The Pfisters of Mount Misty
an excerpt

Chapter 1

Aunt Merty we kept in a shed, out behind the ol’ barn, you know, the one up by Rockfish Creek. It weren’t that we didn’t want her around, oh no, but that it used to scare the daylights out of folks when she’d pop up out of nowheres. Not that many folks ever come to visit us, up there on the mountain, partly ‘cause of ol’ Merty, but probably mostly from fear of them cats.
You see, Uncle Ed raised them cats, all of ‘em, from kittens, an’ he weren’t goin’ to be told, no how, that they wasn’t no ordinary barn cats. Of course, Uncle Ed wasn’t no ordinary farmer, but then none of us was, up there on Mount Misty. That weren’t really the name of the place, but folks there abouts (that’s the same folks that wouldn’t pay us a social call, mind you) called it Mount Misty on account of the fog. It were foggy jest about ever’ single night up there, an’ not jest ‘cause of Granny. But Granny was a Pfister from the old country, an’ her sense of propriety demanded that certain things needed a good foggin’, an’ she was jest the gal to do it. So she used to go out, of an evenin’, with her tin bucket, an’ come back later trailin’ wisps of fog into the house with a self satisfied look on her face. I never knew, as a child, where she found the stuff, but she promised that when I was old enough she’d take me out with her one night. Uncle Ed wasn’t sure that was sech a good idea, but Mama overruled him. Which was odd, ‘cause Mama had married into the family (at least she always said she did, some of the kin from down by Madison County way said as how they weren’t never sure how she come by the name Pfister no how) but she looked more like Granny Pfister than Ed did. It may have been ‘cause he had inherited Grampaw Pfister’s unfortunate tendency to fade away in direct sunlight, or it may have been the beard (Granny’s, that is, Ed’s great shame was that he could never raise one) but poor ol’ Ed always reminded Granny of that Thornstem bunch out by Beaver’s Falls.
“Shoulda never let ‘em marry into the family,” she’d complain, an’ no amount of protestin’ how there hadn’t been a Thornstem-Pfister marriage since Great-Great Aunt Sissy had run off with Bubba Thornstem an’ founded the town of Lizard Junction off in the next state could calm Granny down.
Ed did redeem himself by marryin’ Merty, though, an’ their three kids, Maybell, Joe-Joe an’ Cousin Bert was the apples in Granny’s eye. Cousin Bert we always called Cousin Bert, even to his face, even Maybell an’ Joe-Joe did it, even though ever’body could plainly see he was a natural born Pfister, mostly from his stoplight eyes (one of ‘em was green an’ the other was red). When Grampaw Pfister was alive (an’ even after he died) he used to bounce Cousin Bert on his knee an’ remark on how much Cousin Bert reminded Grampaw of his own father. Which was funny, too, ‘cause I don’t recall him ever explainin’ why, or ever sayin’ anythin’ else about Great Grandfather Pfister. It wasn’t till years later that Mama tol’ me his shameful story, which I won’t repeat in mixed company, but suffice it to say I agree with Granny that the part about the fire engine was an out an’ out lie; when I was big enough I went down to Smith Corners an’ looked at it myself, so I know.
But I was tellin’ you about Aunt Merty. Aunt Merty always looked like a bush, but that were mostly ‘cause she didn’t want to be outdone by her sister Ermine who had writ her a letter years afore an’ had gone on about her “lavender hair rinse.” No amount of talkin’ could convince Merty that Ermine meant the color, not the plant, an’ as a result Merty went through most of her adult life (till she went completely bald, which was quite a relief fer ol’ Ed) with her hair dyed green an’ full of bits of twig. As a result she looked enough like a topiary that Cousin Bert took after her with the hedge clippers one day an’ he had to be knocked into the well afore we could convince him that it weren’t no man eatin’ shrub, it were his own mother. On second thought, I can sort of see the resemblance to Great Grandfather Pfister after all. That were when Granny decided that enough was enough, Cousin Bert needed some eyeglasses. Granny herself was the only other Pfister with eyeglasses (although personally we thought, after seein’ a picture of Bubba Thornstem, that Great Aunt Sissy could have used a pair) an’ she had got ‘em from Dr. Chisolm in Beaver’s Falls (Smith Corners bein’ too small fer an optometrist of its own) an’ she “wouldn’t trust them eyes to nobody else,” So a trip was planned fer the family to go to Beaver’s Falls.