Saturday Wordzzle

I thought I'd try my hand at a mini and a 10-worder this week. To find out what is is all about go to Raven's Nest.

I found this week's words a real challenge, but at least I found out what a corn pone was.

The Mini

Words to include: lavender cowboy, over the moon, preparation, zebra, area rug

In my head I'm the lavender cowboy
Riding over the moon.
My sturdy steed is a stripy zebra
Drawn from a kids' cartoon.

In my head I'm the lavender cowboy
My range is the area rug.
My preparation is ostentatious -
I'm about to go huntin' bug.

The 10-word challenge. Apologies in advance to genuine american people for my dreadfully stereotyped rendition of a rural american accent in this piece.

Words to include: corn pone, delegation, nectarines, happiness, 12 going on 13, prancing horses, magenta, butterflies, fragmentary, arthritis

I would have been about 12 going on 13 when our little town played host to a delegation of bigwigs from Big Oil. They was gonna make everybody rich, they said on account of there being black gold underneath us. Well, we put on a bit of a show so's they wouldn't take us for dumb hicks or nothing like that. We had us a little fair and Ma baked corn pone and set out some of that jelly she used to make from Frank's nectarines. What I wouldn't give to taste some of that jelly again, it was quite the delicacy around these parts. Happiness in a jar, my old Pa used to call it and I reckon there was a grain o' truth in that.

Well, these folks showed up in their fancy magenta carriage with their prancing horses an' all, and we all turned out in our Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes to see 'em and give an ear to what they had to say 'bout this here oil we was sittin' on.

The old church was the only place big enough for everybody, so we all went in there and the bigwigs started talkin' about geological surveys and contracts and all kinds o' stuff that didn't make a lick o' sense to me, nor most folks there neither I reckon. I passed the time countin' the butterflies on Mrs Colley's hat or just starin' into space while they droned on.

I've only got the most fragmentary recollection of what went on, on account of the butterfly countin' and whatnot, but I do remember Old Man Perkiss gettin' up out o' his chair and wavin' his crooked old arthritis-stricken hands until they hushed up an took notice of him.

"When do we get the money?" he asked in his crochety old-man voice.

"Well, sir," replied one the bigwigs (a greasy fellow in a fancy suit, as I recall), "The money will be paid out when the oil comes in and will be paid in installments over the next ten years, proportional to the amount of oil we find down there."

He said a whole lot of other stuff too, legal soundin' stuff.

Now Pastor Jackson was supposed to be representin' us at that meetin' on account o' his bein' an educated man, but I reckon those city-slickers was just too smart anyway, because even though the oil flowed for years we never did see a red cent of that money, no sir, not one red cent.

Pastor Jackson moved away soon after that. Freddie Wallace said he saw him once drivin' one o' them fancy new motor car doo-hickies, but I don't give much credence to it, seein' as how Freddie Wallace was soft in the head, or so most folks said.