Hard Times!

Since my last post, people that know me personally have been calling me a liar. "Grampy," they say, "you only have 2 kids." Technically this true. The only kids that survived are Chuckles and Denny. Back fifty years ago, our farm fell on hard times. It all stemmed from my childhood.

Every winter, my daddy would sit around the house grousing that there was nothing to do because nothing would grow during a New York winter. Well my Momma looked up at him from her ironing (she took in laundry jobs during the winter since daddy did not have any work to do) and suggested that he invent a type of plant that would grow during the cold winter.

This idea stuck to daddy like a bug on a windshield. For the next ten years until his tragic death, he worked on inventing a good winter crop. He would spent hours and hours tinkering out in the barn. At first all he worked with were seeds, but after awhile he built a neat contraption. I am not sure how it helped, but every once in a while daddy would take some liquid from the spout and drink it. Daddy was happiest on those nights, and I always had to do extra milking on those nights for some reason.

Well move forward twenty years, and daddy had been gone for ten years, and momma had been in the state pen for the last nine. One day, out of the blue a travelling salesman stopped by my farm selling some seeds. I am not one to tolerate such rabble, but since my wife was currently giving birth to kid 6, I was pretty bored, so I talked with him.

Turns out fate's ugly sister was hiding in that salesman. He was selling winter tomatoes. He guaranteed that we could enjoy and sell a scrumptious crop of tomatoes all winter long. Well seeing my chance to fulfill my daddy's destiny, I went down to the bank and withdrew all our savings. I figured by spring we would be in high cotton.

Turns out, this guy was a sham. We did not get a single tomato that winter. At first I thought maybe the animals were getting the plants, so I had my wife stand guard out their all night. Turns out it was not the animals. My wife donated three of her fingers to that project through frostbite.

Well needless to say, with the wife's fingers starting to rot, and no money for food, we were pretty desperate. So, I went into New York City looking for solutions. While there I met a nice man who told me about a market where you can buy and sell people. Eureka! Now you know why I am such a strong proponent for many children.

I loaded up the two oldest girls the next day (the manager told me they bring the highest price) and took them to market. It was really quite an exciting adventure. I cleared enough that sale to survive the winter. Next winter I sold two more girls, and we were living pretty well.

By this time we had our two additional kids and the baby factory had gone offline. We we now had four boys. Two were a little sickly, and two were quite healthy. Altogether, a fine crop. Well the following winter, the two healthy ones had to go as well.

After that, all that were left were chuckles and denny. We kept them, and they turned out ok. I often wonder whatever became of the other 6. I also wonder how much we could have made had the baby factory kept on working.