Gunsmoke
After the Fall
Missing Moment from "The Still"
Newly and Merry Florene fell into the pond after Newly reluctantly gave Merry Florene a second birthday kiss as she heavily leaned against him. Merry Florene happily yelled, "I love you, Mr. Newly. I love you so much" while Newly was trying to say "I am all wet!" in between the kisses that the young hill girl was giving the gunsmith on his lips as she pulled him underwater.
Once Newly was able to resurface above the water from the weight of Merry Florene's embrace, he just wanted to get out of the pond and into some dry clothes. Both Newly and Merry Florene were drenched to the bone from the pond water, even though; Merry Florene who was heavily intoxicated, did not seem to mind being wet. Slowly, Newly proceeded to wade his way toward the pond shore with the intoxicated hill girl firmly hugging his shoulders and kissing the young gunsmith with each step that he had taken towards the shore. As Newly and Merry Florene waded into shallow water, Newly could hear the slashing sound of water within his black boots. Newly felt extremely uncomfortable wearing wet clothes and even more uncomfortable wearing a wet pair of boots. Only steps away from the pond shore, Newly felt something jump into his right pant leg and crawl into his boot. The creature immediately tried to climb out of the gunsmith's boot shaft and made its way to the top of Newly's gray sock where it was able to crawl inside the sock for safety. With each step, the creature fell further into the gunsmith's gray sock, tickling the gunsmith's leg with every movement. Newly began laughing uncontrollably as he and Merry Florene made their way towards the pond shore. Once on shore, Newly, who was laughing uncontrollably from the creature's squirming and tickling sensation against the gunsmith's lower leg and ankle, immediately limped over to the old log and sat down by the picnic basket.
Merry Florene eagerly sat down by Newly and asked, "Why Mr. Newly. What's so funny and why are you all the sudden acting that way?"
"There's something in my boot and its crawled into my sock and is tickling my foot", the gunsmith explained in between moments of uncontrollable laughter.
"Why, Mr. Newly. I didn't know that you were ticklish", the young hill girl said with enthusiastic glee as Newly stretched out his legs with both boots full of pond water plus an unknown stowaway in his right gray sock. Laughing hysterically and shaking his right foot in the air, Newly struggled to place his right boot on top of the toe of his left boot to obtain some leverage to pull his right boot off his foot.
Upon seeing Newly getting ready to kick off his boots, Merry Florene immediately rose to her feet as swift as a rabbit and grabbed the gunsmith's right boot. Within seconds, she placed the gunsmith's boot between her legs. "Now, Mr. Newly. You just hold still and I'll have your boots off in no time", she explained with immense enthusiasm. Merry Florene saw this moment as an opportunity. If she could get those wet black boots off the young gunsmith's feet, he would be less likely to walk away and she would be able to spend some more time alone with him.
Before Newly could say, "Merry Florene, wait", for he was too busy laughing from the ticklish feeling of the animal crawling around his right ankle in his gray sock, the young hill girl swiftly pulled the right black boot off the gunsmith's foot. The next thing that Newly knew was that he could feel the creature slide down into the toe area of his gray sock and felt his sock pulling away from his foot with a powerful jumping action. Newly looked down at his foot and noticed his bare ankle and the end of his gray sock further pulling off his bare heel. The toe end of his sock was jumping frantically and "croaking". Within moments, Newly's gray sock had abandoned his right foot as if it had a life of its own. The gunsmith's right bare foot laid on the soft ground with his toes wiggling freely and bathing in the warm sunlight. He was never so glad to take off his boot and sock as he was that day to stop the torturous tickling of his foot.
The sock started to hop towards the pond, croaking along the way but Merry Florene was able to capture the sock before it made its getaway. She grabbed the sock and turned it upside down to see pond water come out of the sock opening followed by a small green frog, croaking frantically after its stowaway ride within Newly's sock. "Why, Nr. Newly. It's a little ole frog. How did he get into your sock?"
"It must have found its way into my boot during that unexpected dip in the pond, Merry Florene", said Newly in a bit irritated expression. With having said that statement, Newly proceeded to lift up his left foot to begin taking off his other boot, but Merry Florene who was ever so eager to assist, immediately grabbed the gunsmith's left foot and gave a swift yank before Newly had a chance to act. Merry Florene pulled the boot off with such force that Newly could feel his left gray sock almost leave his foot. The young hill girl had a firm grip of Newly's left foot between her legs but he could feel his sock was more than halfway off his foot. He could feel the breeze blowing on his left ankle and heel while the rest of his sock was barely covering the lower half of his foot with the other half of the gray sock dangling from his toes.
Merry Florene quickly turned his left black boot upside down and water swiftly poured out of the boot shaft. Then she grabbed Newly's left sock and pulled it off the remaining portion of his foot and squeezed the sock tightly as the water flowed out of it. Newly's bare foot was still firmly in Merry Florene's grasp and she proceeded to admire the young gunsmith's bare foot. "Mr. Newly, you sure do have pretty feet and they are so big. I really like a man who has big feet".
"Thank you, Merry Florene. I'll keep that in mind", Newly said as he gently jerked his left bare foot out of Merry Florene's grasp.
"Oh, Mr. Newly, you are so funny", giggled the young hill girl, still feeling heavily intoxicated. "How about we build a camp fire so we can dry out and have our picnic?'
"If it's all the same to you, Merry Florene, I think I'll just sit here on the log for a couple of minutes to catch my breath", said Newly as he felt tired from the recent incident in the pond. At this point, the young gunsmith only wanted to grab his hat, jacket, socks, and boots and walk back to Dodge, where he could put on some dry clothes and rest from the day's activities. Unfortunately, Merry Florene kept Newly's footwear close by her side.
"That's alright, Mr. Newly. I'll just sit down right here and join you. This time together will give us a chance to talk and get to know each other better", Merry Florene explained as she sat down by Newly's right side on the log. Merry Florene then proceeded to untie the laces from her shoes and took them off her feet. She dumped the water out of her shoes and placed them on her right side on the ground by the young gunsmith's black boots with his gray socks hanging outside of the boot shafts. Taking her shoes off was a great relief to Merry Florene who was so used to walking around in her bare feet from living in the hills. Casually, the young hill girl stretched out her leg then gently moved her left foot beside the right foot of the young gunsmith and genly started to caress and rub the right side of the gunsmith's right bare foot with her toes.
Upon feeling the ticklish sensation from Merry Florene's toes rubbing against his foot, Newly promptly moved his foot out of the hill girl's reach and stood up. "Merry Florene, building a fire does sound like a good idea. I'll go look for some firewood." The young gunsmith knew that he would not be able to get away but he also did not want to hurt Merry Florene's feelings. Awkwardly, he walked away from the log to look for any sticks or pieces of driftwood lying on the ground to us for a campfire. Fortunately, he found the pieces of wood that he needed lying on the ground just yards away from the old log. The young gunsmith grabbed a handful of driftwood and proceeded to carry it back near the old log. Newly stumbled with each step trying to be careful not to step on any sharp rocks or twigs with his tender bare feet.
While Newly was stumbling around bringing some wood, Merry Florene emptied her basket of food and set up the picnic on the ground by the log. With a checkerboard picnic cloth laid on the ground and the food set in place on the cloth, Merry Florene had her picnic ready for her afternoon with Newly. Her fried chicken, hard-boiled eggs, sour pickles, and apricot pie were all placed carefully upon the picnic cloth waiting for the young gunsmith to finish gathering wood for a campfire to help dry off the two wet young people after their unexpected fall into the pond.
When Newly finished gathering the wood, he saw the picnic cloth laid out on the ground with all the food that Merry Florene had made for their picnic. Newly proceeded to place the wood at an open area near Merry Florene's picnic and began rubbing two sticks of wood against one another to create friction and start the campfire. Once the flame became visible, the young gunsmith carefully blew upon the flame to allow more air to fan the flame and increase its strength to start the campfire. Once the campfire was burning satisfactorily, the young gunsmith reluctantly stepped over to Merry Florene's picnic setting where the young hill girl was anxiously waiting for Newly's return.
"Mr. Newly, I went ahead and made a plate for ya'll with all the fixins," explained Merry Florene. "A little bit of fried chicken, some hard boiled eggs, sour pickles, and even a piece of apricot pie".
Newly sat down upon the log and graciously took his plate as Merry Florene handed it to him. Once Newly had his plate of food in his lap, he noticed that Merry Florene had not made a dinner plate for herself and that she was sitting beside him and anxious for him to eat the food that she had prepared for him for the picnic. "Merry Florene, it's no fun to eat such a good meal alone, why don't you fix yourself a plate and join me", Newly said hoping that Merry Florene would eat some food to help ease her strange behavior.
"Oh, Mr. Newly, I thought you would never ask", cried the excited hill girl as she grabbed a plate and began filling it full of food.
Once Newly was able to get the young hill girl to eat, she was not able to stop and ate more than half of the food prepared for the picnic. When she was through eating her meal, she sat back with a full stomach and slowly began to sober up from the affects of the moonshine.
After the two young people had finished eating, Newly carefully packed away the remaining food into the picnic basket and folded the checkerboard picnic cloth and placed it into the picnic basket as well. More than an hour's time had passed and Newly noticed that Merry Florene was more coherent so he sat down beside the young hill girl and asked her in a calm voice, "Merry Florene, why were you acting so strange earlier? That behavior was very unusual, even for you".
The young hill girl looked at the young gunsmith and suddenly felt a little bit embarrassed about the way that she behaved and explained, "I don't know, Mr. Newly. It must have been some tonic that I've been taking before the Sunday picnic this morning", Merry Florene said to keep Newly from finding out about the moonshine made by her brother and uncle with the still under the schoolhouse.
Newly shook his head in amazement and stated, "Boy, Merry Florene. That must have been some tonic."
"Yeah, it has a pretty good kick to it", said Merry Florene. "Mr. Newly, if you don't mind, I think that I am ready to go back to the picnic now and get into some dry clothes."
"I think that would be a good idea, Merry Florene", the young gunsmith responded. His clothes also still felt damp from falling into the pond.
With Merry Florene in agreement to go back to the picnic and find some dry clothes, Newly grabbed his cowboy hat, jacket, and the picnic basket with his left hand and the black boot shafts of his black boots, which contained his gray socks with his right hand. Merry Florene grabbed her shoes and the young barefoot couple walked back to the picnic area. The End.
Story by Samantha Aldridge.