Once there was a man and a woman who always wanted a child. They lived in the countryside of Virginia in a house with a large sun room out back. However the house was surrounded by a very large fence, that no-one dared to cross because the big, old, farmer and his wife owned the land. Outside was a patch of lettuce.
    The woman saw it and said to her husband "I need that lettuce for the salad I must make for our family! I must have the lettuce!"
    "I will get the lettuce for you my sweet wife! Anything for you my dear!" hollered the man.
    At midnight the man ran out of the house dressed in a black suit trying not to be seen and ran over to the fence and hopped it like a jackrabbit escaping its prey. He made it over and hastily took all the lettuce he could and brought it back to his awaiting wife.
    She began to prepare the salad the minute he got back, but what he had obtained was not enough. She needed more. So once again he hopped the fence and got three times as much lettuce for his wife. But on the way back over the fence he was caught by the evil farmers wife. She was tall and thin and had and menacing look on her face.
    "How dare you take my lettuce, you thief! You will suffer the consequences for this!" The woman cried.
    "But I was only doing it out of need of my wife. She had to make salad for our family get together and was missing lettuce." replied the man.
    The woman counted to ten trying to calm her anger and then said "If you are telling me the truth, I will allow you to take all the lettuce you need. "She paused for a moment, "but you will have to give me your new born child. I will care for her well."
The terrified man thought over this long and hard.
    He went home and went to bed with his wife to find the farmers wife standing there. The farmers wife took the child and instantly gave it the name of Rhonda.
    Rhonda grew up into the most gorgeous girl in the world. When she
was twelve years old the farmers wife locked her up into her room for fear of that if she went out into the world all then men would be after her. She barred up the door so that the only way you could get in was by the window towards
the back of the room. When the farmers wife wanted to get into the room all she had to do was go outside and place herself beneath the window and yell
    "Rhonda, Oh Rhonda let your hair down to me! "
    Rhonda had beautiful, strong, golden hair. When she heard the sound of the farmers wife all she had to do was stand by the window and let her long hair down for the farmers wife to climb up. The farmer and his wife also had
a son named Ted. After two years of being locked up in the tower, the farmers son got suspicious and wanted to see Rhonda. So one night he went to the window and cried;
    "Oh Rhonda, Oh Rhonda, let your hair down to me!"
    She let her hair down to awaiting Ted.
    The next day he did the same thing.
    "Oh Rhonda, Oh Rhonda, let your hair down to me!"
    She immediately let her hair down. At first Rhonda was frightened when a man came to her room for she had never been introduced to one before. But her and the farmers son soon became good friends. In fact, they became such good friends that when the farmers son proposed to her she said yes.
    She told the farmers son that she would go away with him but she did not know how to get down from her room. She sat and thought a while and then came to a surprising conclusion. She told the farmers son to come back the next day and bring a bundle of silk that she will use to weave a ladder to descend down from the room. He agreed.
    The next morning when the farmers wife came she found out about her sons and Rhonda's engagement and became very angry.
   "I thought I could keep you away from love! I kept you in confinement all those years to save you, but you betrayed me!" Screeched the farmers wife.
    In her furry the farmers wife grabbed a pair of scissors, wrapped
    Rhonda's hair around her arm and cut off all of her beautiful hair. She then banned Rhonda to a pitiful life alone in the desert.
    When her son the farmer arrived and called up to Rhonda's room,
    "Oh Rhonda, Oh Rhonda, let your hair down to me!"
    The farmers wife took the locks of hair and threw them out the window to her son. He climbed up.
    Instead of finding his love Rhonda he found his mother standing there with a wretched look on her face.
    "Ahahahah!" she cried with laughter. "I have fooled you! You thought that your beloved Rhonda would be here, but what you didn't know is that i was here, waiting for your sorry face to show up! I banned Rhonda to the desert where you will never see her again! Ahahaha! I should have thrown. her out years ago, but I felt too sorry for her, her mother needed lettuce and sacrificed her, but now she is gone and I will never ever have to see her again!”
    But what the farmers wife didn't know.
    Rhonda appeared at the window. She said "Now who is the fool! The fool is you farmers wife, for I escaped the desert and came back to my true love! Nothing not even an evil person like you can stop true love!" In her fury she took the scissors and stabbed the evil farmers wife right through the heart. There was an enormous scream and the farmers wife fell to the floor with a thud.
    She leaped at the farmers son and they shared a passionate kiss.
    Then they climbed out the window and rode away.
    The farmer who had heard all the noise climbed back up to see what was going on. What he found was not to his liking. His wife dead, and Rhonda and his son gone. He was left with nothing but his farm and the memories of his wife. He buried his in the cornfield and never found out who the killer was.
    Rhonda and the farmers son however lived happily ever after, and had twins named Sadie and Gregory. They went back only once to visit
    Rhondas' real parents. They had all the lettuce they could eat and then went back to their home in the woods where they would die together happily, and their children would grow up. Sadie, Rhonda's daughter grew hair long Re Rhonda, only brown. She too married a farmers son. Rhonda's son, Gregory, became a lawyer and won many cases. He never got married.
 

The End