This is Mumpsmaster, of MyUnknownMaryPowerSanfordmemorialsociety. Or Gina.
While Nancy is on the road, I thought I would hijack this blog.
Rose Wilder Lane was a great writer. But even she had some off days. And some bad stories. The worst story of hers that I ever read was “A Methodist Lady”. This unpublished (to my knowledge) story is from the files at the Hoover Presidential Library. It may have been a rejected chapter from “Old Home Town”. Thank goodness.
Mrs. Minifer was a fat lady living in a small town. She was an uppity sort, thinking herself above others. She also had hairs growing from her chin. Long hairs. But she couldn’t do a lick of work. The house was spotless, who did the housework? Why, Mr. Minifer did! Mr. Minifer dies from overwork. Now the town must take care of Mrs. Minifer.
After many odd happenings with the finances of Mrs. Minifer and the narrator leaving town for many years, Mrs.Minifer was officially a burden.
When the narrator arrives back home from Paris, the Ladies Aid Society tires of cleaning and caring for Mrs. Minifer and house. Mrs. Minifer complains that they do not bring her enough to eat, they are trying to starve her. So Mrs.Minifer purchases several pounds of dried beans, cooks them in TWO large kettles, and eats them all.
When a Mrs. Gann goes to visit Mrs.Minifer after the bean feast, she has to run out to the woodshed and loses her entire breakfast. It would not have been so bad if Mrs. Minifer had not fallen in it, and then smeared it all over the bed clothes.
I guess this implies that Mrs. Minifer exploded bodily from both ends.
The rest of the story is not important. It does raise some questions. Had Rose fantasized about eating all the baked beans she could? ere baked beans a food people craved in large quantities? Were baked beans the Cadbury chocolate bunnies and Cheezits of an earlier generation?
Is there any other story of Rose’s that is worse?
