A Halloween prank on Bill, the bachelor with the corn patch

Well, here I'll tell you another one about my husband and a whole bunch of young men that wanted a little Halloween prank, you know, and I wasn't allowed to go. Well, at that time I was just short -time married.

And furthermore, they didn't take brides or women or girlfriends or nothing. It was a man's affair, see? And they had a notion to go and have a little fun with Bill Iha. A man never married. He must have been in his 40s or a little more.

And it looked like he was a little retarded in a certain way. he was very smart in one way and then he was something little wrong with him the second second way the other way so anyhow they went and he had two cows and my husband was hauling his milk to he stopped at the corner he dutifully always brought a half a can about five six gallons to the corner of his land it wasn't too far maybe two three rounds and he says well you're going to take my milk this morning, you know, that was every morning and everything was fine.

So anyhow, he has the most, he had, the most stony, ledge rocky, 40 acres that you ever saw. And he tried his best to raise something. His mother had a tiny little garden. And he had, oh, two rods or so wide field and a few rods long, and he hauled dirt there on the wheelbarrow, he on the Sierra Lid Rock, and it was in a little hollow -like, and there was little earth there before here, all this dirt and that.

Then he hauled the manure, and then he raped all the leaves around the trees he had, and he hauled that all on there for it to make a humus, you know. And he says, if anything else, I will go and raised corn.

So this Halloween business was that he actually had corn grown. He used to carry water there to water the corn, even from the well. And he really took care of it, and he was very proud of it. I think he said he had a certain amount, 160 hills of corn or something.

He counted it and all that. That's where the queer part of it is. I never seen a farmer yet counting hills, planting hills of corn. Well, anyhow, he was bragging about it And how the cor the cobs are beautiful and everything So these guys got together And they was going to give you a little fun with him, see So they brought some corn of their own from home And a couple of cowbells and a lantern So one fellow, oh, about this would be about 10, 11 o 'clock at night One fellow would jingle the cowbell on one end And another fellow would wiggle around with

a lighted lantern so first thing you know bill he comes out of the house and he says my gosh they heard him say that it was nice cool fall day you know he says my gosh he said uh calls her my two cows her in a corn after all the care i gave that corn that would be terrible if they ruin it was so uh he took a stick and lit a lantern of his own um and went to chase the cows.

Of course, there was no cows. There was about six or seven of these mischievous menfolk. They didn't know any better. And then all of a sudden, one would jingle the bell somewhere else, you know. And then the other guy with a lantern would cover the lantern so there would be no light, you know.

And then the first guy with the first bell would jingle a rod or two away from that one. And so he thought that was his cows in there, see? So he kept a chasing him from one. into another with the lantern, cussing, and everything.

Of course, the boys knew exactly where he was, because he was carrying his own lantern. So they always got out of his way, see? So then the boy says, well, that's enough. They kept it up for quite a while.

So then they took a couple of cabs of their own coin. They brought from home and started shelling it. And they shelled, you know, took the colonels off the cob, and dropped five, six here and seven, seven, eight, nine over there, and then three, four, somewhere else, and they kept on going towards the road from the field, see?

And then down the road, they were shelling the corn right along as they were going towards another farmer. Another little farm, that was a... Bill, with a lantern, he was looking for the tracks of the cows and everything, you know, and he found few kernels of corn shelled.

He says, then dog -on cows, they must have then eaten the corn, some of this fall off the cob. So he followed the grains as they were going, and he was careful, and they heard him coming, you know, slowly but surely he bent down to see the colonels as he was gone.

So they were making the colonels go as far as a gate of another farmer, which nobody liked very well, you know. And they thought that'll be a good joke. Dill will put two and two together, and he will say the other farmer was stealing his corn.

So as soon as they got done shelling their two, three calves and got it as far as this neighbor's gate, then they disappeared, or those woods right close by, so they disappeared in the woods and squat down, and they were waiting for Bill to come, and sure nothing, about 20 minutes or half an hour, here was Bill coming with a lantern, and he was watching the colonel's on the ground.

He got up to the gate, and he said, so that's where my corn, you know, he was saying to himself, That's where my corn is going, he said, wait, I will fix you up but good to the neighbor, you know, you know, so he says to out loud, he says, I don't know, should I go there now, wake him out of bed, or shall I wait until tomorrow?

So the boys were giggling there in the woods, you know, they heard him. Oh, he says it's too doggone late. Must be way after 12 o 'clock. He says, I think I'll go home and I'll get up. early in the morning, and I'll show the neighbor where he left the corn, the kernels, and that.

So he was walking home, grumbling, and, of course, the boys took themselves off for home, see? Well, next day, John went again to pick up milk from different farmers, and he went to pick up milk by the one that the corn curls were pointing to, you know.

he says you know what happened to me last night he says about two o 'clock in the morning bill icha come over so he must have thought it over and after he got home he went back to this here farmer and gave him back he says he gives me of taking his few carbs of corn that he's got there and that i've taken it and everything said i had a heck of time trying to convince him I never was out of bed or nothing his wife vouched for him that they were in bed all night And so the boys, of course, they tell one another,

and they had fun about it. Well, I kind of felt then that it was my misfortune that I was a woman I would have went with because I like fun, you know, in that. So that's how it ended with the shivery at Belichas.

But they had a joke over it for good many years because they said, oh, he says, one would say to the other, he says, oh, he says, The dog got caught with Corny again.

They thought it was a lot of fun. So, well, I'll tell you another story next time.