Sow-er Entertainment
Page 3
nearly fell off the fence where I was perched, and I laughed so long and hard that Dad came out of the barn where he had been milking our Jersey cows.
"Matilda's blowing bubbles, Daddy!" I squealed with delight while trying to link out an imitation of the event. "Watch and see." The performance, however, was not immediately repeated for his benefit and he seemed as skeptical about a bubble-blowing pig as he had been about my sourdough story. He soon returned to more profitable pursuits while I watched Matilda continue blowing and popping bubbles for the next half-hour.
At the time, I was disappointed there were no little pigs, but I thought back on a lesson Dad had given us a week earlier. He told Ben and me that, "It's unwise to allow our expectations to rise too high. Things don't always work out like you think they will."
Not always. But just then Matilda stopped, arched her back and blew one final soapy sphere that succeeded in escaping her mouth intact, and the sight of it floating in the air in front of her snout sent her squealing and grunting around her pen. It took me a while to recover from a paroxysm of laughter.
Fortunately, Matilda also recovered completely, and for two days I supervised Ben as he melted old candles, ineffectively darned socks, did laundry and performed a host of my other chores. No, things had certainly not worked out as I had hoped. They were, in fact, significantly better than I could have imagined.