PADUTCH-LIFE-L Archives

From: "Vee L. Housman" <>
Subject: 32-The Wedding Mule
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 11:51:10 -0400

THE WEDDING MULE

Monday a week ago Betz Grill and Billy Schnellkeffer went to
town to get a marriage license. Billy is another poor resident of our
Mountain. He has no possessions of any value other than a skinny,
long-eared, stubborn mule that no one wanted to buy when all his
other property was sold at a recent foreclosure.

Well, Billy wanted his marriage to have some style, so he told
Betz they'd ride to town, since the road was stony and bad for
walking. Now, Betz is an old maid who'd already heard the thunder
of her thirties roar by. No one believed she'd ever marry, but after
Billy spent a few nights applying his tender touch, she grew as wild
as a panther who smelled blood. She rolled her hair, put rags in her
breasts to fill them out, and rubbed her cheeks with red-beet juice.
Well, on their wedding morning Billy got his mule ready and was
already straddling it when he invited Betz to crawl onto the beast.

Betz would have liked to tell him that she didn't want to do it,
but she was willing to try anything to get a man since she thought
this was her last chance. Finally, Betz crawled up on the mule, but
the mule didn't care for any of this. It refused to take one step as
long as it had to carry both of them. Finally, Billy said, "Betz, give
its tail a little twist."

Now the mule is a stubborn bugger, and it started to wriggle as
if it had worms. Instead of going forward it went backwards.
Suddenly its rear legs shot out like lightning. Betz flew about fifteen
feet into the air and landed in the dirt on her back without any injury
but plenty frightened. She's a spunky woman, and in the short time
it takes for me tell you this, she was back on the mule. "Now," said
Billy, "Hold fast while I twist his ear." Billy had barely grabbed its
ear--woopsh! this time the mule took off in front. Billy grabbed it
around its neck and held fast. Betz slid down across its backbone,
falling to the ground as its front hooves lashed out then struck the
ground hard, leaving a depression deep enough to bury a year-old
calf. "Now," said Billy, "If you can crawl back on again one more
time, we'll try some new tactics. I'll twist its ear while you twist
its
tail. That way we should be able to keep both mule-ends even."
The mule felt that it had to let go somehow, and suddenly it lurched
hard enough to throw both of them to the ground.

Billy fell on top of Betz without hurting her, but Betz
accidentally bit off about an inch and a half of her tongue between
her false teeth. Billy wanted to continue directly into town to attend
his wedding, but Betz was too shook up to oblige him, and that was
her good luck. There would be no wedding that day.

As far as her love life was concerned, things picked up for
Betz. When the single men on the Mountain heard that Betz bit off
a piece of her tongue, many had to reconsider marriage with her,
since a woman with somewhat less than the ordinary amount of
tongue was considered to be an attractive prize by most of our
bachelors.

For weeks after this mishap those married men of the
Mountain, having overly verbal wives, were making remarks like,
"There should be a law passed which would require all talkative
wives to ride a mule." There's still a saying going around that any
woman who gossips too much should ride Billy Schnellkeffer's
mule.

* * *

Note: This collection of Boonastiel stories was written by H. A.
Harter in the original Penna-Dutch dialect and were published in the
Keystone Gazette, Bellefonte, PA, between 1894 and 1904. They
were translated and transcribed by Bob James of Alaska and they
are being posted to this PADUTCH-LIFE mailing list with his
permission.

This thread:

• 32-The Wedding Mule by "Vee L. Housman" <>