Work Text:
The main thing to remember when trouble comes along is that you’ve got to keep moving, keep doing something, because if you just sit around, then you only think about your problems and find new ways they’re going to make life harder, each idea swelling up like breaths into a big unhappy balloon.
For Goofy, this usually took the form of the shore wishes. He would sit with his chin in his hands and look mournfully up at the ceiling and shore wish he had a sandwich, shore wish the creek would start running again, shore wish he had a glass of chocolate milk.
Donald was different. His favorite routine was almost exactly like a marching band approaching from a distance. He would pace the room with his hands in his pockets, beak clamped tightly shut and brow drawn. Presently, the soft sound of webbed feet on the floorboards would be joined by a faint, distant murmuring, or possibly muttering. Then ever so softly a rhythm would begin to emerge, the beat rising and falling in time, but not yet distinct. Finally the lyrics would strike the ear. Lousy ~ stinking ~ stupid ~ starving ~ ta ta ta ta TA TA, I could eat a WHOLE COW. At last, the finale, with crashing cymbals and drums and the brass and off he’d go, a one-man cataclysm of sound and fury and feathers exploding in all directions.
But Mickey… poor Mickey might have had it the worst of all. That was because he just tried so hard to put a brave face on things, tried to keep his chin up, his upper lip stiff, his shoulders back, his nose to the grindstone, his back to the wind and his eye on the ball. The physical strain was terrible. He did his best to be cheerful, easygoing, optimistic, but it became clear over a period of weeks that his good intentions were only leading him to become a little bit of a tyrant. For instance, Donald’s argument on the pointlessness of doing chores when there was no water, no crop and no money was both logical and passionate, but Mickey wouldn’t hear it.
That was why the three of them were mending the fence today. Not much use mending a fence when there are no crops to protect, nothing to keep out and nothing to keep in, but the fence needed fixing and they were going to fix it.
“Oughta be ashamed of yourselves,” Mickey was lecturing, again, as he supported a beam on one skinny shoulder for Goofy to align with the post. “What do you suppose the Harp would think if she came back and saw that the whole place had gone to seed while she was away?”
Goofy looked ashamed but Donald looked down at the hammer and … well, it would be lying to say he didn’t consider it. “The whole place HAS gone to seed. It’s a dump.”
“Well, I…” Mickey squinted, because he couldn’t find an argument for that. “That’s all the more reason. If we just let the place go when things get a little rough, heck, it’s like being ungrateful for all the good times. Besides, just think. When we GET somethin’ to eat, we’ll have worked up a heck of an appetite, huh?” He tried to chuckle, but a stronger soul than his would’ve withered under the looks he was given. The board fell into place and the three of them stepped back to grimly survey their handiwork. Their field was secure. It stretched out before them brown and crisp, like ripe wheat. Except it wasn’t wheat, it was grass, and it was no good for eating. They’d tried.
Mickey was quiet for a long time. When he did speak, his voice was very low. Passionate. Almost violent.
“I’m starving. I’m so hungry I could eat a trough of slop.”
Silence. Goofy nodded slowly. Donald shoved his hands in his pockets. In that moment, Mickey was silently forgiven for all of it, for cleaning the cellar, for turning the soil, for last week’s laundry with no water. They were brothers again.
“I could eat two troughs of slop,” Goofy said kindly.
“Three troughs,” said Donald.
Mickey’s heart swelled with gratitude. He turned to face the others. His voice quivered with brotherly affection. “Wanna go sit where the swimming hole used to be?”
They left side by side by side.