Even If They Don't Ride Horses Anymore

A Dream. Episode 16.

Jacob sat down late that evening to write in his journal about how it was so good to be back home with those he loved and in the sweet little home his son and Betty Lou had built for him. Somehow though, he was troubled and thought to himself that he was probably just tired and he best get a good country night’s rest. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he fell fast asleep.

Late August 1903

A gentle summer rain was falling in their part of rural Kansas, so much like the day Jacob and Willie buried Madeline. Today they were burying Betty Lou. They buried her next to Madeline. The two had been the dearest of friends and it just seemed right that they were together again. And again, there was Jacob and Willie, there for each other.

“That should do it, I reckon,” Jacob said as he quietly put down the shovel.

“Jake didn’t want to come,”  Willie whispered into the light breeze holding the drops of rain above the fresh grave. “He just cried and cried.”

“Remember Pa, how they wrote those letters to you and put them in that box for you to read when you got back home from the city. Jake was so sad, he missed you so, and Betty Lou helped him through it. He loves you so Pa, Betty Lou did too. She was a special lady.”

Willie looked over at his pa and saw the tears streaming down Jacob’s face. After a while, Jacob spoke in a whisper too. “Betty Lou was a dear, dear friend to your ma and me. She helped all of us through so many things. She always knew what to do, what to say, what advice to give. I always knew she was there for me.”

Jacob looked at Willie then, through the tears, and Willie saw sadness and love all mixed together on his pa’s face. And then he asked Jacob this, “Pa, I’ve always wondered, through all those years after Ma died, why didn’t you ever ask Betty Lou to marry you?”

“Well, son, the day I got back from the city, from puttin’ pen to paper our family’s history, I had this in my pocket and I thought to give it to her that very day, and then it just didn’t feel like it was the time.”

Willie opened the small box Jacob handed him and exclaimed, “Oh my goodness, Pa! Ma’s wedding ring!”

Jacob just stared at Willie and smiled. “Yep, I had it polished up nice so it’d be extra special like, just for Betty Lou. I was thinkin’ your ma would have been glad to know her dearest friend would have it.”

“But you never asked her to marry you?”

Jacob stared down at the freshly dug plot of ground, moistened by the sweet late summer rain, and replied, “No son, I never did. I reckon, maybe I thought it would change the special friendship we had or maybe I thought she’d say no or maybe I thought she was too independent and it wouldn’t be right for me to tie her down. I reckon I thought all of those things at some time or another and just never felt the time was right.

“I was a foolish old man perhaps, but Betty Lou always said that I would know what to do when the time comes and, I never felt it had come, though I did love her so.”

And then, with buckets of tears falling down his cheeks, Jacob turned to Willie and said, “I don’t know what I will do without her Willie, I just don’t know.”

Willie put his arm around his pa and hugged him. Father and son stood there together until the rain had stopped and the setting sun painted the rural Kansas sky orange and red and purple. As the sun finished setting and a soft breeze gently rustled the trees, Willie handed back to Jacob the box holding his ma’s wedding ring. When he put it back into his father’s hand, Willie quietly told him, knowingly, “If you had asked Betty Lou to marry you, she would have said yes.”

Jacob turned to Willie and gave him a wondering look. Willie knowingly said again, “She would have said yes.”

Jacob smiled and put the ring back into his pocket. Then Jacob hugged his son and together they walked through the fields of the Strong family farm back to the house.

And all of a sudden Jacob awoke with a great start, crying out, She can’t be gone! No, no, no, not yet, not yet! And then he realized, in that dark house well before dawn, it had only been a dream.

Previous Episodes. Even If They Don’t Ride Horses Anymore
Aunt Daisy & Caleb. Episode 1
July 4th, 1900. Episode 2
Keepsakes. Episode 3
A Better Way. Episode 4
Unfinished Business. Episode 5
Looking Down That Road. Episode 6
Not Looking Back Any More. Episode 7
The Wheels of Time Turn. Episode 8
The Blue Box. Episode 9
It’s Time to “Bring It.”Episode 10
Another Day Far From Home. Episode 11
Time Marches On. Episode 12
Getting Ready to Go Home Again. Episode 13
Just Like He Said He Would. Episode 14.
Thinking Better of It. Episode 15