Butter Safe Than Sorry Read Online Free Page B

varmints succeed, which means that they flood my woods and destroy even more trees. Beavers might appear cuddly on television, or as stuffed toys, but in real life they are about the size of Ida Rosen, but with slightly smaller teeth. Thus it was that I chose these animals as my metaphor for my struggle with my husband's mother.
    The Battle of the Beavers, as I called it, was actually quite beneficial to revitalizing my marriage. Victory for me was keeping a smile on my Beloved's face, and I must confess that I got to be rather innovative in that department. My matrimonial vows gave me a certain advantage, which I exercised in all six of our guest rooms, the hayloft, the corncrib, the silo (it was empty), and even the six-seater outhouse (it's just for show). I drew the line at our solid-oak dining room table, which was made by my ancestor Jacob the Strong in the early nineteenth century. That massive piece of furniture is the only thing that survived the tornado that destroyed my inn a few years back, and while it could have held the weight of a plethora of polygamists, I didn't believe in mixing business with pleasure.
    At any rate, I was soon back to my normal, pre-bank robbery self. The "old-Magdalena" as people started referring to me. I bit my tongue--the grooves were still there--and plowed on, taking one day at a time. The irony was that the balm to healing my soul, which had been wounded by a threat to my son, was time spent with my son. And the more time I spent with my son, and the faster I healed, the angrier I became.
    Three men--at least three men--had come into the bank, prepared to kill the occupants, and just to get money. So far the Bedford Police Department and the county sherriff had been unable to get any leads from the videotape. Perhaps I was reading something into the situation, but I sensed that they were mostly just happy that no one had gotten killed. The fact that the gun-men were Amish appeared to have made the police more than a mite uncomfortable. According to my sources (Freni and extended family), the interviews that they conducted amongst the local Amish community were bare-bones brief, and the officers seemed eager to believe every word they were told. In no time at all, an official conclusion was reached: the robbers were transient individuals and they had no connection to the community.
    What enraged me even more is that the community accepted this verdict.
    "B-b-but that's j-just ridiculous," I sputtered to my best friend, Agnes.
    Agnes calmly wiped the coffee- flavored spittle from her face and set the newspaper on the table between us. "There's more," she said, "and you're not going to like it either."
    "It's better that I hear it from you first, dear. Believe it or not, your voice has a soothing, almost hypnotic, effect." That was only a white fib, of the totally permissible variety, seeing as how it was not meant to hurt anyone. The truth is that I finally had reached the point where reading glasses were more than just a good idea, but I had yet to overcome the sin of vanity.
    Agnes took a bite of store-bought chocolate eclair. It was a day old--given that she only shops in Bedford once a week--but so was the newspaper. Sadly, Agnes would still have eaten the eclair, had it been a week old.
    "It said," she informed me, "that in all probability, the gun would not have been fired, and that Amy Neubrander would not have been grazed by that bullet, if an overzealous customer had not tried to play the part of Indiana Jones."
    "Excuse me?"
    "That's right. You don't go to movies or watch television," she said with exaggerated sarcasm. "Tell me, Magdalena, don't you ever regret letting the world pass you by? Think of all the things I've seen and done that you've deprived yourself of."
    I snagged the last eclair from the white cardboard box. The score was Magdalena four, Agnes eight--not that anyone was counting.
    "I hardly consider myself to be deprived, dear. After you saw that chain saw