How We Got a Farm

I heard a story.

The Old Farmer got a deal on the farmhouse.
He had a growing family. The proposed house was in disrepair. 

An old gentleman lived there. He had an old horse. 

An arrangement was made that the old gent

would continue to live upstairs

and the Old Farmer and his family would live
in the downstairs and renovate as time allowed.
He had his farm! 

 

It was a grand old farmhouse, 

made for entertaining.
With double doors between rooms
that could be opened to make a large space. 

The whole ground floor could be opened 

but for the back room,

which had the huge wood cookstove

 and washtubs 

and a swinging door.

The plaster was coming loose from 

the lathe in several places.
A couple times a large section fell

 and it was luck for no one to be

 under when it happened.

 The Old Farmer's wife,
expecting a child was under one 

such fall, and had moved aside just 

before catastrophe might have struck. 

Over the years new drywall was 

put up and walls were papered. 

The Old Farmer's Wife made her personal project
stripping the paint off the main staircase railing and posts.
It was a beautiful thing of black walnut when done. 

That project took several months.
I can still see her sitting there step after step, 

moving upward as she worked on each piece.