Complete The Story: Story 1 of 198

At first, we thought the black liquid was oil, that we'd struck it rich and that we'd be able to retire and live in leisure. We actually started writing down all the ways we'd spend the money.  Our first choice was of course to make the 150 mile trip from Hannibal to the small little piece of land near Martinsburg, Iowa we simply knew as "Granddad's Farm."  Pa had taken a job on a packet steamer five years prior. We came to Hannibal in 1866, the Civil War still fresh in the minds in those who had fought it. Especially those who had lost. Pa had avoided the draft, mainly due to the fact that Ma succumbed to a fever right as I was getting to know her and long before Jack was even aware of his own existence. Let alone her's. We were Yankees in a land that still thought, behaved and lived as confederates. Bitter at the loss of slaves, reluctant a word not near strong enough to describe the utter hatred at the thought, now a reality of being part of the union. We mourned the death of President Lincoln. Something as Iowans that made us normal. Something as Missourians that made us different. Drastically different.

When Pa mentioned going back to Iowa, there was only one word I didn't care to hear him use.

"Visit." He had said.   Go back and "visit" Granddad.  I hated the word visit. It suggested that after the three day journey to Iowa and spending sometime with Granddad that we'd eventually make our way back to Hannibal.  We were rich now.  Pa didn't need the Packet Steamer anymore. Why make the trips back and forth to St. Louis and Keokuk if he didn't have to? He could buy a plot of land near Granddad's, farm it and spend as much time with Jack and I as he wanted.  Pa didn't see things that way though.  He valued education and be it a cruel and unreasonable fate, Hannibal had built its first on the corner of north and sixth.  The building stood tall, firm and beautiful.  As far as Pa was concerned, especially with the money we'd now be getting from the oil he'd discovered, if I wasn't the first, I'd be one of the first girls to ever attend. I had just turned eleven. Always happy to turn a year older, the idea of fourteen, now three years away, I dreaded. I dreamed of many things I'd do when I'd get older. I dreamed of getting married. I dreamed of having children. I dreamed one day I'd travel further south and see the great ocean that Granddad had told me about.  Funny enough, I even dreamed of one day being a school teacher myself. I taught Jack the alphabet and his numbers, and I read to him at night. Yet one day entering Hannibal High School as what might be the lone female freshman, was no dream of mine.

"It's a shame that the railroad isn't complete yet." I can remember Pa saying.

 The railroad had came into Hannibal the same way I had came into Martinsburg, Iowa in the year of 1859. Peculiar enough the same year that oil, real oil unlike the kind we'd discovered had been found in western Pennsylvania.  It'd be a long time before the rail would connect to Ottumwa. A town Granddad went to once a month, to get food and supplies. A two hour journey compared to the 18 hour journey it'd take us over the course of three days on horse and buggy.  I was 45 years old in 1904, the first time I ever saw an automobile in person. Pa had shown me one in a drawing years prior and had referred to it as a horseless buggy.  The man at the fair had said to all of us in the crowd that it was six times faster than any other form of transportation known to man. That anyone in their right mind would gladly trade in their horses for one. I only wish Pa could have been there to have let that man clearly know different.  Neither Pepper or Salt, our two horses were thoroughbred but to Pa, Jack and I they were better than anything Karl Benz or anyone else would ever invent.  We weren't going by train on a rail line yet to be laid nor were we going in an automobile yet to be built. We were going by horse and buggy, but we were going, and that's all that mattered.

Pa got me excited at the thought of getting my hair done like the fancy ladies we'd sometimes see. Jack's teeth had already began to rot at the thought of all the candy Pa told him he could now get when we visited the general store.  He tickled himself something pink at the thought of dressing like one of the sophisticated gentlemen he'd tell me about when the packet steamer made its trips to St. Louis.  I even caught him in the stable later on that night explaining to Salt and Pepper all of the carrots, oats and apples they were now going to get. When I teased him about it saying that the horses couldn't understand him, he begged to differ that they could.

"How bout I put some hay on one side of em and some carrots on the other." He said to me. "Then you tell me if they don't know the difference."

That night I slept better than I ever had before.  Than I ever have since for that matter.  The idea of being rich and being able to do what we pleased when we pleased was very appealing.  I dreamed that night of seeing Granddad. Of telling him all about the oil and of how I knew that between the two of us, we'd somehow convince Pa to forget about life in Hannibal and stay in Martinsburg.

Pa had Jack and I in Church at Trinity Episcopal every Sunday and I suppose if I thought hard enough I could remember a few other sermons throughout the years. It was the one the Sunday after we found out that it wasn't oil we had discovered after all, that I'll always remember most.  Reverend Stevenson, who spoke with such conviction talked to us of how the true depth of happiness could not be found in wealth. As much as I usually revered Reverend Stevenson, on that day I thought of him a dunce.  I sat in the pew, my arms folded, my face frowned. Money meant getting out of Hannibal. It meant getting to see Granddad. It meant getting to eat steak at the fancy restaurant where the politicians and other important people ate.  Maybe to Reverend Stevenson none of that seemed all that special, but to me, it was.

Granddad died before we ever saw him again.  Pa promised that even though the oil deal hadn't worked out that we'd make it back to Granddad's again. Someday, he always claimed. Someday, a day that would never come.

With the railroad now making its way all over the country, it wasn't long before Pa left the Packet Steamer and joined the light and power plant.  Of all the plans Pa had set forth the night we thought we'd discovered oil, I'll be damned if the only one that came forth was me entering Hannibal high school in the fall of 1873. I graduated in 1877 and attended Hannibal College the following year to study law.  Arabella Mansfield may have been the first woman admitted to the Iowa bar, but she was also thirteen years older than me. Another one of those of many, "nothing you can do about it, out of your control" things.

The year is now 1912, I am 53 years old. Far from the 11 year old girl I was in 1870.  Jack who celebrated his forty-eighth birthday in February has spent the last six years in Belfast, Ireland. He wrote to me to let me know that he'll be making his way home in April.  He'll go from Belfast to Queenstown, a journey more than 100 miles than that of Hannibal to Martinsburg. Then he'll board what he says the world is calling the finest ship ever built.  The Titanic they call it. Finished in May of last year.  Supposed to arrive to New York on either the seventeenth or eighteenth of April.  He wasn't sure of which day.

In all of these years, I've still never seen the ocean. I would have seen Jack off when he left six years ago, but I was busy with a case in St. Louis. Even though I told him that I'd be waiting for him right here when I arrived, I think I will travel to New York and meet him at the port.  The last I saw him his hair had started to grey. He reminded me so much of Granddad. I can only imagine he looks more like him now than he did then.  After all this time, I still like to close my eyes and imagine what Granddad's face would have looked like had the oil been real and we'd have gotten to pay him a surprise visit.  I'll know what his face would have looked like when I see the surprise on Jack's face when he sees me this April in New York.

We have all sorts of plans.  Visiting Pa's grave, visiting Ma's and visiting Granddad's. I want to show him the courthouse I practice in here in St. Louis.  Take him around this great city, I have come to call home.  I suppose he'll probably want to venture back to Hannibal. He always liked it more than I ever did.