The Beast and the Bairns, Part Ii

II. Days passed slowly, Amos didn’t return, Mary Bairns now had to reasons to weep. Her son was gone, there could be no mistake, and her daughter, half-mad, didn’t sleep. She packed up their things and traveled east to just outside the town of Albany. There lived Uncle Ike, who heard the sad tale, and to take Mary as wife, he agreed. Things quickly became quiet, if not okay, since Amity’s belly soon began to swell. Mary and Ike knew she could not be a mother 2ith painful memories leaving her unwell. To make it worse a rumor had come from where they had once made their home, that poor Amity had a run-in with the beast, many versions soon became well-known. But Mary and Ike, they formed a plan, and with the help of some padding, forty-two year old Mary claimed a miracle, after all this time she was ‘expecting.’ When Amity’s baby came into the world, Mary told all that the child was her own. The rumors soon cooled and the child thrived, raised up in a true, loving home. They called him Warren, and he grew tall, broad of shoulder with much body hair. But a nicer man the world never knew, he was a big, old, gentle teddy bear. He grew up and took himself a wife, and served proudly back in Eighteen-Twelve. His children just scoffed at the crazy rumors, which faded off but were never dispelled. As generations turned it became folklore, a fun tale told to entertain the kids. The Bairns even sometimes play into it, dressing up and telling the tale to tourists. But one day in two thousand thirteen, while on a drive through central New York, Scott Bairns saw a farm that he had to have, with a barn, fine house, and fields to work… CONCLUDES IN PART III.