Retribution Country Style, a Freewrite

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My grandpa was quite a character. There was that time with the groundhogs, for instance.

My brother I and were were, oh, 6 and 7 years old. Little still, but just starting to understand that there was such a thing as right and another such thing called wrong.

"Sometimes you have to choose." Grandpa wasn't one for lots of words, but when he said something, it was often something I would remember the rest of my life. This groundhog business was a time of action. Grandpa's choice had already been made.

The groundhogs had been captured during the day, a simple matter of leaving a pile of swiss chard, which we had far too much of if you'd asked me at that time, in a have a heart cage. We set the traps next to the compost pile in the back 40. An hour later, we had two nice fat gophers, alive, well and getting hungry.

Then it was just before dawn.

"Quiet now."

We lugged those two heavy and covered traps deep into the brush, Grandpa leading the way, right over to the fence between our house and our new neighbors'. We lifted the fence just a tad, slid the traps close, and opened the doors. Those two groundhogs scurried out. They ran in a straight line like they always do, but this time it was right for the neighbor's vegetable patch.

A couple hours later we heard the shots. Lucky for the now sated ground hogs, they remembered which way they'd come in for their breakfast.

"That'll teach them right from wrong" said Grandpa.

We never did find out why the brand new neighbors needed to learn this lesson.

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This is my entry to @mariannewest's daily freewrite challenge. The prompt was grandpa's ranch.

Come join in the fun! And thanks for reading!

image is a free one from pixabay

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