Tales from the Froggy Bottom
The Legend of Pearfild Grove, Pt.1
So you young ens’ want to hear the story of Pearfield Grove? It ain’t a happy story, but I reckon yer old enough...
Sit your rumps down and listen to what I’m about to tell ya. Most ponies don’t remember the Pearfield clan. Those that know the name at all seem to think it’s all about some old feud that never was as big a to-do as some ponies made it out to be.
Elder Pearfield… I suppose he was “Younger Pearfield” back then, but I’ve called ‘im “Elder” for more years than I’ve called ‘im “Younger”, it’s what happens when you get this old; but anyhow Younger Pearfield owned a pear farm over by Carver’s Creek. He was a round stout pony, light Green in coat, with a darker green mane and tail. All told, he very much resembled the fruits that filled his orchard and adorned his flank. He was friendly enough, at least he was back then.
Now some some ponies called him crazy to set up an orchard that close to the Froggy Bottom. And it is a fearsome place. There’s thing that crawl, and things that fly, and things that creep around on ground. And then there’s the things that lurk in the deep pools. But Pearfield insisted that spot had the perfect soil for his trees. And sure enough, within five years, he had himself an orchard to rival Sweet Apple Acres.
Now this is where most folks get confused. They seem to think we was feudin’ with the Pearfields on account of them growin’ pears and us growin’ apples… But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Like apples, pears are good for two things, food and booze. As far as food goes, his farm could never rival Sweet Apple Acres. Sure some ponies like pears better than apples, but not many. When came to booze though, Pearfield had some tricks up his sleeves. Heh, ya see, his momma was a fancy unicorn engineer back in Canterlot, and Ol’ Pearfield knew a thing or two himself. He actually built himself a moonshine still. Pear mash moonshine, I tell ya what! It may not have tasted as good as our cider, but wooo-eeee did it do the job! And we didn’t begrudge ‘im his success, don’t get me wrong. In fact my aunt, Apple Cobbler, had her sights on marrying the pudgy stallion. If she had acted quicker this might be a happier story.
His success soon attracted a burgundy whorse of a gold-digger by the name of Brandy Wine. She threw her affections openly at Pearfield and easily swept aside my shy Auntie. They were married in the spring and her clearly with foal. She gave birth to triplets eleven months later.
Hard Cider was the first born. Doctor said the foal didn’t even cry when she slapped his flank, he just took in a quiet breath and gave the doctor a killin’ look. He was dark golden in coat and main, and had a rough, almost feral look about him, even freshly born into the world. He would grow into a monster of a stallion.
Pear Cider was his father’s spittin image in flesh, and his mother’s vicious scion in the soul. He was fat, lazy, scheming, and mischievous. He was a fat bully as a foal, and he was a heartless thug as a stallion.
Cider Vinegar was a quiet, brooding, and sulky thing from the cradle to the grave. He had a milky yellow coat, and a dull grey mane. His eyes was a pale, cold shade of blue. There was no limit to how far he would go to get back at ponies he was envious of, and Cider Vinegar was envious of everypony.
Brandy Wine left less than a two years after the foals was born with a red-headed unicorn gambler from Canterlot. Not before she took all Pearfield’s money out the bank, of course. I heard he was kilt dead in Dodge City some time later after getting caught cheating at a game of cards. Left poor old Brandy a penniless widow with twin colts. You, reap what you sow a suppose…
It took ten years to pull the Pearfield Orchard back from the brink. Younger Pearfield had become Elder Pearfield, doting father to his three trouble-makin’ sons. The colts for their part could not be growing into worse ponies. They spit out their father's love like it was poison and delighted in all sorts of destructive mayhem. Every time they got in trouble, Elder Pearfield was always there to get them right back out. He just couldn’t bring himself to see the evil that was festering in his son’s hearts.
Despite these troubles, prosperity slowly came back to the farm, and one day in the spring, we was all surprised to hear that Elder Pearfield had proposed marriage to Aunt Apple Cobbler. She said yes of course, and they was married that summer.
By this time the Pearfield boys, as they was known back then, was out of the house, and had nothing to do with their father or the farm unless one ‘em had got arrested after a night of drunken debauchery and needed bail, or some such. And it seemed that finally there would be happiness at Pearfield Orchard. It wouldn’t last.
The following spring, Aunt Cobbler became heavy with foal. At her age, and back in them days, this was a very hazardous thing to happen to a mare. Still they were happy, and eagerly awaited the birth of their new foal. The doctor, a lavender unicorn mare whose name I cain’t never remember, came often to check on Aunt Cobbler and the foal inside her. She cast some kind of spell that told her they was gonna have a little filly, a unicorn. They decided to name her Pear Dumpling and happily waited to welcome their new daughter into the world.
The winter that year was the harshest in my memory, a wild cold front had descended on our town from the Everfree, and it felt like the wendigos themselves was upon us. Aunt Cobbler took on a bad fever over Hearth’s Warming. The Doctor did all she could, but Aunt Cobbler needed a hospital, but she was too weak to travel, and the nearest hospital back then was in Canterlot.
She never really did recover. She survived long enough to see her daughter into the world, but it was over after that. She had poured all her life and all her love into just keeping her foal alive long enough to let her see the world. She passed peacefully after that with her foal in her hooves and a smile on her face.
So, once again Elder Pearfield was a father and now a widower. This time, however he had a foal who could appreciate and grow from his kindness. True to her Apple roots, Pear Dumpling was a natural farm pony. She grew into a pretty little filly with her father’s coat and her mother’s blonde mane. By the time she got her cutie mark, a pear tree, of course, her father was widely bragging on his little filly and how one day she was gonna take over the farm for him,
When Cider Vinegar heard of this, he was fit to be tied. Why should she get everything, when he was livin’ in the bottom of a bottle? Him and his brothers was the first born after all! He gathered his brothers and they went to confront the old stallion and their upstart sister.
Pearfield was appalled that his sons would accuse him of abandoning them. They were always welcome in his home and back on the farm. He truly and deeply wished his errant sons would return home and settle down. He wanted nothing but the best for his family. Pear Dumpling WAS the only pony who could really run the farm when he was gone however. He was not placing her above his firstborn, he was making a practical business to decision to keep his family well taken care of after he was gone.
Little Dumpling was confused. She loved her brothers. Her daddy loved her brothers. She didn’t understand why her brothers were saying such mean things. Even after she was running the farm, she would still love her brothers. She wasn’t going to take the farm away from them. But daddy was getting old, and somebody had to take care of the pear trees, and make the mash, and run the still. She didn’t mean to make her brothers mad. She was sorry they thought she was taking the farm away.
The three brothers would have none of it. They spit in their father’s face. Cider Vinegar even made a clumsy kick at Pear Dumpling, bruising her shoulder a little and sending the filly running from the room in tears. For the first time in over twenty years Elder Pearfield finally put his hoof down, ordering his sons from his home. Hard Cider gruffed up for a moment like he might strike the old man, but then thought better of it and slunk out of the house like a rattlesnake. If only it had ended like that...
Tales from the Froggy Bottom
The Legend of Pearfield Grove, Pt. 2
It was months gone by before old Pear Field would hear from his sons again. It was familiar news. Hard and Vinegar were in jail after a night of brawlin’, and with a heavy heart old Pearfield left little Dumpling to mind the farm while he once again paid for his son’s misdeeds. Little Pear Dumpling dutifully tended the farm and wished her brothers would mend their wicked ways.
Pear Cider came to the farm with honey on his tongue, speaking’ poisoned words of forgiveness and reconciliation. His sister was overjoyed to see this sudden change in her brother. Of course she would walk with him though the orchard and show him the workings of the farm. She was so happy that at least one of her brothers was coming back. It would be the last walk of her short life.
They found little Dumpling three days later in the near edges of the froggy bottom. Her little skull was cleanly crushed by pony hooves and her tiny body was… violated in a way no foal should ever be. We all knew what had happened. There was talk of a trial, but there weren’t no witnesses and couldn’t nopony prove nuthin’. And there were many, too many, who just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, believe that any pony could do such a thing to their own sister. And that was the start of the feud. We never intended no ill on Old Pearfield, but the Cider Boys… well we our ways of finding justice back in them days.
Cider Vinegar was found hanging from a tree in the family orchard. Old Pear Field said it was suicide. Poor colt just couldn’t live with the grief of what happened to his sister. He just up and hung ‘himself. Nopony ever really asked questions about it. Nopony but the grave-digger was there to see the dirt fall on his unmarked grave.
Hard Cider was found trampled to death behind the local tavern. Like his sister, everypony knew what happened. And like his sister nopony could prove nuthin’. Unlike his sister, very few ponies was at all motivated to try and find proof of anything to begin with. It was a bad end to a bad pony, and those of us that washed his blood from our hooves didn’t lose no sleep over it.
Pear Cider found himself to be the last brother standing in a town where everypony either wanted him dead, or at best didn’t give two damns if he died. He was always the clever one though, so he kept himself alive for a little while anyway.
Old Pearfield had lost all reason by then. He cut down every pear tree in the orchard and salted the earth so wouldn’t nuthin’ never row on that land again. Then he took every single bit out of the bank and buried it in mason jars in a secret place in the swamp where he had laid his daughter to rest. He then soaked the earth itself in kerosene so thoroughly that no living thing would ever thrive in earth that kept his daughter from him.
In time desperation drove the last of the Cider brothers back to his father’s house, now little more than a broken shack. He had to get out of town, and he needed money to do it. He knew his father had buried every bit with his sister, but he didn’t know where she was buried. So he came to his father like he had come to his sister before, honey on his tongue and lies in his mouth. HE told the old stallion how he was soon to his dying day, cause it was only a matter of time before he met Apple family justice. And there weren’t no lie in that. Pear Dumpling had been an Apple, in all but name but we were keen to see the the end of Pear Cider.
He’d made peace with his fate he said, all he wanted was to see his poor sister’s grave, to repent his sins to her before he turned himself over to the authorities and confessed. Whatever fate the law gave him was surely kinder than the vigilante justice he faced now. And Old Pearfield believed his son because he so desperately WANTED to believe him. He desperately needed to believe that there was some spot of remorse left in this devil-pony he had once called “son”.
So he walked into the swamp with his son to his daughter’s grave. I suppose you done guessed by now that he never came back. Pear Cider dug about in the ground until he found the spot where his father had buried the jars of bits. By the time he’d gathered the money in a makeshift sac fashioned from his own shirt. Celestia had long lowered the sun. And so Pear Cider struck match to light his lantern.
They say Tartarus itself opened up to claim Pear Cider damned and wicked soul. An I believe it to this day. I could see the conflagration from sweet Apple acres. It cast a pillar of fire that seemed to touch the night sky itself. Now some Unicorns from canterlot came around and they “theorized” that it must have been some kind of gas pocket mixed with all the kerosene, but that didn’t do nothing to explain the sound that everypony heard for miles. The sound of the cruelest laughter carried on the voice of an innocent filly.
Them unicorns can say what they will, but Pear Dumpling took her vengeance that day and Pear Cider was dragged away to Tartarus like the monster he was. There’s a spot out past Carvers creek where it all happened. It’s been fifty years ago, and to this day the earth is still scorched and barren. And on certain nights when the moon is right, you can look through the trees from the road and see the glow of a bonfire. If you listen close you can hear the voice of a stallion screaming, and you can hear a little filly laughing cruelly. And if you’re brave enough to go closer you can see the shadows of tartarus through the trees, and smell the brimstone and burning flesh of Pear Cider torment.