the ancients knew things of which we dare not dream.
what?
the ancients knew things of which we dare not dream.
i think you have said that before.
well, i am saying it again.
mr francis fuss and mr rutherford budge said many things to each other over and over again.
they had lived together for many years after the great collapse, in the old granger place out beyond the outskirts of town, which the grangers had abandoned after old silas granger had been tarred and feathered and strung up by an angry mob, who had held him personally responsible for the great worldwide collapse.
despite being abandoned by the grangers, the water and the gas - though not the electricity - continued to run, though mr fuss and mr budge never paid any bills to keep them up.
shortly after moving in, mr fuss and mr budge discovered an old trunk, buried under the old oak tree down by the old creek.
it belonged to the notorious bank robber black sam sutcliff, who had been killed in a shootout outside laramie wyoming and never returned to claim it, and it was filled up with twenty dollar bills - for mr fuss and mr budge’s purposes, an inexhaustible supply.
mr fuss and mr budge owned an old bicycle with a sidecar, and they took turns at the end of each month, riding the thirty miles into “town” - a few stores at a crossroads - to pete parker’s general store, to purchase a month’s worth of supplies - mostly candles, matches, flour for the endless pancakes they made, maple syrup, and bullets for the old firearm with which they hunted squirrels and other, mostly furry, small creatures.
with anything left from the twenty, they might purchase one of old mother mccoy’s homemade apple or blueberry pies.
things went on in this way for many years.
one day a couple of rounders named frankie france and polly paris were passing through the town in their souped up studebaker and they stopped at pete parker’s store.
they were relaxing and letting the studebaker’s engine cool down, and sitting in the rocking chairs beside the cracker barrel, drinking ice cold bottles of moxie from pete’s cooler, when mr fuss arrived on his bicycle and made the usual purchases.
the two city slickers watched the proceedings with some amusement, though without saying anything, and when mr fuss had departed, frankie asked pete , what was that all about?
oh, just a couple of harmless old fellers who live down the road apiece, one of them comes in every month for supplies, just as you saw. been coming here for years, regular as flowers in the springtime.
where do they get their money,? poilly asked.
pete was scandalized. folks in these parts mind their own business, missy.
i’m sorry, polly quickly apologized. i didn’t mean no harm.
pete just nodded, but frankie and polly exchanged a glance which said, here is something worth looking into.
after paying for their gas and their moxies, frankie and polly made their way back to their car, and after trying one road and then another, saw mr fuss pedaling ahead of them down one of the roads.
frankie pulled the studebaker over to the side of the road and they waited for night to completely fall.
when they finally started up, they quickly came on what they were sure was the old house pete parker had been talking about.
it was set well back from the road, but they could see dim lights - from candles - in a couple of the windows. if there was a road or path up to the house they couldn’t see it.
they got out of the car and started across the rough ground.
they came to the old creek.
how do we get across this? polly asked.
it don’t look that deep, frankie said. we’ll just get our feet wet.
what frankie and polly did not suspect was that mr fuss and mr budge had been protected for years by an alligator named old zeke who lived in the creek - which was deeper than it looked - and zeke was very jealous of his territory.
frankie had not gone five feet into the water before zeke grabbed hold of him and made short work of him.
while zeke and frankie were thrashing about, polly managed to scramble to the other side, and ran up to the house, crying for help.
mr fuss was almost deaf, but mr budge had excellent hearing, and hearing the maiden’s cries, came out on the front porch.
help! my friend is being eaten by an alligator! polly shouted.
probably no “being eaten” about it, mr budge replied. zeke doesn’t waste time.
mr fuss had followed mr budge out on to the porch. and what were you and your friend doing out in the dark, young lady, eh? he asked polly.
um - we were looking for mushrooms.
ain’t no mushrooms in these parts, miss, at least none either man or critter could eat.
i did not know that, sir. please, can i come in and dry off? and there has got to be a way back to the road and my car without meeting up with the alligator again. please tell me there is!
mr fuss looked more closely at polly. i seen you before - you was in the general store , with a feller who looked like a carnival barker. he must have been the one got eaten by zeke.
but why did he have to eat frankie? couldn’t he just give him a little bite, or just bark at him?
alligators ain’t dogs, miss, mr fuss answered. they have their own ways.
look here, mr budge told polly, you can come in and get dry and have a cup of coffee and then i will take you around back to the path by the old pear tree and you can get back to your car.
oh thank you, sir, you are a real gentleman.
they went inside. polly took her wet shoes off and mr budge lit a fire in one of the old fireplaces.
mr fuss stared at polly at she sipped the hellishly hot coffee mr budge had brewed her, as if he had never seen a woman before in his life.
the ancients knew things of which we dare not dream, mr fuss intoned.
i am sure they did, polly managed to say.
don’t pay him no mind, mr budge assured polly.
later, when mr budge had escorted polly back to the studebaker, to which she fortunately had her own keys, as frankie’s were either on the creek or in zeke, polly asked him -
what did your friend mean?
about what?
about ancients and dreams and such.
hell if i know. he’s been saying it for forty years, and i got absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.
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