HC-66, Box 11014
Pahrump, NV 89048
Copyright © 1999 by W. E. Lopez
Election Day on the Lovely
Farm
By
W. E. Lopez
Farmer Lovely had no sooner
finished rubbing Steady-boy down and putting him in his stall with a bucket of
oats for dinner when Rupert the Squirrel and Mrs. Mischief the Cat came running
in from outside.
"Steady-boy!"
Rupert shouted. "Where have you
been all day? Mrs. Mischief and I have
been playing out in the pasture and you should see how she climbs trees. Almost as good as I do!"
"I had to take the
farmer and his wife into town," Steady-boy said. "Today is election-day and all the people go to the polls to
vote."
"What's an
election?" Rupert asked.
"That's when the people
get to choose who they want to run the town, and the state, and the whole
country," Mrs. Mischief said. She
was very knowledgeable because she got to spend lots of time inside the big
house.
"More than that,"
Steady-boy said. "During an
election the people get to vote for the laws that they will live by."
"Oh, that sounds like a
wonderful idea," Rupert said.
"I think it would be a good idea if we had an election here on the
Lovely Farm."
Sunrise the Rooster had
overheard what they were saying and thought this would be an ideal time to
speak up. "An election is a
wonderful idea, Rupert. Aren't you glad
I thought of it? Now, naturally I
should be the one to run the farm because the work day can't begin until I wake
up the sun."
"I'll vote for you,
Sunrise," Porker the Pig said.
"But I do wish you'd do something about this weather. I am so tired of having snow all over the
fields. I would like to go outside when
the weather is warm and lay in a nice cool mud puddle."
"If you elect me to run
the farm," Sunrise said, "I'll make sure that every day is a sunny
day and the weather will always be warm.
But not too warm, of course."
He added the last because he didn't think that Leroy and Laverne, with
their thick woolly coats would like it if the weather were too hot.
"That's a wonderful
idea, Sunrise," Honker the Goose said.
"I get so tired of staying in the barn all winter when my pond is
frozen and I can't go for a nice swim."
"I've been thinking
also," Sunrise went on, "that we should change the number of eggs in
a dozen. Farmer Lovely collects ten
dozen eggs every morning for sale in the city.
If we change the number of eggs from twelve to eight, then the farmer
will automatically have 15 dozen eggs which he can sell to buy more feed and
grain and my hens won't have to work any harder."
Solomon the Owl fluttered
down from the rafters to join in the conversation. "You have an excellent idea there, Sunrise. I'll vote for that. While we are at it, I think we should change
the value of Pi to an even number that will be easier to calculate with."
"Pie?" Porker
asked. "What flavor?" Porker was always thinking of good things to
eat.
"Not that kind of pie,
Porker. I mean the relationship of the
diameter of a circle to its circumference.
If we make the value equal to three, it will be much easier to calculate
how many peaches and apples go into a bushel basket. Since the baskets will be smaller, Farmer Lovely can fill more
baskets with the same amount of apples and make more money when he sells
them."
"Oh, that surely is an
excellent idea," Rupert said.
Bluster the dog joined the
discussion also. "Since my job is
to protect the front of the house, we should put a toll booth on the lane in
front. Then I could collect a bushel of
fruit or a sack of grain from everyone who used our road."
Porker agreed that sounded
like a wonderful idea because she could already envision lots of good things
coming into the barn for her to snack on.
"I wish you'd all vote
to make every day Sunday," said Steady-boy. "Because on Sunday I take the farmer and his wife to church
and we don't have to work around the farm.
If every day was Sunday we would have more time to play."
"But Farmer Lovely
still has to milk me on Sunday," Giselle the Goat said. "He won't have any more time to
play."
"Well, that is just a
minor bobble," Sunrise said.
"Some of these things will take time to work out."
"Can I vote too?"
asked Leroy the Llama. "I am newly
arrived from South America and I'm not sure that I am a citizen yet."
"Of course you can
vote," Sunrise said. "You are
certainly a citizen here on the Lovely Farm, and that's what this election is for." Sunrise had already figured that the more animals
that voted, the better his chances would be.
"Oh, thank you,
Sunrise. Then I think we should vote
for Steady-boy to run the farm since he is the biggest and the strongest."
"Being a good leader
doesn't depend upon how strong you are, Leroy," Solomon said. "More depends on how smart you
are. Everyone knows that owls are the
wisest of the barn yard animals, so I think that I should be the boss."
"Experience counts for
something also," Laverne said.
"Steady-boy has been here the longest and has been working with
Farmer Lovely so much that he surely knows every thing there is to know about
running a farm."
"What's wrong with
electing Farmer Lovely to run the farm?" Steady-boy asked. Secretly he wasn't sure that he knew the
right time to plant the corn and oats and potatoes. "Maybe it would be better if Farmer Lovely continued to run
the farm."
"Nonsense!" said
Solomon. "An election is our
chance to change the way things are done.
It is our chance to bring progress to the Lovely Farm. If we had mechanical milking machines, then
Farmer Lovely could take the day off and let the machines milk Giselle, and we
would all have more time for play."
"Farmer Lovely has warm
and tender hands," Giselle said.
"I'm not sure a milking machine would be as gentle with me."
"But it's your duty,
Giselle," Sunrise said. "Everyone has to give something if we are going to make this
work for us. I'm sure a milking machine
would be so much faster and then you could play in the pasture with us. In the warm sunshine," he added.
And so it was decided that
all the animals would vote in the election.
Because Rupert had the finest penmanship, he was chosen to make out the
blank ballots. Sunrise and Solomon and
Steady-boy were the candidates to run the farm. They also decided to vote as to whether every day should be
Sunday, and if there should only be eight eggs to a dozen, and whether Pi
should equal three. Steady-boy told Rupert
that Farmer Lovely should also be on the ballot because he was the
"cumbant," what ever that meant.
So Rupert also added Farmer Lovely's name.
At the end of the barn was a
small dark room where Farmer Lovely kept some of his farming tools, like hoes
and rakes and pitchforks, as well as the tack and harness that was used when
Steady-boy had to pull the plow or be hitched to the wagon. Porker said that the tack room should be
used as a polling booth so each of the animals could vote in private.
One by one, the animals took
their ballots into the polling booth and made an X next to the candidate they
wanted to vote for. They also made an X
if they wanted to vote for a ballot measure or an O if they wanted to vote against
the measure. When they were all done,
the ballots were given to Laverne and Mrs. Mischief to tally.
Mrs. Mischief and Laverne
debated who should announce the results of the election. "I'll think of a number between one and
ten, and who ever guesses closest will do it," Laverne said. She really didn't want to report the
election results.
"Okay, I think the
number is four," Mrs. Mischief said.
"Wait a moment, Mrs.
Mischief, give me a chance to think of the number." Laverne paused a moment then said,
"Okay, go ahead and make your guess now."
"I'll guess that the
number is seven!" Mrs. Mischief said.
"Right on the button,
Mrs. Mischief. You make the
announcement." Laverne was very
proud of the clever way she had handled the situation.
Mrs. Mischief took the piece
of paper upon which were written the election results and cleared her
throat. "Friends, you have voted
that there will still be twelve eggs in each dozen," she read. "Sunday will still only occur once each
week since we need the other days to do our work around the farm."
"We don't want Farmer
Lovely to be accused of cheating the merchants in the city, so pi will remain
unchanged. And Bluster can ask everyone
who passes on the lane to pay a toll, but if they don't want to they can pass anyway."
"Who is going to be in
charge of the farm?" asked Sunrise.
"Yes, Hooooooo?"
hooted Solomon.
"It gives me great
pleasure to announce that you have elected Farmer Jacob Lovely to continue
running the Lovely Farm in the same splendid manner he has always done in the
past."
"Oh, good!"
shouted Giselle. "No milking machine
for me!"
"Thank goodness,"
said Steady-boy. "I'm not sure I
would know how many acres to plant with grain and how many with potatoes
anyway."
"What?" squawked
Sunrise. "Doesn't it make more
sense to sell only eight eggs for each dozen?"
"I guess not,"
Porker said. "Unless Farmer Lovely
decides he wants to change that."
"You mean people can
use our road without having to pay to pass?" Bluster asked.
"That appears to be the
way everyone voted," Rupert said.
A little sadder, for it
appeared that all their campaigning had meant nothing, the animals went away to
think about what had happened. Certainly you couldn't argue with the will of the majority, could
you?
When Mrs. Mischief and
Laverne were alone, Laverne asked the cat about the election results. "I'm afraid to tell you Mrs. Mischief,
but I can't read. So I let you count
all the votes and make the tally."
"Well, I can read only
a little," said Mrs. Mischief.
"But at least I know that you can't vote to make pi equal three or
to make eight eggs count as a dozen, so I simply used common sense when I
announced the election results."
"You are certainly one
smart cat, Mrs. Mischief. Maybe we
should have elected you to run the Lovely Farm."
"Don't be silly,
Laverne," Mrs. Mischief purred.
"How would you feel if you had to tell everyone that you lived on
the Mischief Farm?"