This here's Tobias Tonkerton, the boy that got his butt kicked by ol' Granny Crabnipple, after he'd stole the head off her scarecrow. Ol' Granny's powerful partic'lar 'bout protectin' her property, whether she's just keepin' the crows away from her corn patch, or takin' pot-shots at any poor strangers that wanders off the beaten track an' comes within "poppin' distance" of her hollow hickory tree. Tobias didn't mean no harm when he took the head off the scarecrow... he just kinda liked it. He's a simple kinda fella, an' he ain't got no real friends, so when he got t' talkin' with the scarecrow, an' it didn't say nuthin' nasty t' him - like the folks around Ricketsville is usually inclined t' do - he decided t' take it home an' sit it on his front porch rockin' chair. a purfect place for it t' sit, he reckoned, so he could see its big happy face smilin' at him, an' he could talk t' it whenever he felt the need. Well, everythin' seemed pretty hunky, an' Tobias an' the scarecrow head was gett'n' along just fine, until some no-good son of a monkey told Granny Crabnipple that ol' Tad Tonkerton's boy was harborin' somethin' that belonged t' her. Quicker than you could slap a blood-bloated skeeter, she jumped up an' strapped on her wooden roller skates, then she grabbed her gun and shot off in a cloud of dust down to Brokejaw Junction, where she knowed the Tonkertons' used t' stay. Now, the thing is, back in their younger days, Tad Tonkerton an' Granny was kinda sweet on each other, an' they was even itchin' t' git hitched, but Tad's pappy, ol' Moose Tonkerton, wuren't havin' none of it. He said that the Crabnipples wus just a buncha no good nobodies, an' no son of his wus ever gonna...
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Extracted from The Kickapoo County Chronicles.
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