#debukefarmhold

"Yeah, Da?"

"Well, the teacher is wondering where you are. "

"Coming! Five more minutes!"

"How's it... is that my golf club bag?" He looks in the corner

Her chore was to wash the dishes, well... test dish seemed okay! She dumps the rest of the dirty stack on the loader (with now-dried syrup from sitting as she Nockered...) and lets the contraption go to work! She'll check in on results after morning classes. What could go wrong?

"you know, despite waht your mother says, your papa really WAS going to get around back to golfing..eventually"

That deep suspicion that his wife is going to be quite happy for the clear space that just freed up.

"I just borrowed some old ones, not the good ones!" A smooch on the cheek. "Love you! Off to class!" She snags her books and takes off at a run.

And off she goes. Her father sighs and closes the door to go out again. The machine... well, it starts up.

At the class, Widow O Reily (Who married a non DeBuke, then he died) is going on "...now Laura Ingles Wilder's books were later changed, edited by her own kin, who did not want it know that her famous ancestor's family took and indeed NEEDED government subsidies to survive... and no shame, it was pioneer times... now we DeBukes take pride in pulling ourselves up but.. .. take a seat there, Mara." She gestures

"Yes'm, sorry'm." She sits and furiously flips through to the chapter they're studying.

Pearletta raises her hand

"Yes, Perletta?" WIdow O'Reily says

"It seemed in the books the girls did an awful lot of hard work, on the farm. Not just.. you know, goofing around while others were sweating it up." Pearletta says "You know, tinkering or the like on things"

"Well, I suppose not," The Widow says "Lots of folks don't realize how hard women worked in pioneer days. Some of them were right besides their husbands in the field, others sweat and slaved in the kitchen to feed rather large families , extended... and diseases and and the like were down right grim. If anything, the books sometimes seem to down play the hard parts and risks. They had no modern conveniences like we do, but even there time was changing"

Mara sits up stock straight, mouth screwed into a lopsided scowl, but she... doesn't.. say it.

"is it possible Mrs Wilder was one of us?" A boy asks "Not a DeBuke, but.. kithain?"

Oh, man, Pearletta will be sorry when she sees the new and improved Dishwash-a-tron 3000. That thought makes her grin. She's kithain now, and then everybody will see she's more than Bix's kin sister...

"Perhaps, or perhaps she was mused. We just don't know," The Widow says "But, we still learn a lot from stories like hers. Now, I realize some of you find her work a bit dull... so for those who want magic? I will give extra credit to anyone wanting to do a book report on the Thirteenth Child by Patricia Wrede. I have four copies... or we can hook up the audio book and you can all listen together"

Mara is day-dreaming, gnarled fingers ticking off in the air as she contemplates improvements for the beta-test Dishwashatron 4000 ...

As the lesson in literature goes on, with Widow O Reily mentioning more advanced books for their age level in a similar vein... there is the sudden sound of something akin to a dam breaking

In atime of floods in the rest of the state, that causes a lot of heads to turn.

Or maybe that's not quite right? how many dam breaks really go CHUNKA CHUNKA WOOOSH

Mara returns to the here and now at the commotion, blinking.

"RUn for your lives!" Someone yells

The kitchen door has flown open, and a great oozing flood of bubbles, soap bubbles of unusual size, a few troll sized, comes pouring out of that door

Members of the hearth seem to be caught in side of the the bubbles as they roll haplessly down the slight slope.

Other bubbles seem to be carrying plates, dishes, pans and pots.

"...oh, fudge..."

"This is Mara's fault" Pearletta declares "Mara did it"

A few glare at Mara.. but m,ost are too mesmerized

"Shove it up your rear, Pearletta!"

"Mara!" Widow O Reilly says "We won't have that kind of talk in class. I.. oh dear."

In a most undignified state, Hearth Agnes, rolls past in an oversized bubble...

Mara rolls up her sleeves and stomps up the hill.

a look of surprise on a woman who thought she had seen just about everything in all her years

The nocker wades through the bubbly morass, heading for her invention.

going up stream, literally, is hard enough, but more so when soap is on the terreain... what this needs is nocker know how...how to get around that?

She grabs a stick, using it the steady herself against the torrent - plant, climb, plant again. She's a DeBuke yet, full of Iowa stubbornness.

Popping works! Blunt force sesm to do no good, but straiight stabs? Yes! And each pop pushes..meaning if she pops the ones to her side or behind.. she can move forward!

"Ha!" She barks with delight. Pop, whizz!

And into the kitchen she goes. It's like playing pool, with her as the cue ball..but she's making it towards the diswasher which is till churning out bubbles.

"ENOUGH, you slip-shod overachieving hunk of junk!"

It ..pauses, long enough for her to get a clear spot, and find the off switch

She shuts it down and looks at the destruction. "Aw, man..."

"You okay, Hearth Agnes?" A voice says

The destruction is...well, more like a scattering...not a single dish is broken, the very bubbles that absorbed them protected them, but they are all over the floor and outside in a path

...and clean?

SPARKLING clean.

Agnes comes in "Young lady we need to have a word"