IT DON’T MATTER Chapter 19 Always Changes

Changes
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After the latest round of violence I would like to say “It don’t matter” but it does.

It seems that as soon as one episode is over another begins.  It maybe that our family’s success is what draws people to try to get the advantage over us.  

Almost every kind of method of robbing us of our wealth has been tried and has ended up in violence much of the time.  My family is not the type to roll over and let people run over us.

This is the start of 1900s and I hope before this century is over that all of this evil will be put far from the people living at that time.  It would be a sad commentary if things were the same or even worse.  Surely people will have learned to respect each other by then, and not prey on others in some divisive way.

There are so many new inventions today.  I have water in the house, electric power and finally I had a telephone installed.  Then my brother-in –law who is a dealer said for me to get ready for a new car.

He says my buggy mentality is holding me back.  Well maybe so but I am able to get to where I want to go just fine.  

Bessie is attending school.  She isn’t sure she needs to go but is thinking about it.  

Matt has been more obedient since Ma came and straightened out his thinking. Of course he plans to be a great hunter when he gets bigger.  We may allow him to hunt by himself on our forty acres in about another year.

I go out with him and the dogs about once a week, and it is a lot of fun to watch him try to keep up with the dogs.

The widow woman has worked out and we had her move into one of our extra rooms. This gives Nan a chance to get out among women her age and talk about things of interest without the kids interrupting her every minute.

As for me I am satisfied to go down to my little office and watch the people go by. Some are very animated when they talk and even more so when someone disagrees with them.

When it gets real hot, it is nice to go down to the ice house and cool out for a while.  

I think Alice is going to have another baby soon.  Either that or she is putting on a lot of weight in a hurry.  I think Nan should have a talk with her about seeing the doctor about how to not get pregnant so often.

Baby Mark is expressing his likes and dislikes and wants to be more independent.  He sees Matt out playing with the dogs and can’t understand why he can’t rough house with them also.

Every three or four weeks I take the boys out to the ranch to see the cattle and some new horses we have.  I can see it won’t be long before they will want to be cowboys like the hands on the ranch.  

Matt thinks they are the grandest men alive especially at branding time. They let him help brand one calf and he can’t wait until he can help with the entire yearly job.

This brings us to Ma and Pa.  Ma has grown tired of the country life now that the kids are gone except for short visits.  She is casting her eyes toward the town life where the milk is delivered in bottles instead of going to the barn and getting it.

Elle and her husband are moving back but will locate in town and Ma wants to be near “Her Baby.”

Pa is content to live out his days on the farm where he has been for all these years.  He gets up early like he always has and checks to see if everything is running smoothly.

 

The thing is that most of the work there is being done by hired hands and Pa isn’t needed with the hard work anymore.

 

It is hard to admit that your time has passed and the younger generations have taken over.

This is difficult for me   for it concerns the two people I owe my very existence to.  It is going to get serious if some solution isn’t found soon.

Nan suggested that I have Sammie go and talk to Pa and tell him that he needs help at the feed store and the ice house is demanding more of his time as days goes by.  That sounded good to me, I just had to convince Sammie that it was a good idea.

Sammie was debating the issue and I was about to give up when Alice spoke up and said. “Go” and get your folks.  We have a house that is vacant and they can move in there.

The moved entailed a lot arguing about what to take with them.  I took the first load and left it up to Sammie to sort everything out after that.

Thankfully they were settled in by the end of the day.  Sammie finally had to promise to go back and get anything they wanted.  Only then would Pa consent to leave.  

After a few days Pa began to get involved in the workings of the feed store and he liked the ice house especially.  He had a chair in there and would sit and watch the ice freeze or so he said.  I think he just like to be in there where it was cool.   Another thing that helped his transition was he knew almost everyone who traded there.

A salesman came by and just about convinced Sammie that he should put in a butcher shop and a locker for keeping meat frozen.  He explained how it would keep the meat from spoiling and that he could rent the lockers to people who killed their own beef.

Afterward he talked to me about it I researched it and got all the information I could. Since Pa was helping out at the store I suggested that we go to the big city and see what they had to offer in the way setting up both a butcher shop and a locker system.

As soon as Nan and Alice heard about our plans to go to the city, they started to make plans to go also.  They told Elle and the three of them took over the agenda.

I told them to go and do what they wanted to do but me and Sammie had business to take care of.  We went to several lockers and got their opinion of who they thought were the best people to deal with in setting up a plant.

We contacted the one most recommended and they were very helpful.  They suggested that they send someone out to our place and design a plant that would meet out needs now and the future.  By the time they were done explaining their system we were convinced to go ahead with the project.

We were ready to go home but the girls were just getting started with their shopping. Then at night they wanted to go and see the Vaudeville show.

I must admit we had an enjoyable time and experienced some new and tasty food.  We gave them one more day and then it was go home time.

When I saw all the stuff they bought I went down and bought some crates to pack the stuff in and then had to hire a wagon and a couple of strong men to haul them to the train.

They had bought something for everybody even for Jake and his wife and Clayton and Ada.  I said to Nan that you know they don’t live in town any longer don’t you?

She said, “Oh, didn’t we tell you. We girls are going to visit them at the oil fields and will take the things with us.”

I said, “You know I can’t let you be gone for very long don’t you?”

She just laughed and said, ‘You won’t die because you survived while I was getting over the birth of Mark.”

I said, “Somehow that don’t make me feel much better.”

The next day was busy.  The girls packed up all the kids and left on their visit.  

The man, Ralph from the locker manufacture’s arrived and for three days we were busy laying everything out.  It was decided that the new facility be incorporated into the ice house which save quite a bit of money.

He left us with sketches and was off, back to start the actual manufacturing of our equipment.  He said by the time spring was over we would be in business.

We decided Elle’s husband George would be put in charge of this part of the operation. He wasn’t much of a butcher but could handle both sales and the business end.

George kept in contact with Ralph as to when the construction would start and to our surprise he had the construction crew on the way.  

 

They planned to do business with the local merchants as much as possible for this would save a lot of waiting for material and it made for a better relationship with the local people.

Years later I would hear one of the local merchants say I supplied what ever it was for this locker.

After a few days I used the phone to call Nan and said, “Please come home I need you badly.”

She said, “Alright I think our visit is about over, we have talked about everything we can think of.  I’ll see you in two days.  Can you last that long?”

I said, “I think so, but some of the flirty girls are looking better than when you were here.”

She said, “Maybe I better make it tomorrow.”  We had a good laugh at our bantering back and forth and after saying our “I love you” we hung up. I was looking forward to seeing Nan and the kids.

The dogs were missing Matt. They couldn’t understand where he went to, leaving them alone for they went where ever he did.

Some would say “It don’t matter” if dogs are lonely, but it does.