Even If They Don't Ride Horses Anymore

A Better Way. Episode 4

Somehow, when Jacob got the box home and started to gather items to put in it, it just didn’t seem the thing to do. He knew he had to find a better way to pass along their family’s lives to the next generation.

He stepped out on the back porch, screen door closing quietly behind him, as the late morning sun played through the fields stretched before him. The sun was hot, but it was still cool in the shade of the porch. Jacob sat down in the rocker, the old man’s chair as Betty Lou teasingly calls it, and thought for a while. He had been so sure about the box and putting things in it, but it just didn’t seem lasting enough. He picked up his old journal and started to write.

The times are changing, even here, in this dusty town that time seemed to have forgotten not too long ago. The blacktop will soon take the dust away and the automobile will soon take the place of horses. Willie told me the other day that the automobile will change our country and the world. Pretty soon they’ll be telling us we can fly like a bird too! It’s good I guess. Living in the past is futile and you miss so much of the present, and the future, when you do. Jake drew a picture of himself on a horse the other day. He said so he would always remember when we rode horses. He is a sweet child, so smart, and for some strange reason he wants to be just like his grampa.

Jacob remembered when Willie was Jake’s age. Seems like a hundred years ago now, Jacob thought, and he smiled, remembering all the pages from the past. And then he knew. He knew for sure what he was going to do to pass along the family history. He sat a while and thought on it. How he could get it done. What he had to do. What he had to say to those he loved. And that would be the hardest part.

Jacob stood, closed his journal and set it down on the chair. He started down the steps, with his boots making the sound that only boots could on those wooden steps. It was a strong sound, a determined sound, a sure sound, without the creakiness older wood would have had. Willie had built the home he made for his pa with love and Jacob would never forget that. And it was still new, all the love Willie, and Betty Lou, had together put into it still hung on the summer breeze that day when Jacob decided to do what he knew he had to do. He was sure, as sure as the sound of his boots on those wooden porch steps.

Previous Episodes. Even If They Don’t Ride Horses Anymore
Aunt Daisy & Caleb. Episode 1
July 4th, 1900. Episode 2
Keepsakes. Episode 3