Blushby confessed that he no longer liked cleaning the barn with Bessy watching him, so Uncle Edmund threw a sack over Bessy’s head, and they set about mopping up the milk with one of the sheep.
“Aye,” Uncle Edmund continued his roar, “A man must be ever certain that all his keepings be clean, and his barn be no exception!”
“Yes, Uncle Edmund,” Blushby conceded.
“Why,” he shouted, “Each day after I awake and feed me animals, I set about cleaning up the house and straightening the furniture. Good fine furniture it is, too. A man, he is hardly a man if he can’t appreciate good furniture.” The milk was now largely absorbed by the sheep, which they replaced amongst the other sheep. They then set about righting the fallen anvil.
“A good armoire I has in me room,” continued Uncle, “Of fine oak and a lovely dark stain finish. Such furniture is to be treasured, boy. One day, when all of this is yours—” Bessy gave a mournful moo “—all the lovely furniture will fall into your lot, and you must care well for it.”
Blushby turned to look into his Uncle’s eyes.
“But Uncle Edmund,” he said, “What are you saying?”
“Well, my boy,” Uncle Edmund said, his voice beginning to drop, “I simply meant that I en’t going ter be around for forever, you know, and a man — a man’s got ter be sure his furniture—”
“Uncle, you’ll be around for many years yet!” Blushby affirmed, a bright gleam in his eyes, “Oh, yes sir, you can be sure of that! You’re healthy, and your arms are supple and muscular—”
“Yes, Blushby, but these supple, muscular arms will someday be gone,” Uncle said, placing one such arm around Blushby’s shoulder, “and I mean ter go with them. Ye must learn the ways of the land. The way you and Bessy get on, well, boy, I worry some about how you’ll get on if, well—”
“If something should happen to you?” Blushby intoned, his dark eyebrows arching sadly at the thought.
“Aye, that,” Uncle Edmund agreed, “If something should happen ter me. Blushby, I want ye to be taken care of.”
“Oh, Uncle!” Blushby cried, and he threw his arms around his father’s brother, who was Uncle Edmund.
“And that’s why I’ve arranged for ye ter be married!”
Blushby’s arms dropped suddenly to his sides.
“Married?” he bubbled. “Married?”
“Yes, boy! Married!”
“But Uncle, I am but seventeen years of age, conveniently the age group stories like ours target! I can’t be married! Why, I’m not even sure I’ve ever seen a girl!”
“I should hope not, boy!” Bellowed Uncle, “I ne’er do keep wimmin around the house! They’re ever so unmanly — ne’er such unmanly company will ye find yerself in — and you’ll notice I never did marry, myself.”
“I couldn’t help but notice—”
“And so I got no heir of me own, boy!”
“But how, then, will my being married rest your mind about the farm? I can barely shave sheep and milk cows! I’ve never dared step out into the forest where you harvest the crops!”
“Aye, lad, harvesting wheat in the forest is hard, hard, manly work. Planting seeds among the roots, slapping the trees and the grass if they try to steal the water from the crop, getting rain down through them canopies of leaves, harvesting among the self-same roots—aye, hard, hard work.”
“But I can’t do that sort of work!”
“Nay! That’s why I’m sending ye away to be married to Miss Joan B. Anthony! Ne’er will have to worry about what will happen to ye again! She’ll take good care of ye, boy.”
Miss Joan B. Anthony was certainly more than met the eye—an intimidating prospect, as she was certainly not your average young lass. She was a young lass cursed with a beauty that ill-suited her inner, fierce demeanor.
Her father had warned her that the day would come when the evil King’s men would charge over the hill, crying for blood and ash, itching to set afire the fields and the village, and put the villagers to the sword. In that day, she would not be spared simply because she was a woman. So, she was told, in that day, she should run for the nearest table and to hide under it in a crouching position with her hands covering her neck. The wood, she was assured, would certainly resist any sword or flame, and she could emerge safely when the danger was passed.
But Joan B. Anthony had other ideas. She had little doubt that her father spoke the truth—the likelihood of hostile soldiers marching on the village grew every day that the King grew wickeder. It was not known exactly how the King was wicked, but his wickedness was the best-spread secret in the land.
“That King,” villagers would whisper in the marketplace or in the forest, farming, “Why, he sure gets wickeder every day. I expect he’ll instate a draft soon enough to fight other kingdoms.”
It was a silly notion, of course—certainly the King was the wickedest man alive, but even he had lines he would not cross, and drafting was one of them—but it made for good whispering, which is good, when farming in forests.
Joan knew the day would come that the village would be at the mercy of wicked soldiers of a wickeder king, no doubt about it. Thus it was that she took it upon herself to prepare in better ways than to hide under the table. She knew that skirts and wooden spoons would serve very little in that day: she forsook the traditions of the people, and decided she would learn to fight like the men.
She quickly took to her newly found masculine ways. It was most helpful, and relieved her of the stress that befell most young damsels. When another young woman slighted her for the tackiness of her garb, she simply struck her over the head with a large stick. Consequently, the young woman made no more attempts of mockery. When the young cowherd she fancied laughed at seeing her, a woman, attempt such manly feats as swordsmanship and archery, she knocked a sword in her bow and shot it sraight underneath his arm, lodging the sword in the cow at his side. She soon found herself having to make the excuse that she was preparing for that terrible day, and every bit of violence was necessary to this preparation. Did the villagers want to be quivering under their tables while their homes burned around them? It did not take long, though, before she no longer had to make excuses to others, as people generally avoided her, nor to herself, because she began to be genuinely comfortable with it all.
