SATURDAY STORY - PART III SEVEN LADIES AND SEVEN DWARFS

 SATURDAY STORY - GRUMPY DWARF - PART III

Before:  The Seven Dwarfs had gotten fed up with Grumpy - he was always so negative, complaining, bitter, unfriendly.  Actually, the vote to kick him out of the house was 7 to 0 - he even voted against himself.

Grumpy left and wandered for a few days until tired, sore, and extremely hungry, he fell asleep leaning against a barn.

But the barn was on the land of the Seven Ladies.  They were: Grace, Sunny, Lily, Gladys, Mercy, Rose, and Joy.  When he awoke he was surrounded by the Seven Ladies who nursed him back to life.

In the next several years, Grumpy (now called Han - short for handsome) and the ladies flourished.  The farm expanded with more livestock, more land with crops, and abundant harvests.  

But, an evil man, Evin McGrue hated the ladies and sabotaged their farm by putting alum in the water and scattering weed seeds among the crops.  

Meanwhile, a distance away, the wicked witch was sabotaging the dwarfs.  

*****

BACK TO THE DWARFS.

The mine was almost petered out.  The dwarfs had to dig deeper and start new shafts to find the gems they used to buy food and supplies.  They worked harder than ever for fewer gems.  

Sneezy had seen the wicked witch knocking down rocks to close their mine - but she got away when he sneezed. It took two days to clean the debris and get the mine opened.  

A family council of the six remaining dwarfs was held.  The main discussion was should they move again and start a new mine in a new location or stay where they were.  The difficulty in starting a new mine was it was going to take months to find a good location where there might be gems, and then dig an opening and main entrance shaft.  And, in those months they wouldn’t have much income.  They could cut trees for lumber, and float them down the river to towns - but that would take hard work and they weren’t sure of the market.  

They could invite a cousin dwarf, who lived about five days distant, to come in and see if their mine might yield some other ore - iron, bauxite, maybe even gold or silver.  Then they could refine the ore (and that would require money to build a smelter and processing equipment).  

They did agree on one thing, they were hard-working and very dedicated to their work (whatever that work might be).

*****

The Seven Ladies were Grace, Sunny, Lily, Gladys, Mercy, Rose, and Joy.  With Han (formerlyGrumpy Dwarf) they had built an excellent farm.  But, after one of the cows had a stillborn calf, and the others were losing weight and weeds were flourishing in the fields, they found that Evin McGrue had sabotaged their farm.

Their products were getting a lot of attention in the area.  The quilts made by Grace and Sunny were selling for premium prices in the village square.  Their cheeses were delicious.  The floral arrangements by Rose and Joy had a nice following.  But - not for long.

At the next market, while the ladies and Han were setting up their tents in the square, McGrue and some thug friends of his put tar on the quilts and make cuts into them.  They sprinkled rat poison on the cheeses - not enough to kill anybody, but enough to make most people sick.  By the end of market day, the quilts they had sold were returned and the customers were unhappy.  Some of the cheeses were returned.  The ladies looked over the quilts - they hadn’t put tar and made cuts in the quilts.  They were vandalized.  

Of the cheeses that were returned, Grace and Lily tasted them and immediately spit the cheese out.  It was disgusting.

Before leaving for home, they talked with some of their friends in town.  Two friends mentioned seeing some men spoiling their quilts.  Another person said they thought they saw somebody with a shaker sprinkling something over the cheeses.  

Heading towards home, they saw a plume of smoke rising over the land.  Han quickly took one of the horses and galloped to the farm in time to get the cows out of the barn and sprayed water over the fire.  The fire had started in the hay pile and Han found evidence of kindling in the pile.  

When the ladies arrived a few minutes later, the fire was out but the roof of the barn was smoldering while Han was trying to get water to the roof to put out the fire.  The barn was saved, but there was substantial damage.  One of the cows had a burning board fall on its back and had burned.  Gladys got a salve and lathered it over the cow which seemed to ease the pain.

That evening the ladies and Han held a council about the day.  It sure seemed as if somebody was trying to hurt them and their activities - and they all agreed that it probably was Evin McGrue.  There were two difficult parts - identifying that it was him and then stopping him.

As was their tradition, when things went wrong, the seven ladies prayed for wisdom.  While praying was not part of Han’s background, he sat quietly and listened.

*****

THE DWARFS

That night, an explosion occurred at their mine.  The entrance was again covered by a rockfall.  Five of the six dwarfs went to the entrance with torches, but Doc stayed behind at the house as they suspected the explosion might just be a ruse to get them out of the house.

Doc took a location in a tree overlooking the house.  

Yes, about half-an-hour after the others went to clear out the rockslide, a single torch came through the dark woods to the house.  The torch stopped at the edge of the clearing for a minute as the owner was seeing if anybody was still at the house.  Seeing no action, the person sneaked into the house and started one of the mattresses on fire.  Since there was only one person, Doc jumped down and confronted the person as they left the house.  It was a young ogre.  Doc pinned him down and got that he had been sent by the wicked witch and begged to be let go.  Doc wasn’t going to do that.  With his strength from lifting rocks all day long, he subdued the ogre and wrapped him in ropes. And he tortured the ogre by putting clean water and soap on him (ogres hate to be clean!!!)  

The ogre screamed, “I’ll tell you anything”.  

Over the next hour, the ogre (as if ogres could be trusted) said that the witch wanted the gem mine as she wanted to control the jewelry market.  She was trying to scare the dwarfs away from the mine.  (Doc didn’t tell the ogre that the mine was slowly being depleted).

When the others came back from the mine entrance, they found Doc and the Ogre sitting under a tree by the house.  The smothering mattress had been put out and Bashful would have to use Grumpy’s old mattress for a while.  

Sneezy took over from Doc watching the ogre (whose name was Omnirotte).  

The next morning, Doc, Sneezy, and Omnirotte left for the Witche’s Castle.

That day, the Witch and the representatives of the Dwarfs created a sales plan.  The Witch got the mine and the house and all the Dwarf lands for a fair price.  The Dwarfs were to leave all the mining equipment and tools.  They negotiated for the mules and ore carts.  By the end of the day, things were set up.  Doc and Sneezy went home with three bags of gold.  

That did cause some issues for the dwarfs - but not for long.  All the dwarfs had a similar dream the next night - where Grumpy (who sounded like Grumpy but looked quite a bit different) said ‘come to Hugeldorf - we need you’.  Doc had to look up Hugeldorf on an old map and found it about four days walk east of the mine.  It took two days to pack everything up.  They didn’t take any tools, but mostly clothes and cooking supplies.  They had three bags of gold to buy things when they got to Hugeldorf.  

*****

MEANWHILE

Evin McGrue had rounded up quite a gang of ruffians.  And after training and equipping them, they openly were attacking the Seven Ladies.  

The ladies had selected Han as their commander-in-chief.  He had circled the wagons and equipment around the farm.  Suspecting an attack at any time, he had moved the cows to their neighbor’s farm.

The ladies had put booby trap wires around the farm.  Just when McGrue’s thugs would move, the ladies would activate the traps.  Bales of hay fell on the villains and some of the ladies in the hayloft would drop bricks on the attackers. 

*****

But, after two days, the ladies were getting worn down and McGrue’s followers were advancing.  One managed to set fire to some of the hay.

But, at that time, the dwarfs were nearing the spot that had appeared in their dream.  Although tired and hungry from their trip, they soon attacked McGrue’s forces and subdued them.  

Han had tackled McGrue when he attempted to storm the house.  Happy, who was normally a sweet dwarf had taken out three attackers with a pitchfork.  

The battle was over, the dwarfs and the ladies had won.  They had tied up the villains and on the next day (which was market day), they marched the group into the village and took them to the constable.  

The Ladies gave the honors to the Dwarfs - and that helped them ease into Hugeldorf society.  Soon, they had a farm just to the east of the town in some foothills.  They became the “go-to” guys for all kinds of projects - building, fences, horse training, and equipment.  They even miners - but this time not for gems - but for gravy and stone for roads and buildings.  Their location was ideal and the rock would last for centuries.  

(But, Lady Grace knew the turn-about was all due to their prayers!!)

*****

End of story.  

Yes, Pollyanna Karen tells happy stories.

LOVE WINS!!!

Karen