"About a year after Olof died the Cready brothers rode up to the farm one day…"
The Cready family were pig farmers and lived a few miles south of town. Folks always knew when the Creadys were butchering pigs because a disgusting stench would drift into town making folks sick. The family lived no better than the animals they raised and smelled about the same too.
Mrs. Cready was a large, stocky woman. Actually, she looked more like a man in women's clothing, than a female. She had the appearance of a blacksmith with a woman's bosom, but no beard, and wearing a filthy dress. Foul-mouth words spewed from her lips like acid as she tormented her husband and their twin boys. Often, Mrs. Cready would stand in the front yard splitting logs using a Hudson broad ax with one hand while holding the stump with the other. Her blows with the instrument were razor accurate. She once grabbed a three-hundred-pound male pig that managed to get loose and broke its neck in seconds flat with her bare hands.
Mr. Cready was a beanpole of a man. He was over six feet tall, but barely weighed one hundred and twenty pounds. Mr. Cready was a drinker and slobbered incoherent ramblings as he stumbled around the property. He never stood up straight and stooped in a large arc whenever he moved about with his long gangly legs. In all the years folks knew the Cready family, they never heard of the Creasy's taking a bath or changing their clothes. Mr. Cready once challenged Mrs. Cready over something insignificant, and the winner was determined when Mrs. Cready broke Mr. Cready's nose. His crooked proboscis complimented an already unpleasant appearance.
Mr. and Mrs. Cready were well into their years when she had the twins. She was shocked the day she delivered the two boys for three reasons. First, she was not aware she was even pregnant at the time of delivery. Everyone thought she was just gaining more girth on an already ballooning frame. Second, she was forty-six years old and thought she was well past the time of childbirth. Finally, when one boy came screaming out from between her legs, she was horrified to find another not too far behind.
The Cready twins were skinny boys with pale skin and dark circles under their eyes. Their dirty blond hair splayed out like porcupine quills and they always wore pants four sizes too small. It was never an issue at the waist for they tied ropes through the belt-loops to keep their pants from falling to the floor. The main problem was the length of their trousers. Spindly legs protruded six inches past the pant's cuff exposing dirty feet rarely shod with shoes. It seems they were genetic offshoots of their father. Personality wise, the twins followed in their mother's footsteps. It was a constant battle between the twins and their mother to see who could outswear the other.