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A quote: “Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love, thou art every day my Valentine!” ~~ Thomas Hood
I’ll start with a story …
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It was after dinner that I looked up to see my son leaning against the doorframe of my woodshop, watching but distracted.
“What’s up son?”
“I dunno, I mean … dad … I’m just… there’s this girl …” He both blushed and looked tortured.
Uh oh. My wife was right. Darn. I remember. 14 is a very cruel age.
She talked to him, he helped her with history, she helped him in English. How did he let her know he wanted more? Flowers? Candy? What?
“What’s her passion, son? Find out something she’d love to do but hasn’t that you could share with her.”
He looked blank, then his eyes lit up. He grabbed a piece of wood from my scrap box, grinning at me.
Later I saw him out in the paddock teaching a red-haired girl how to ride. A couple of months after that, they would head out on the horses, picnic basket packed.
Years later we celebrated, as they took their vows and cut the cake with the little carved horse on top.
Now I look up to see my grandson leaning on the doorframe of my woodshop.
Hope his carving skills are up to the task.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
GWB says: Excellent story, Darleen.
The little wooden horse wasn’t as clearly carved as it must have been all those years ago. More than a century of hands lovingly rubbing it will take its toll. But it’s still clear enough to be the horse some number of greats carved so long ago. It was handed down from each mother to her first born son. Then given by that son to his intended. Some had walked away when offered a little wooden carving of no great monetary value, instead of a diamond ring. Those young men were fortunate, and learned a lesson in judging people. It twice was given to the second son when the first born died in battle before producing an heir.
The young woman held it to her breast, believing she could feel the love invested in it through the years. Now it would be hers to give to the son she carried, to give to the woman he found to love. And she wept for joy as the sun rose on this new place, full of danger and discovery, threatening yet full of promise.
Cameron says: We had fled home as fast as we could, taking only our clothes and little else. What rest we got was quickly cut short when we heard our pursuers. My brother had a dull haunted look about him.
We were fleeing the Baron’s men but sooner or later we would be run down. I only hoped we got far enough away that maybe someone would save us.
And suddenly, we were surrounded. It was the Vagheri; the tribe of men who claimed these lands. My heart dropped as they approached us. I put my brother behind me in a feeble attempt to protect him.
Their leader searched me and took my dagger. And then his hand closed around the toy horse that my father had given to me. The man’s eyes widened as if he’d been bitten. He let me go and softly asked “Where did you get this horse?”
“My father,” I husked. “Please, it’s all I have left.”
The look he gave me was kind now. “I gave it to your father when he saved my life. I acknowledge this debt. Come; you and your brother are hungry and we need to get away from the Baron’s men.”
It was a little wooden horse, carved in the traditional style, but of native wood. What a perfect symbol of our new life together, here on a distant world the Kitties wanted settled to prevent Tchiador incursions into this part of space.
I fingered its mellow warmth, the delicate grooves that gave the figure definition. “It’s beautiful.”
We looked at the strange stars overhead, so different from the familiar constellations we’d learned back on earth. The computer could have easily told us what they were, using designations from any of a thousand star catalogs compiled by humans and Kitties — but it would’ve spoiled the moment to have a machine voice reciting alphanumeric designations, given that none but the brightest of stars from Earth’s night sky would’ve been visible here.
Better to just look up in awe at the wonders of nature, like our far distant ancestors at the beginning of humanity, when everything was bright and new.
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