It was just after breakfast. The brothers Adam, Hoss and Little Joe, had gone away already but Ben Cartwright still sat there with his six year old grandson Mitch. Ben wanted to put up his pipe en had had lighted the match already when the youngest Cartwright began to speak.
“Grandpa?”, asked Mitch.
“Yes boy. What do you want to know?”, asked Ben.
“You always say to me that smoking and drinking is bad. Daddy says that too. But why do you smoke a pipe then? That is bad too then, isn’t it?”, the young Cartwright wanted to know.
Ben first looked at the match which was almost out and then at his grandson.
The rancher said, “That is so but I find it so relaxing.”
“Smoking a pipe is relaxing? I do have a strange family”, Mitch said light-hearted.
Ben understood that he had to try it another way, if he wanted to win it from his grandson. Even though he didn’t have much confidence in it.
“Mitch, you do like to play baseball, don’t you?”, asked the rancher.
“Of course”, was the spontaneous answer.
“Well, like playing baseball is relaxing for you, so is pipe smoking relaxation for me”, Ben explained.
For a moment it remained quiet at the table. But then Mitch came with a counter-attack.
“But grandpa, playing baseball is fun because you keep on moving with it and with smoking a pipe not”, he said.
“You are right about that”, Ben said with reluctance.
Though the rancher had a solution.
“Mitch, I promise you that I shall not smoke when you are around. Then you make sure that you don’t break any windows when you are playing baseball”, said Ben.
“That is alright. But still I find that smoking is bad and that goes for a pipe as well”, Mitch exclaimed.
Ben wanted to say something back but couldn’t think of anything. Mitch went smiling and satisfied outside to play. Now his grandson was away Ben finally could smoke his pipe. And he did that too with much pleasure.