No idea where my mom found this, but it got me to giggling:
It's So Peaceful In the Country
It was one morning late in August that Pa came storming into the house madder than a wet hen. Seems he had gone to the corncrib to clean it out for the new crop only to find a swarm of hornets had built a huge pear shaped arsenal from one of the support beans and one of the hornets had the nerve to put a welt on the back of his hand. "Bloody little varmints, I'll smoke 'em out before sundown if it's the last thing I do." Pa didn't realize how prophetic that statement was for he sure did smoke 'em out and it very nearly was the last thing he ever did.
Pa's plan of attack was based on the element of surprise. We would hit them and wipe them out before they could organize a counterattack. Pa was to make the initial reconnaissance with a broom to wipe out any sentinels and I was to bring up the rear with a flamethrower in the form of a blowtorch to burn out the fortifications. It sounded simple, there was only one entrance to the nest and if I started there with my flamethrower and worked up not a one would escape. We started out.
I lit my torch and Pa hefted his broom and we silently entered the corncrib. All was calm as expected and in single file we started to approach the nest when suddenly a wide awake hornet came dive-bombing down from the roof and caught me right in the neck.
Involuntarily I threw my hands up to defend myself and in doing so I swept the flaming blowtorch across the seat of Pa's pants. Pa let out a yell and leaped forward knocking the nest from were it hung on the beam. Immediately the hornets started to pour out like fighters off an aircraft carrier. I tried to get to the nest to block the exit with my torch but just as I got there, Pa his pants smoking, opened up on the nest with his broom. The nest went sailing into the corner and so did my torch. Pa and I both made a dive for it and Pa got to it first but as he started to rise his feet slipped out from under him on a rolling corn cob and the torch sailed through the air to hit the opposite wall. The cap came off the torch's fuel tank and gasoline sprayed the walls, immediately breaking into flames.
I had enough so I headed for the door. Pa was of like mind but he still held the broom, how I'll never know. When he hit the entrance way the broom hit the door jam on either side and Pa doubled over the handle hitting his jaw on his knees. The recoil threw him back into the corncrib, but not for long. Out he came with a yell midst a cloud of smoke and hornets to beat a hasty retreat to you know where----that faithful old watering trough.
Later, much later, we were eating supper and Ma was grumbling about the loss of the corncrib but Pa wasn't much concerned yet, he is a very single minded person. "Well," he said as he stood eating his supper off the mantelpiece, " we sure got rid of those hornets."
