Revenge

“We were a bunch of boys living out in the country and we were bored,” remembered my grandfather as he began his story. “We didn’t have electronics. So, as you can imagine, we got into a whole lot of trouble.”

“My family lived on a dairy farm in the piney woods. We were surrounded by farm land as far as the eye could see,” he said. “I grew up on our little farm with my Mom, Dad, five brothers, and two sisters. We only had one neighbor and us boys sure did give him hell!”

“There was this ornery old farmer, Mr. Anders, and his family that lived next door,” smiled Grandpa. “He was always coming over complaining about something. So, we decided to start pranking him.”

“One night, my brothers and I lined up and ran full blast into the pitch black of the neighbor’s field and knocked down his outhouse. We sure had a good laugh about that!” chuckled my grandfather. “We started doing this about once a month. Old man Anders would always come over the next day just a cussing to my Dad.”

“This particular night, there was a sliver of a moon. It was darker than normal but we were making an outhouse run. We lined up and started running when my brother, Bob, just disappeared into the darkness,” said Grandpa concerned. “We had no idea of where he had gone! We started looking for him. We were whispering his name. Then, we heard Bob!”

“Get me outta here,” yelled Bob in the dark from a five-foot deep hole where the outhouse normally stood.

“Old man Anders must’ve known we were coming,” smirked Grandpa. “He had moved the outhouse! Bob had fallen into the shit hole!”

“That’s when we started plotting our revenge! Old man Anders had gotten us good, but our revenge would be better!” said Grandpa shaking his head.

“We picked a night with a full moon to sneak over to the Anders’ old barn. My brother’s and I filled our pockets with tools. We brought a rope and a few other things we thought would come in handy.”

“Three of my brothers climbed up into the loft of the old barn. They startled an owl living in the rafters. As the owl flew out of the second story window, my oldest brother caught my youngest brother as he almost tumbled out of the loft. If he had fallen, our plans would’ve been ruined. And, he would’ve been laid up with broken bones.”

“I stayed on the ground with my other two brothers. Our job was to find old man Anders’ tractor and take it apart,” smirked Grandpa. “We took Mr. Anders’ beloved old red tractor apart piece by piece. We hauled each piece up to the second floor of the barn with the rope.”

“When the tractor pieces were hauled up to the loft of the barn on the second floor, my brothers got to work putting it back together,” said Grandpa. “It’s a good thing our Dad had us work on his old tractor because that gave us the skills to pull off this prank and get our revenge!”

“My brothers and I had taken apart old man Anders’ tractor and put it back together in the loft of his barn. We were mighty proud of ourselves! You have to admit that was a good prank!”

“The next morning, we could hear old man Anders yelling and cussing all the way from his barn to our barn! We laughed so hard as we were milking the cows before breakfast that my little brother fell off his milking stool! We waited for Mr. Anders to come stomping over to complain to our Dad but he never did. We were even and the pranks ended.” Grandpa looked at us with a big grin and said, “I still don’t know how Anders got that tractor outta his hay loft. For all I know, it’s still there!”