{"id":14134,"date":"2009-09-03T08:05:26","date_gmt":"2009-09-03T12:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=14134"},"modified":"2026-07-30T13:19:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T17:19:47","slug":"a-summers-tale-by-krystyna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=14134","title":{"rendered":"A Summer’s Tale (by Krystyna)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/strong>: A hot day, a melting pig, and Joe wants to know about the birds and the bees.<\/p>\n

Rating: \u00a0G \u00a0(1,390 words)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Summer’s Tale<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was so hot that Joe was sure the pig was melting. He sat on the top bar of the fence with his chin resting in his hands and surveyed Mollie thoughtfully. Fat melted in heat. He’d watched Hop Sing at the range tossing in lumps of lard that melted faster than Hoss could blink, so, it seemed pretty obvious to the boy that the fat on this pig was disappearing at a pretty fair rate of knots.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He allowed himself a slow smile. Sometimes pa came out with old sea faring expressions and Joe liked the sound of them. There were mornings when he would pound up the stairs and throw open the door to his brothers’ rooms and yell “Avast you lubbers, time to hit the deck and keel haul ya hides. It’s past four bells!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last time he had done that Hoss had thrown his boot at him and Adam had threatened to do worse than that if he were to yell at him again at two o’clock in the morning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Are you hot, Mollie?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The pig merely turned her black speckled pink bristly hide to the boy and ignored him. Joe sighed and watched her for some moments before deciding that he was hot, even if she were not. Perhaps he was melting too. Slowly he clambered down from his perch and pushed back his hat so that a rebellious curl sprung from beneath it and brushed against his brow. He pushed it back under his hat and wiped the sweat away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Dadburn it.”\u00a0 Hoss wiped his face on the big apron and plunged the red hot irons into the water. They hissed and sizzled and spat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Dadburn it” he exclaimed again, and strode to the door of the smithy and stood there for some seconds. He took great gulps of air, refreshing though warm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Watcha doin’?” Joe asked, planting himself squarely in front of his brother and staring up at the ruddy sweating face. He had his hands in the pockets of his dungarees and had ‘lost’ his shirt. The sun caressed his tender naked skin with all the subtle charm of a lover.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What’s it look like” Hoss snapped. He strode across the yard to the water pump and worked the handle and waited for the water to spew forth. With a grin of anticipation he leaned down and allowed the water to pour over his head and neck.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Are you hot, Hoss?” asked the boy, and Hoss stared at the two small feet planted right beneath his nose before slowly raising his eyes to look at the face of his youngest brother. He nodded. “Then why are you working in the smithy, Hoss?” Joe asked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Because – because I thought it wasn’t hot enough with just the sun hot enough to scorch my brains. Because I thought that if I built up the fire in the smithy I could really warm myself up a treat!” came the caustic reply.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe mulled that over for a moment or two before deciding to treat it with the contempt it deserved. He followed Hoss to the smithy and watched his brother stoke up the fire and pick up the hammer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Mollie’s melting” he observed “She sure ain’t as fat today as she was yesterday.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hoss sighed and put down the hammer and looked at his brother thoughtfully. Was this an indication that the time had arrived for a certain little talk between brothers? He wiped his face feeling now even hotter than before and he picked up a horse shoe and stared at it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Joe, has pa said anything to you lately about the birds and the bees?” he asked, holding up the horse shoe and squinting at it as though that were far more important than any old conversation about the birds and the bees.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Not recently, Hoss. Why?” Joe narrowed his eyes and looked up at his brother and frowned. His large hazel green eyes stared unblinkingly into his brothers face and the freckles that were scattered over his smooth tanned face were like gold dust.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hoss gulped. Seemed to him that his little brother, with his good looks already, was sure going to need this talk sooner rather than later. He put the horse shoe down and opened his mouth to speak….<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam leaned against the door frame and looked at his brothers thoughtfully. Hoss should never have thought of shoeing his horse on a day like today, he told himself. He looked at Joe, who turned and smiled a gap toothed smile at his eldest brother<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Hoss said I should know about the birds and the bees…” he said gleefully<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I didn’t say that….” Hoss protested, going even redder in the face beneath the close scrutiny he now received from his eldest brother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Is that so?” Adam replied, still staring at Hoss. “And is he going to tell you about the birds – and the bees?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Nope, I’m too busy with this danged horse,” came the immediate response from Hoss.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam smiled slowly and stretched his arms and flexed his back and then looked down at Joe, who looked expectantly up at him<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“So, Joseph, what do you know about the birds and the bees?” Adam asked, pulling a barrel a little distance from the wall and sitting on it. He crossed one leg over the other and folded his arms behind his head, tilting his hat slightly over his face as he did so.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe stepped forwards and leaned against his eldest brother with his elbows resting on his brothers leg and his chin cupped in his hands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I know birds fly and go tweet, tweet and make nests and lay eggs. Bees fly and go buzz,buzz and make honey” he paused “and sting.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Mmm, very good.” Adam said<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Is that all?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Seems to me you’ve got all the facts you need to know just now, little buddy. Just let me know when you need any further information.” Adam yawned and stretched his arms, “My, but it’s hot today!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Mollie’s melting,” Joe said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, is that right?” Adam got to his feet, swooped his little brother into his arms and carried him over to the pig sty. He looked at Mollie and then at Joe and set him down onto the ground. “She’s had piglets. Must have happened during the night.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Wow, so she has, Adam. Seven at least!” Joe whooped.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They watched in silence for some time as the piglets suckled noisily. Joe grinned and looked up at his brother, the freckles spanned his nose as he wrinkled it in a squint against the sun<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“How come she got to have them, Adam?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam pursed his lips and pushed his hat to the back of his head. He leaned against the top bar of the fence and observed the piglets, the pig and then his brother. He took a deep breath, “You know, Joe, it’s really hot today. How about you and I and Hoss go down to the creek for a swim and a cool down?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’d say that was great, Adam.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, off you go then, tell Hoss to get himself ready…”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Sure, but -”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And I’ll go and get Hop Sing to rustle us up something to eat and drink. How’d that suit you?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Great, make sure he has some dough nuts.” Joe paused, “Adam?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yeah?” Adam tensed in anticipation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And raspberry cordial.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Sure,” Adam relaxed and took a deep breath of relief and began to walk to the house.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Adam?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yep?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“D’you reckon pa will tell me more about the birds and the bees then?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam paused in mid- stride. No doubt about it, it sure was a hot day. He swallowed and cleared his throat<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’m sure he’ll be delighted, Joe.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe looked up into the sky. The sun was so hot that it burnt up all the little clouds that managed to form during the morning. He frowned and looked at Mollie and then over at the smithy where Hoss was now hammering at the red hot metal of the horse shoe. A swim at the creek would be perfect – perhaps he could swing the conversation round to those danged birds and bees as well<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The End.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: A hot day, a melting pig, and Joe wants to know about the birds and the bees.<\/p>\n

Rating: \u00a0G \u00a0(1,390 words)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":14539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"template-full-width-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1008,4,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-humor","category-prequels","wpcat-1008-id","wpcat-4-id","wpcat-30-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/bird-bee.jpg?fit=981%2C981&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}