Universe Falls

Chapter 21: Irrational Treasure

"Grunkle Stan, what's so bad about Pioneer Day anyway?" Dipper asked incredulously. "It seems harmless enough."

"Yeah, and look at all the old-timey cool stuff you can do!" Mabel added, pointing to several of the festival booths. "Candle dipping, gold panning, and-" She stopped short upon spotting a man who was being officially married to a woodpecker. "And... that, I guess."

"Oh yeah. I remember reading about this," Dipper said, recalling it from a passage in the journal. "Apparently it used to be legal to marry woodpeckers in Gravity Falls."

"Oh it's still legal," the man said as he passed by with his new woodpecker bride. "Very legal."

"See what I mean? This holiday brings out the crazy in everyone in Gravity Falls," Stan said with disdain. "And that's saying something considering how crazy everyone in this town is already."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but we actually agree with you on this one, Stan," Pearl said as the Gems, Steven, and Connie arrived. Since the young Gem was quite enthusiastic about any sort of festivity, he had invited Connie to join him in heading into town for her first celebration of it and he had even managed to convince the Gems to come along as well, despite their longtime sour opinion on it. And, after the kids exchanged a brief round of greetings, Steven was the first to speak up in defense of Pioneer Day.

"Oh, come on, you guys!" the young Gem exclaimed. "Pioneer Day is great! It's like we've stepped into some weird alternate dimension where people ride horses instead of cars and don't bathe! You gotta admit that's pretty cool."

"Uh, Steven? It's not so much that we stepped into an... alternate dimension then that we stepped back in time," Connie corrected with a good-natured smile. "Not literally, of course, but still."

"Whoa... Still cool!" Steven quipped in amazement.

"Ugh, this is almost as boring as Pioneer Day itself," Amethyst groaned. "Can we go yet?"

"I'm already way ahead of you three on that one," Stan spoke up, already preparing to take his leave. "I've already stomached enough Pioneer Day for one lifetime. And if you two come back to the shack talking like these people, you're dead to me," he coldly remarked to the twins, who exchanged a sly grin and proceeded to do just that.

"There's a carpetbagger in the turnip cellar!" Dipper proclaimed, taking up a western accent and making over exaggerated arm motions.

"Well, hornswabber my haversack!" Mabel exclaimed heartily.

"Oh! I wanna try!" Steven bounced up and down on the balls of his feet before doling out the extent of his "old-timey speak". "Um... Ya'll!"

This easily elicited a laugh from Dipper, Mabel, and Connie, but Stan and the Gems were nowhere near as amused. "Dead to me!" the conman reiterated as he stormed off, not bothering to stick around a moment longer.

"So... can we leave now?" Amethyst repeated her previous question to Garnet and Pearl.

"Unfortunately, no," the white Gem sighed. "You know how Pioneer Day is. Since the people of Gravity Falls get so into celebrating it, they usually completely abandon modern common sense and safety practices. And even if they decide to disregard those things for an entire day, that doesn't mean we should."

"We need to stick around to ensure public safety," Garnet explained much more simply. "The last thing we want is a repeat of Pioneer Day 1968."

"There were so many fish..." Pearl cringed, lost in the unpleasant memory.

"Oh, so is that why you guys don't like Pioneer Day?" Connie asked the Gems.

"Nah. We'd still watch out for the people of Gravity Falls even if it wasn't for dumb old Pioneer Day," Amethyst said, her tone bored.