It was a MAJOR disruption to the household: someone dared to STEAL Cook’s best pot. Along with a handful of precious knives, the family’s wooden bowl (used exclusively for weekly bread risings), and a bag of sugar. Cook discovered the missing bowl as she prepped the bread. Her routine had been altered because of the holidays. And now, here she was, covered in flour, just setting up to KNEAD the dough when she remembered she hadn’t gotten the big wooden bowl out. First puzzled, then angry (“where did that new girl put the bowl” and other such mutterings were heard), then finally outrage and anger. What a kerfuffle and running about after that! The whole kitchen and then the upstairs swirled around like leaves in a windstorm! As they uncovered what had been taken, fresh exclamations and cries of dismay were heard. In the uproar, no one noticed a set of small, child-sized shoe prints in the snow leading into the woods. Fortunately, the stolen items all landed in the reasonably easy (though not necessarily CHEAP) to replace. (For while they had a staff, it was a comparatively modest household) It was only in later years, once the wooden bowl had been discovered in the back of the barn (gnawed a bit and housing a family of mice), did the grown-up owners of those shoes that had made the prints in the snow confess to being the culprits. Apparently, a complex plan to run away or perhaps to open a bakery for woodland animals or maybe some combination of the two had led to the thievery. It was an oft-repeated tale and a favorite of later generations.

Georg’ann

How might the SCALE skew
if I headed to a BEACH
off grid, on the CHEAP?

Heather