Welcome to another adventure from the Thousand Acre Woods deep within Trollheim of the NJ Pine Belt! Tales Chronicled by Jonathan Hulton. That's me. In our tale, we find out ome people just can't get to their point at our expense.

I was walking with Bosco on the path next to the cable car line to the siding that the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company used to load their bricks onto the Tuckerton line. Shuffling past the men who were piling the bricks out of the cable cars for the others who were waiting to load them on the train, Pops was waiving me down in a hurry as he fought to keep his balance. While sweating, he continued to wave his hat.

I waved back to him, and he smiled before tripping on a brick and catching himself before he fell. But he dropped his hat. He had trouble picking it up. He kicked it before the wind caught it. He swirled with it a few times until he managed to get it back on his head. He smiled and waved at me again.

"Hè, Pops."

"After my midday meal, which was scrumptious but a little tart; not my wife, though her cooking has not been the same lately since her brother moved in with us."

"How so?"

"She finds him distracting. As she is adding her herbs or salt, he keeps talking or interjecting at the wrong time. Needless to say, everything is too salty, or just too in general…" Pops rambles. "He just rambles on and on all day without making his point. Take myself for example: I know how to get to the quick of the matter."

"Yes, will you be getting there soon?" I said as I heard the whistle coming up from the shore. "I need to catch the train."

"Yes, will you be getting there soon?" I said as I heard the whistle coming up from the shore. "I need to catch the train."

"Take Great Expectations; I just finished it, one of Dickens's best commentaries on the fallacies of wealth and its blindness to the condition of poverty beyond its penury to reveal who is truly destitute of spirit and happiness. Some people go on and yammer about a tale without ever revealing the real point of the matter, though I can get to the real meat of the work in a succinct summary that will show you the true soul of the work."

Bosco had already crossed his arms and begun to nap.

"I know; you have to excuse me…" I tried saying when he stopped for air. I heard the train just passing the pond at the southern end of the cedar swamp from the Disappearing Pond. I had only two minutes before it arrived.

"Oh, my brother-in-law, his wife couldn't take his constant jabbering about the subtleties of the various hues of blue in the sky—but back to my point, my wife's cooking is off and my stomach has been a bit sour. You know going to bed with a sour stomach is a surefire way to invite mares when the moon is high into your bed, which might be good since my wife has been frigid since her brother moved in…"

I was quite tense as I looked left and then right over his shoulder as I was noticing the men had their car halfway full as he fought to keep eye contact with me as he kept talking about something I lost all sense of.

"Did you hear me, boy?"

"Yes, dolphins."

"The secret to pasta is tomatoes grown in acidic, sandy soil, like we have here in the Pines."

"I'm sorry, I need to be on that-"

They were just sliding the door shut as other men were sweeping up the siding. I heard the pressure release from the boiler before I saw the first puffs, before I heard the wheels buck before engaging.

"OK, let me get to what I ran the whole way from Trollheim to tell you. Enough about my wife and her brother; therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief."

"OK."

As the 2:15 train was pulling away, Pops continued, "Bjorn has asked you to meet him at Whiting's Station at 2:20."

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