The Clearing in the Woods

If you go wandering in Deep River County Park north of the railroad bridge, you might accidentally stray from the path, inadvertently fight your way through the blackberry thorns, unmindfully duck and weave through the low-hanging branches, coincidentally slog through a natural drainage channel — and all at once find yourself in a wide open clearing.



Or you could do it the easy way, and walk along the tracks until you see the clearing. Then you just have to scramble down the side of the railroad grade, which is steep and rocky, but it's better than blackberries. And at the bottom, there you are: in that magical clearing where the Railroad Elves hold their annual revelry.

We know the clearing must have been made by elves, because it's surrounded by dense forest and yet no trees grow there. Q.E.D.

We know they are Railroad Elves, because it's beside the railroad. Also: they drink spiked punch.


And they've been doing it for a long, long time.


They come here by night — we know it's by night, because they are never seen in daylight — get drunk on their spiked punch and dance their wild dances.

When they can dance no more, they run away on their little two-toed elven feet.


They run out to the soybean field, where they eat every last soybean.


And then they disappear for another year.