The Fantastic Adventures of Hoagie the Hog and Shadow

By Gideon Rock

This fairytale illuminates the role of groundhogs in American folklore, telling the story of Hoagie Prophecy, a groundhog with special powers. As a relative of Punxsutawney Bill, he knows when the winter will end. As a member of the Prophecy clan, he protects eternity for the wilderness. However, the men in the Groundhog Club want control of the groundhog clan's shadows, the secret to their lifespan. The Groundhog Club will not stop until they absorb the shadow of every forest animal, for possessing shadows enables them to live in The Underworld like eternal monsters. Hoagie and his ragtag gang of friends embark on a mysterious quest to restore the wilderness and reclaim the groundhog's duty to protect eternity. Sam, a boy at home in a nearby cabin, must help discover The Underworld and defeat the Groundhog Club. If the adventure is unsuccessful, the forest is doomed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gideon Rock
• Release date: Dec 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781393969655

Book preview

There is a hog in me. A snout and a belly. A machinery for eating and grunting. A machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun and the mud.  I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

-  Carl Sandburg, Wilderness

Chapter One

July 23, 2010.

Samuel Heller lay in the tall grass of the meadow and smiled up at the sky. He felt like an integral part of the wilderness when the muffled sound of his wife’s holler came from within the cabin, Wash up for supper!

Sam did not move until the gaps of light between the trees disappeared, and the stars began to shine in the twilight. He waited for the pine tree shadows to extend into the meadow, then stood up before the darkness was complete. He took a deep breath of the warm summer air, whistled merrily, and foot-stomp-danced his way up the porch stairs. He entered the cabin and climbed to the second floor to wash his face and hands. He cupped his calloused hands into the clay basin on the bedroom dresser and splashed himself with the lukewarm water.

Sam dried his face on the belly of his shirt and approached Myrtle in the kitchen. Myrtle cut red apples into thin slices as he entered the room behind her. Sam inhaled the pleasant aroma and removed a small piece of crust from the apple pie set to cool off on the counter. The firm edge was reluctant to break free, and when it broke loose, the plate shifted with a nearly inaudible sound.

Myrtle slapped the pie crust from Sam’s hand to the floor.

It was crust, said Sam.

It’ll be hell to pay, Mr. Heller! said Myrtle.

Ugh, said Sam.

Not before supper, said Myrtle.

Sam crossed the bedroom and went down the steps. Upon descending, he sang a scratchy tune he mulled over beneath the burgeoning stars in the meadow.

Resting supine beneath a pine tree

hear a rustle

hear a bustle

get up, get ready, for a fight

Get em, Cowboy! Myrtle said toward the staircase across the bedroom as Sam descended to the first floor.

It was not cold out, but Sam liked to keep a small fire burning. He enjoyed the tranquil sound it produced, the flickering light, and the scent that reminded him of his childhood. Sam lit the fireplace in the storefront, exited the cabin, and propped the front door open with a rifle. He held the porch railing with both hands, looked over the meadow, and eased himself down into a sitting position on the porch swing; a six-foot-long by two-foot-wide chunk of oak wrapped in chains and attached to each end of the front porch roof. He leaned over and grabbed the banjo from its place on the floor beneath the swing. He threw the banjo strap over his head, adjusted his position to the right side of the swing, and leaned into the chain for support before he finger-picked a familiar rhythm and sang a tune.

Upstairs preparing dinner, Myrtle poured two glasses of red wine. She recognized the rhythm of the banjo strings and hummed along. As she made her way around the table, now filling three cups of water from a clay pitcher, Sam’s voice rose softly through the open window.

In the darkness

a cave called Mercy

but you won’t find it here

Around here you’ll find

best friends of the dead

But in the daylight, I know

she will save my soul

Myrtle extended her head through the upstairs window and sang, Save my darling’s soul, in her sweet and quiet fashion. Sam listened to her voice fade into the starlit sky above the pine trees and continued to pick the banjo strings while she set the table.

Myrtle smiled to herself, thinking of Sam. I can always hear him making his way around whistling, breathing, laughing, or farting, she thought and chuckled. He was her mountain man, the type of man that could survive anything. His icy blue eyes were set tightly beneath long, wiry eyebrows, and his broad nose protruded as if perpetually sniffing his beard, which he kept trimmed and rounded at the bottom, a muddle of black and grey that integrated with a full mustache.

Sam and Myrtle were both raised in coal mining territory, where Sam inherited the hunting store on the bottom story of their cabin. It was the only thing left to him by his parents, deep in the wilderness northeast of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. The property is part of the Appalachian Plateau, ripe with rolling hills, narrow valleys, wooded ridges, and rivers. It is the only place Sam has ever been or cared to be. He developed a profound connection to the wilderness here.

Sam's grandson, Bill, moved into the cabin with him and Myrtle when Bill's father, Chuck, brought Bill to visit nine years ago. It was a few days after September 11, 2001, when they arrived. Chuck departed abruptly without Bill, without leaving a letter, and without telling anyone where he’d gone. Eventually, Bill did receive a letter in his father’s handwriting the following year, stating he joined the Marines and was deployed overseas after basic training. The letter was short. He did not send another, nor did he return, and Bill is now twelve years old.

Why did he go to war? Bill once asked his grandfather, Sam.

Some people do not understand the wilderness, his grandmother, Myrtle said.

Everyone must embrace the wilderness together, said Sam.

Bill didn’t know if he understood the wilderness. However, Sam was teaching Bill a myriad of subjects, and he developed a considerable foundation of scientific knowledge. Sam spoke of the wilderness in the same way he spoke of the universe, with pure happiness. Bill looked forward to finding Sam in the meadow with his wrinkled, squint-eyed-face pressed into his telescope on clear and dark nights. Sam used this time with Bill to explain the function of atoms, comets, and distant stars he liked to call universe farts because they are giant balls of gas. He was a good teacher, skilled in condensing complicated topics and sharing only the essential information necessary for Bill to understand.

Bill is a good student. He wants to learn about the various elements that make up the world and the various events that occur so far away in space. The more he learns, the more he feels like an intimate part of nature. As his understanding of distant phenomenon developed, the microscopic world acquired new clarity as well. Bill struggled through many challenging lessons to arrive where he is, like Sam, feeling grounded in the wilderness, and grateful to spend his life on a planet as beautiful as Earth.

The Possibilities, Sam has often said, looking up at the stars.

The Possibilities, Bill repeats, gazing upward, despite the many misfortunes in his life.

Bill’s mother Rose died from breast cancer when Bill was just two years old. He has only a vague and saddening memory of her humming a melancholy tune. Like Rose, Bill wonders if his father Chuck will not return and if his grandfather and grandmother, Sam and Myrtle will have to continue raising him. He wants to believe his father will be one of the lucky ones in war, but the possibility of never seeing him again feels more realistic than the possibility of his return.

This summer, Bill began taking responsibility for the demanding labor of rural life in the forest. He chopped trees into neat stacks of firewood on the east wall of the cabin. He now walks the mountain trail to town for supplies, mines coal for the cabin’s upstairs furnace, and delivers some at no cost to the elderly neighbors that refuse to leave the deserted mining camp in the mountains. Bill enjoys helping the community in the same way Sam did years ago during World War II.

When Bill’s grandfather, Sam, was a young man, his peers went off to war a short time after Japan bombed the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Sam though, did not fit the military health requirements for combat and was unfortunately not permitted to join his comrades in service. The doc said his heart was too big, or the valves were mixed up, or it had a funny shape. Sam could not comprehend the diagnosis. He was too distracted to pay attention to what the doctor had said, and thus could not recall what was wrong with his heart, just that something was wrong with it, a malfunction that excluded him from assisting in the defeat of the Axis powers. He was often brought to tears by his failure to take arms, and mining coal for neighbors in need made him feel useful throughout the war, easing his disappointment and reducing his shame. After many years spent mining, Sam was fortunate not to develop black lung disease from the coal dust inhalation. Without the presence of Bill’s father to help raise him, and despite its being dangerous and antiquated, Sam encouraged Bill to mine coal for those in need, raising him to be a hardworking, polite young man. Acquiring the responsibility as Bill’s guardian inspired Sam with a new sense of purpose, again enabling him to assist his country at home in a time of war.

Sam’s father, Buck, purchased the meadow when Sam was born. Having acquired ownership of the property with no existing structures, Buck, Sam, and Sam’s mother Peggy slept in a tent beside a campfire for the duration of that first summer. The pleasant weather provided Buck plenty of time to complete the cabin. He did most of the work himself, along with the occasional labor of hunters that were passing through the region, in exchange for food and supplies.

To complete the storefront on the bottom story, Buck removed black locust trees from the thick woods behind the cabin, northern red oak from the lower woods to build the porch, and a dense patch of birch trees near the river to finish the second story. The removal of these particular trees made the river visible from the front porch, which enhanced the beauty of the meadow, making the whole scene appear like something in an outdoors magazine. The cabin was painstakingly assembled, with straw-mud packed into the joints to keep it insulated, weather resistant, and without decay or moisture.

Throughout Sam’s childhood, the cabin size was suitable for himself, his father Buck, and his mother Peggy, thus the upstairs living quarters remain sufficient for Sam, Myrtle, and Bill to live in comfortably now. A large storefront window spans the length of the porch, revealing a stone fireplace in the center of the back wall, straddled by taxidermized deer heads. Through the years, the cabin walls accrued various items. Mostly guns, pictures of hunters knelt beside deceased, or dying animal trophies, and forgotten pairs of socks. As a way of increasing revenue, Sam rents cots for the night to hunters in need of shelter, much like his father Buck did to help pay the land mortgage, and the hunters often set out before daylight, forgetting a pair of holy socks left to dry beside the fireplace overnight.

In the early days, when Sam’s father Buck felt entertained or amused by the hunting guest, he’d say, That man has more sole than a sock with a hole! which Sam now says to Bill when each hunter departs. Bill laughs and enjoys it like Sam did when he was young.

The majority of photos in the cabin are not hung properly, but frameless, and tacked. They are black and white images of men posing beside bloody moose, and enormous wolves that appear to be sleeping, although such majestic animals no longer roam the region, for they have been over-hunted and pushed out by civilization. As Sam’s parents Buck and Peggy did, Bill’s grandparents Sam and Myrtle sell supplies to hunters passing through the valley, and like Sam