Ben Yodels for a Good
Cause
By
DebbieB
“This is worse than Hoss playing the fiddle,” grumbled Little Joe to his older brother, Adam.
In response, Adam rubbed his temples with the tips of his long slender fingers. “My head is pounding,” he muttered, rubbing harder.
“You think that bad…cow stop giving milk…chickens no lay eggs…pigs...break out of sty…dadburn…cattle hollarin’ dun wilted vegetable garden!! What for Mr. Ben make all that noise?” Hop Sing growled as he placed his hands over his ears and shook his head from side to side. “Ye xis, ho, mi yong, che si fe…” the Chinese cook muttered under his breath as he headed back to the kitchen. (Okay, so I can’t write in Chinese) “Hop Sing go back China…”
Hoss, who had just come into the great room from the kitchen, watched the family cook as he shuffled his feet and hurried away. When he looked up, he almost laughed at the strange looks on his brothers’ faces.
“I think he sounds purty good,” he grinned.
Both Adam and Little Joe’s heads came upright and each one glared at their middle brother.
“You would,” snarled Joe, as he stuffed more cotton into his ears.
“Well…I wouldn’t wanna be the one to tell him otherwise,” Hoss finally admitted. “Joe, ya got any more of that cotton?”
Joe finished stuffing his ears full and then tossed the white fluff over to Hoss. “Adam,” Joe said. “ADAM?” ADAM!”
“WHAT!” Adam shouted, glaring at his little brother.
“Did Pa ever tell ya why he’s trying to yodel?”
“Heh?”
“I said, did Pa ever tell ya why he’s trying to yodel?”
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”
Joe sighed deeply and cupped his hands around his mouth. “I SAID, DID PA EVER TELL YOU WHY HE’S TOOK UP YODELING?”
Across the room Hoss was stuffing his own ears with cotton and paying no mind to what his two brothers were saying. Adam pulled cotton out of one ear and looked with disgust at his youngest brother.
“There’s no need for you to shout, Joe…”
“What?”
“I said…THERE’S NO NEED FOR YOU TO SHOUT!”
Joe scrunched up his face. He’d forgotten about the cotton each one of them had used to drown out the singing…ere…racket…their father was making.
“Sorry, I was just asking if Pa had told you why he is so set on learning to yodel? It’s horrible, it’s killing my ears…why is he doing something so…so…”
“Ridiculous?” Adam said, filling in the blanks.
“Yeah…and at his age!” Joe said and then giggled.
“Well, brother, from what I can tell, someone said that something called a web site was having a fanfic challenge and they were trying to get all the writers more involved in writing short stories. So a couple of the girls…”
“Girls?” grinned Joe.
“Yes…a kinda young one and some old granny woman by the name of DebbieB…”
“What’s the young one’s name?” Joe inquired as he pulled his chair closer in order to hear better out of the one ear where he’d removed his cotton.
“Katja…”
“Katja?” Joe giggled. “I like that name…I bet she is a kat too…hehehee…”
“Joseph, do you want to hear what inspired our father or would you rather dream about girls and old ladies?” Adam demanded.
“Do I have a choice?” Joe beamed mischievously.
“No you do not…”
“Okay, sorry, but I do like that name…so, why is Pa yodeling?”
“I just told you…these two ladies are trying to inspire fanfic writers to become more involved in their wonderful Bonanza web site…”
“What’s a web site?” Hoss called from across the room.
“How do I know? Some sort of web thing that ladies get all excited about whenever someone mentions one of our names, I reckon. Anyway, they came up with the idea of putting captions with these photos they put up every week and all the short story writers are asked to write a story about what they think the picture and caption is about. So this week it’s Pa and he’s suppose to be yodeling,” Adam said, taking a deep breath as he finished explaining and began stuffing the cotton back in his ear.
“I suppose that’s nice of those ladies, but heck, don’t they know how bad Pa sounds?” Little Joe whined.
“Yeah…and how badly it’s hurtin’ our ears?” added Hoss.
“The livestock ain’t no happy either! Hop Sing’s cake fall…no dessert for Boss tonight…” grumbled the usually friendly cook. He couldn’t believe how two women could cause such chaos in his household.
Adam shook his head; in the background they could still hear their father outside, sitting on Buck, yodeling. He wondered how the old gelding could stand the noise.
“I suppose those two ladies think this is funny. But hey…we Cartwrights are here to please…”
“Especially the ladies…”
“Joseph, we aim to please all our fans…Mr. Dortort said we should do whatever it takes to keep Bonanza alive and well…and our admirers happy.”
“I bet I could make that Katja gal happy!” snickered Little Joe.
“Well, I’d like to get my hands on that DebbieB…I’d teach her a thing or two. But,” sighed Adam, “I’ve already got a reputation of being a trouble maker, so I suppose I’d better just be nice, who knows I might meet up with her someday…so, until then, we’ll just have to be nice, like Mr. Dortort insists…”
“But yodelin’?” Hoss asked with a worried frown. “
“Yeah, but Hoss, I don’t think the boss meant for Pa to take up yodeling…dadburn that racket hurts my ears!”
“You know what Pa always says…”
“No…what does Pa always say?” Hoss said with sarcasm in his tone.
“He says that we should do unto others as others do unto us…so….”
Before he could answer, the front door burst opened and Ben stopped in the doorway. His head was tossed back, his mouth opened wide and he bellowed out in his deep resounding voice…..YO DA LA DI OHHHH…HO DA LA DI WHOOOO…..DA LA DIS WE PLEASE…OH DA STO RIES YA RI TE…OH DA LA DI WHOOO…”
Little Joe looked at his brothers. His expression was bordered on desperation.
His chin quivered as he fought back the tears. “I’m afraid it’s gonna be
a long week!” he cried as he reached for more cotton.