Crowded

by Jesse Coffey

Ten

Margaret and a real fleet of ponies drove over to my house the next morning. Margaret knocked on my door. Countess had been busy reading one of my wife's magazines, ''Star Power'', and said, ''Joe, there's somebody at the door.''

I responded. It was Margaret, to be redundant. She said, ''Hello Joe. We've begun work on your new, um, half a house.'' Imagine my delight!

I told her, ''How many folks does it take to build one?''

She said, ''About 5 to 6. I got plenty a busy body.''

I said, ''You're gonna need one to build any kind of house, big or small!''

She chuckled and noticed a huge pile of stuff from my one house had been stacked in the backyard. She asked the construction workers to slowly and carefully get everything in that yard into this new house she built for half my family. They promptly did just that. So they got the two TVs, and the several dozens of records and two phonos and some other things and they took them into the new house.

The whole construction of the house took 3 hours. The time it took to get all that we had in the yard in was a half hour.

By the time it was late afternoon, Margaret knocked on my door again. I answered.

Margaret said, ''All done!''

I said, ''What's all done?''

Margaret replied, ''Your other house. Have your whole family take a look at it!''

So we all got outside and saw a giant, well-decorated house right next to ours. We were wowed and amazed. My father said, ''Ma'am, how much does it take to build something like this?''

Margaret replies, ''That's a 300 bit job.''

My father, horrified, replied, ''A 300 BIT JOB?!?! How did my kid get the money to do this?''

I said, ''Correction, how did this lady get the money to do this?''

Of course, we turned around and looked at Countess Coloratura. We all grinned. My father told her, ''Mazel Tov! You solved our huge problem all along! How can we ever repay ya baby?''

The Countess blushed. She said, ''How about an autographed copy of my new album, The Bright Lights? I can sign one for every member of your family! Just meet me at the Castle in Upper Manehattan this Tuesday!''

I said, ''We'd be delighted!''

And that was that.

Author's Note:

JOHN HENRY
Traditional