is
free to put things right yoursel’”
“Put things right? I’ll
start right now!”
She picked up her dish, walked to the door, and threw it and
the stew into the night air in the general direction of a small bush.
A minute later, laying face down across his knees with jeans
and panties around her knees, she did have second thoughts about making such a
gesture. But her annoyance was still at
a pitch that she took her spanking with a determined tight lipped silence. And recognizing his own part in the matter,
Gramps whaled her rump with far less gusto than he might otherwise have
done.
She pulled up her clothes and stood in front of him with the
bright eyes of one who has been spanked in the last few minutes, and pulled her
lips tight over her clenched teeth.
“OK, fer land’s sake.
Stop that puppy look. I’ll drive
you to the village tomorrow. But you
gotten to eat some more stew. You aint
starvin’ yoursel’ to make a silly point.”
She smiled and nodded.
A few moments later, with a fresh dish, newly ladled, they
sat again opposite each other and chomped happily at their meal.
---oo0oo---
It was the day before she was due to leave. The house was scrubbed clean from top to
bottom, every plate sparkled, every curtain and drape laundered and ironed to
crisp perfection.
She found that the long absences when Gramps was away could
be filled by doing old fashioned housework, and the crazy thing was, the harder
she worked at it, the more pleasurable it became. The incentive of not getting switched or
another trip over his knee also made domestic bliss a pleasant alternative to earning
corrective chastisement for one prank or another.
She sported the deep tan of a country dweller. Numerous lengthy hikes around the woods,
swimming in the creek in her underwear (for she had no swim suit) and numerous
chores in and around the house had given her body a toned physique that would
make her friends at school green with envy.
“Why does someone like her get all the luck?” they would ask themselves.
It was over their penultimate breakfast that he finally got
round to asking her “What in tarnation did you do to upset them so much?”
“Mom and dad?
Sending me to stay with you? Boy
trouble. They thought I was going to do
bad things with him.”
“Ah. The old mating
instincts...”
“Gramps! Nothing
like that! Mischief. Mischief similar to, but of a sort more
worse than I ever got up to while I’ve been here. I think I might be a firebrand or some such.”
“I thought you were supposed to be a good girl…” he said
suspiciously.
“I am. Really! Unless Mike...” She thought for a moment. “Or was
he called Pete? No – I’m sure he’s called
Paul. I am always a good girl, unless
Paul puts me in mind to play a prank, or two, on a neighbor or the like. Nothing really, really bad – you know - we
might tie a rope to the door knockers of two houses facing each other across
the street, and then knock on both doors.
There would be a lot of pulling and pushing and yelling as they tugged
each other back and forth.” She
chuckled quietly at the fond memory.
Gramps nodded and pondered over this rush of fresh
information.
“But you caint now remember the name of the boy?” he finally
asked.
“May be. I was sort
of friends with lots of firebrands, I suppose.”
He smiled.
“The forced partin’ of the pard’ners sure do seems to have
worked out just fine. Least so, so I reckons.”
He stood up. “I is
off to get some rabbits for one last rabbit stew dinner. Don’t you go gettin’ into any mischief
whiles I is away.”
---oo0oo---
He returned barely an hour later.
She was sat on the porch, playing checkers with herself as
her opponent. She was sipping from a
glass, and a bottle of Jack Daniels stood on the table.
“What the devil are you up to?”
She smiled the happy beam of someone who had sampled an
alcohol beverage for only the second time in her life.
“One last chance for rabbit stew – one last chance for me to
break a house rule.”
He shook his head in disbelief as he walked up to the table. She had not been in any sort of mischief for
over a week now.
“I’m gonna miss you
so much, Gramps,” she said, looking up at him with the big blue eyed winsome
smile she had perfected to perfection.
He nodded, blinking back a tear. “You too, Missy…”
She picked up off the table an unnoticed switch she had
prepared. It seemed to be somewhat
stouter, longer and swishier than the ones Gramps had cut on prior occasions.
“I’m gonna miss rabbit stew as well, only in a thankful
way.”
She handed him the switch.
“And being kept in line the way you do it. I’ll miss that as well. Odd, that, you might think, but it was OK in
a family tradition sort of way. So let’s
make this last one a good one.” All said
with an air of reluctant acceptance of the inevitability of what was about to
happen.
He pulled himself up high, and set his chin into a firm line
of determination. “A good one for old times’ sake? That I will do, Missy. That I will do.”
She led the way as they both went inside the log cabin.
No comments:
Post a Comment