A Path Less Taken - 1. Chapter 1 - A Path Less Taken

It was Halloween, which happened to fall on a Saturday this year. My husband and I decided to take our daily walk after lunch, rather than after dinner, so we’d be home when the trick-or-treaters began to arrive. Fortunately, it was cool enough for us to do it at this time of day, because the days were much cooler now.

Ben and I had met after college and got married when I was twenty-six and Ben was a year older. We’ve been happily married for three years now and we took a walk every evening to stay in shape and spend a little quality time together. We had a fixed route that we followed religiously, because we speed-walked the first portion of the route to burn off calories, and then the last part we’d slow down to a normal walking pace in order to cool down.

We lived in the country, so it wasn’t as if we could walk around the block, or even a few blocks to do this, so we took advantage of the road that ran in front of our house instead. Since it curved around until it intersected with the road that ran behind our property. We would then take that road for a short distance and then return using a dirt path that meandered through our property until it ended up at our barn. The previous owner had used it for his tractor, and his sons rode their dirt bikes and four-wheelers over it in the warmer weather and their snowmobiles in the winter.

The house we lived in had been built in the late 1800s but had been renovated and modernized throughout the years, and for most of that time it had been part of a working farm. We purchased the land with the house, since it came as a package deal, but we let another farmer hay the fields so the property wouldn’t become overgrown. We would occasionally take walks through those fields as well, in addition to our daily walk, but other than that it was merely a buffer zone between us and our neighbors.

After changing into a pair of running shorts and a tee-shirt, we put on a pair of half-socks before slipping on our athletic shoes and starting out. Things were going well and fairly normally until we turned onto the dirt path that led back to the barn. The path seemed to be more overgrown than the previous day and we couldn’t imagine how it could have happened in such a short amount of time. However, we continued on, but when we reached a spot where we could see the barn, we noticed it was unpainted and no longer the lovely red color it had been since before we’d purchased the property. When we turned to head toward the house, it also looked in worse shape than when we’d started our walk, and the yard was badly overgrown as well.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Ben.

“I have no idea, but it’s more than a little strange.”

“Caleb, it’s damn near impossible. How can everything change so drastically in the time it took for us to complete our walk?”

At that moment, a man on a horse-drawn wagon came up the road and turned onto the other end of the path leading up to the barn. We also noticed the road was no longer paved.

“Can I help you fellas?” he asked gruffly. He was as tall as us, but much more broadly built, and we could see that he had salt and pepper hair sticking out from under the hat he wore.

“Yes, we appear to be lost,” I replied.

“I see, but why are you runnin’ around in just your under garments?”

Apparently, this type of clothing wasn’t worn wherever we were now.

“We aren’t sure,” Ben responded. “We just came to while lying on the ground a little while ago. We were a short way up this dirt path and this was what we were wearing. Can you please tell us where we are?”

“Yep, you’re on my farm.”

“I know that, but where exactly is your farm located?”

“You fellas must have taken a wicked blow to the head if ya don’t know where you are. You’re in Summit County, Ohio.”

That part was consistent with what we remembered. We lived near the city of Barberton, which is located in Summit County, just west of Akron.

“What’s the date?” Ben followed.

“Why it’s October 31^st.”

“What year?”

“What? Ya mean ya don’t know what year it is either? It’s 1915.” He hesitated before he spoke again. “One of you fellas aren’t named Rip Van Winkle, are ya?” He released a nervous chuckle after asking this.

“No, but I can understand why you might think that,” I replied.

“Do you remember anything, such as your names?”

“Yes, he’s Ben and I’m Caleb Webster,” I replied.

Ben had offered to change his name when we got married for a couple of reasons. First of all, his parents had disowned him when they discovered he was gay, and second, his surname had been Dahmer and he got tired of people asking if he was related to Jeffrey Dahmer.

“Are ya brothers or cousins?” he followed.

“Brothers,” Ben quickly offered. He understood that being gay in this time period might be even more reviled than how his parents had reacted about him being gay.

“Yeah, you look like brothers,” he agreed.

Others had also suspected that we were brothers, because we both had black hair, brown eyes, and bore a resemblance to one another. It worked to our advantage in this situation.

“I’m Levi Starkweather and I think I should take you fellas to see the doctor. The thing is, it will take a couple of hours to get there and a couple more hours to get back, so we’ll have to wait ‘til mornin’ to do that. You can stay here ‘til then and ya can have supper with my family tonight and breakfast with us in the mornin’, but you’ll hafta sleep in the barn.”

“That’s fine. It’s better than sleeping outside, especially dressed like this, because I’m sure there will be dew on the ground by morning,” Ben responded. He assumed this because it always happened at this time of year.

“Yep, so I guess I’d better find somethin’ more for ya fellas to wear, but I’ve got to unhitch the horse and put him out to pasture first. I’m just getting back from taking my sons over to the neighbor’s farm so they could help with the barn raisin’. I helped out for a bit while I was there, but I have chores to do and couldn’t stay any longer, but the boys wanted to help them finish up. They said they’d walk home in time for supper.”

“That’s very neighborly of you and your sons.”

“Yep, we all help each other around this neck of the woods. Speakin’ of my boys, you two are about the same size as the oldest two and I think they might have some extra clothes that will fit you. I’ll go get them, cuz I can’t have ya runnin’ around here in just your under garments. I don’t wanna upset my missus or daughter if they was to see you runnin’ around like this. Just stay in the barn until I get back, cuz it might cause them to have the vapors if they see a stranger with hardly nothin’ on.”

Fortunately, Ben and I had read enough stories written in the 1800s to know that having the vapors meant they might faint. We did as he requested and went into the barn as he headed up to the house. He returned about ten minutes later carrying two pair of bib overalls and a couple of flannel shirts, and none of those items were in very good condition.

“Try these on,” he urged as he handed the clothes to us. “You’ll have to wear your slippers, though, cuz we don’t have any extra boots.”

“Shouldn’t we wash up before we put these on?”

“I suppose you could use the horse’s trough to splash some water on your face and wash your hands.”

Obviously, these people weren’t big on personal hygiene and didn’t bath frequently or thoroughly. At first, I thought his body odor was due to the fact that he’d been working all day, but I noticed there was a bit of an odor on the clothes he gave us as well. I suppose they didn’t wash their clothes very often either, so the odor clung to each garment. We didn’t argue with Levi, however, and used the horse’s water trough to wash off a bit before we put on the clothes he gave us, not that the water helped very much without soap.

While we waited, we checked out the barn to see where we’d be sleeping later. They must have done their own haying for whatever animals they had besides the horse, because the hay mow was filled with long strands of loose hay. We weren’t used to seeing hay stored this way, because the farmer we let mow our fields baled the hay after it was cut down. I’m sure it will make a more comfortable bed than sleeping on the ground or on bales of hay, as long as it doesn’t cause us to itch.

Besides checking out the barn, we also talked about our current situation. “What are we going to do?” Ben asked. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“I agree, but how are we going to get back to our century? That’s more than a hundred years in the future.”

“Do you think we might have crossed through an invisible portal without knowing it? If that’s what happened, maybe we can walk back down the dirt path while heading in the opposite direction to get back.”

“I don’t think we’ll have time to do that now, since Levi’s sons will be coming back soon and Levi will be coming to get us so we can eat with them. Do you think we’ll be able to do it after dark?”

“Sure, if there’s enough moonlight to see by.”

“Ok, let’s try that then.”

I don’t know how long we’d been discussing this before we heard voices coming from outside. We didn’t go out to see who was talking and merely stayed in the shadows while looking out the open barn doors. That’s when we spotted four young men whose ages probably ranged from fourteen to twenty and suspected they must be Levi’s sons. They didn’t stop and merely continued walking up to the house, and Ben and I remained in the barn until Levi came down to get us a short time later.

“Come on up to the house with me for supper. I’ll introduce ya to my family before we sit down to eat.”

“Thank you. We appreciate you doing this for us,” I responded.

“Like I said afore, we tend to help each other out in these parts.”

When we reached the house, he led us inside and we went directly to the dining room. We could smell the food and the aroma made our stomachs begin to rumble, since it was also our normal dinnertime. The table was set with all of the basics and each family member was standing behind the chair where they were going to sit.

“This is Ben and Caleb Webster,” Levi told the others. “Ben and Caleb, this is my wife, Priscilla, my daughter, Anne, my eldest son, Woodbury, my next eldest son, Oliver, my third son, Abner, and my youngest son, Simon. You two can take the two open seats and we’ll say grace before we sit down to eat.”

Priscilla and Anne would both have been considered ‘buxom’ during this period. Priscilla’s hair was starting to turn grey and hung loosely down to her shoulders. It was a bit disheveled and didn’t appear as if she’d brushed it recently. Anne was merely a younger version of her mother, but without the grey hair and she obviously took more care with her appearance. Woodbury and Simon, the oldest and youngest sons, had black hair like their dad, at least before it started turning grey, while Oliver and Abner had brown hair like their mother and sister. I suspect Anne was probably the middle child, born between the oldest and youngest pair of boys.

Levi chose Woodbury to say grace, and then we all sat down at the table to eat. Levi picked up a platter with meat on it, took a piece and passed it along to his wife, and then he did the same with a bowl full of boiled potatoes. There was one final bowl with green beans that he also passed along, and we all took a small share before passing the item along to the next person. They also circulated a plate stacked with slices of homemade bread and a crock filled with butter.

As we were eating, Levi’s sons asked how we came to be on their property and what happened to us, and we gave them the same answers that we’d told their father. Then, Ben asked them a question.

“Have you noticed any other strangers in the area who didn’t know how they got here?”

“Not that I can recollect,” answered Levi, and the others agreed that they hadn’t either. “Why do you ask?”

“I thought if there was a man or group of men that robbed others then they might drop them off in the same place afterward.”

“Ah, I see,” he mused momentarily, and then he turned toward his sons. “Are you boys all done with the barn raisin’?”

“Yes, Pa,” answered Woodbury. “It’s mostly done, but there are a few minor issues that still need to be completed, but Mr. Thatcher and his sons can take care of what’s left.”

To our surprise, Woodbury’s manner of speaking was much more refined than his father’s conversational technique. I’m not sure if this meant he’d attended school or if one of his neighbors had been a good influence on him.

“I’m going to be takin’ Ben and Caleb into Barberton to see Doc Adams in the mornin’, so let me know if you want me to pick up anything for ya while I’m in town. I reckon I’ll be gone for more than half of the day.”

After we finished eating, Ben and I offered to help Priscilla wash the dishes.

“Don’t be silly,” Levi stated. “Anne will help her take care of that. We’ll go out and sit on the porch and let our vitals settle.”

Ben and I had nearly forgotten that we were now back in a period where the men were in charge, the women were subservient, and the children were to be seen, not heard. The women were basically restricted to having children, fixing meals, and taking care of the household. I hope no woman from our century accidentally wanders through the same portal we did, because I’m certain she won’t be ready to deal with the way things are here.

After we went outside, Ben and I sat on the porch and chatted with Levi and his sons. Our hunches about his son’s ages was pretty much spot on, a fact that we discovered when each one told us a little about himself. On the other hand, we were unable to answer many of their questions and merely explained that we couldn’t remember more than our names after coming to on their property and meeting their father.

As it started to get dark, Levi stood up and made an announcement. “We’d better turn in now, cuz we’ll be gettin’ up with the chickens in the mornin’. Will you two be ok in the barn?”

“Yes, we’ll be fine.”

“Pa, would it be all right if we let them use two of the extra hides while they’re sleeping?” asked Woodbury. “It’s prob’ly going to get pretty cold tonight, especially in the barn. There are gaps in the boards that the wind will blow through, even if they close the barn doors.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea. We don’t want them havin’ any more problems than they’re already dealin’ with.”

Woodbury and Oliver then went inside the house and each one came back carrying a hide. One appeared to be from a bear and the other from a large wolf.

“This hide,” Oliver told us as he handed me the wolf hide, prob’ly won’t cover either of you, but you can fold it in half and use it for your head.”

“And you can put this one over both of you and it should keep you warm,” Woodbury added as he handed Ben the bear hide.

“We’d like to thank both of you for thinking of this. It’s greatly appreciated,” I offered.

We then headed to the barn, piled enough hay to serve as a mattress, and then we used the other two items as Woodbury and Oliver had suggested. We didn’t go directly to sleep though, since we weren’t used to going to bed this early, so we watched the windows of the house until we saw the lanterns and candles snuffed out. We waited another half hour after that to give them time to fall asleep, and then I spoke.

“Ok, let’s walk back down the path so we can see if we pass through that portal, or whatever it was, again. I hope we can get back to our own time and not end up stuck here.”

“Yeah, me too, but do you think it will work?” asked Ben.

“We won’t know unless we try.”

We ended up walking all the way to the end of the dirt path and nothing happened, so we turned around and walked back to the barn.

“What if we can’t find a way back to our time? It will be kind of creepy if we end up having to live here, because it will be like living with ghosts. These people are just shadows from the past and they’re probably all dead by now, because even a person born this year would be over a 100-years-old in our time.”

“Yes, I’ve thought about that too. I was kind of uneasy having dinner and chatting with the Starkweathers tonight, because I knew that where we come from they’re probably all dead by now.”

“Yeah, I know, and I’ve thought about some other things too. What if we accidentally do something that affects the future? We might end up changing the lives of the people we know and love, and not just for the better either. We might inadvertently do something that prevents our parents or grandparents from meeting each other and getting married and that would mean we’d never be born!”

“Then I hope we find a way back soon.”

“Yes, we’ll have to keep trying until we do.”

Now that we’d filled our mind with these terrible thoughts, we stretched out on the hay, put our heads on the wolf hide, and covered ourselves with the bearskin. I cuddled with Caleb as we attempted to fall asleep, which didn’t happen easily or anytime soon.

Levi sent Simon to the barn to wake us the following morning, and he told us to come up to the house to eat breakfast with them. We thanked him and then reluctantly shook the cobwebs from our brains, rubbed the sleep from our eyes, and stretched before crawling out from under the bearskin. It was chilly once we were standing up, so we walked briskly to the house so we could go inside where it would, hopefully, be warmer.

When we finished eating, we followed Levi down to the barn and he whistled for the horse. It came running and Levi fed it a carrot. It was obviously the positive reinforcement he used to get the horse to come to him whenever he whistled. As soon as the horse had eaten the carrot, Levi hitched it up to the wagon. Once that was taken care of, he told us to hop on and he’d take us to see the doctor.

“One of you fellas can ride up here with me,” he said indicating the seat at the front of the wagon where he would sit and use the reins to guide the horse. “The otha one will have to ride back there,” he added while using his thumb to point toward the area behind the seat.

Although we didn’t feel that we needed to see the doctor, since we knew what had brought us here, it would allow us to look around the area a bit so we could better evaluate our current situation. Besides that, we’d never ridden in a horse-drawn wagon before and thought it might be interesting.

“Ben, you can sit up there with Levi and I’ll ride back here,” I offered.

“Ok, and we’ll switch places on the way back.”

“Ah, I figured you fellas might wanna stay in town,” Levi stated while looking mildly concerned.

“But we don’t have any money,” I quickly responded.

“The woman that runs the boardin’ house might let you do some odd jobs in exchange for your room and board.”

“Oh, ok, I suppose we could try that then.”

After starting out, we quickly discovered the wagon we were riding in was called a buckboard. Although the seat Ben and Levi were sitting on had a leaf spring to lessen the impact of riding over the rough terrain, that wasn’t the case where I was sitting. The floorboards flexed and ‘bucked’, hence the name of the vehicle, so anyone riding in back got jostled around worse than those riding on the seat.

Along the way, we saw several men riding horses, and when we got closer to the village, we saw a couple of other men driving some of the first automobiles that had been produced.

“Doc’s got one of those new-fangled contraptions, but it scares the horses and other animals so we prefer to come to him, instead of havin’ him come to us.”

Eventually we reached the doctor’s house, and once he let us in, we discovered he had a room set aside to use with his patients.

“Doc, this is Ben and Caleb Webster – Ben and Caleb, this is Doc Adams.” Ben and I said hello and shook hands with the man.

Doc Adams was older than Levi and completely grey, and he was shorter than Levi as well. Doc was dressed in a pair of slacks, rather than overalls, a white shirt with full length sleeves, and a dark vest. He also wore a pair of wire-rimmed eyeglasses.

“These fellas showed up at my place with hardly anything on and they didn’t know where they was or even what year it is. I thought you’d better check them out to see if anything was seriously wrong with them.”

“I’m afraid we can’t afford to pay you,” Ben quickly stated.

“That’s all right. You can pay me later. Do you know what caused you to lose your memory and your clothes?”

“No, and we don’t know how we got here either,” Ben answered. That wasn’t a lie, because we DIDN’T know exactly how we’d ended up in 1915.

“Maybe they was mugged and the robbers took everything they had, including their clothes,” Levi offered.

I didn’t realize the word ‘mugged’ had been used back in 1915, but I eventually discovered the word had come into use as far back as 1864.

“Yes, that would explain a great deal about why they can’t remember even basic things,” the doctor agreed. “I’d better have a look at both of you.”

He then had us take off the overalls, flannel shirts, and tee-shirts so he could check us out for bruises, lacerations, and other injuries.

“Those sure are some fancy undergarments,” Doc Adams stated. “You must be pretty well off to have such fancy duds made for you, so that’s probably why you was robbed.”

We merely nodded before he conducted his examination.

“Well, I don’t find anything that would’ve caused you to lose your memory, so maybe you’re just in shock from what happened and that’s what scrambled your brains. Your teeth would suggest that you or your family has a considerable amount of money, because they certainly look far better than the teeth most folks around here have in their mouths. Other than your loss of memory, I don’t find anything wrong with you.”

We thanked the doctor before we left and promised to pay him as soon as we could, and then Levi took us over to the boarding house.

“This is Mrs. Olson. She runs this place,” Levi said as he introduced us after she answered the door. She was a buxom woman in her late 50s or early 60s, and she had braided her white hair and wrapped the braid around the top of her head.

“This is Ben and Caleb Webster,” Levi continued. “They’re brothers. They got robbed and don’t have any money, so I thought maybe you could have them do some odd jobs around here to cover their room and board.”

“Yes, I have some chores they can help with, so come on inside. By the way, my other boarders call me Mabel. Let me show you to your room. I hope you don’t mind sharin’ a bed, since you’re brothers.”

“No, that will be fine.”

The room was quite sparse. There was an old fashioned, metal double bed and a chest of drawers with a ceramic bowl, ceramic pitcher, and a small towel sitting on top of it. Apparently, that’s what they used to freshen up in the morning. There was also a wooden chair and a small stand on which you could place a lantern or a candle at night, but there was no closet or anything else other than a single, unadorned window.

“We’ll have to ask Mabel if she has some curtains for the window,” I suggested.

“And where would we hang them? There aren’t any curtain rods or anything else that we could use to hang them up.”

“I can’t believe they aren’t worried about someone looking in on them, but since we’re on the second floor, maybe it’s not a problem.” I glanced out the window and looked around. “It appears the only way anyone could look in here and see very much is if they climbed the tree that’s growing along the edge of the property.”

“Yeah, we should be fine then.”

We then spent the next couple of hours talking about how we were going to survive in the early twentieth century.

“I wish I’d paid more attention in history class, because that information would come in handy now,” I suggested.

“Yes, you’re right about that. We’re eventually going to have to get jobs too, rather than just working around here for Mabel, because we’re going to need money. We’ll probably have to work menial jobs at first, so they won’t pay much, but maybe we can do better later.”

“Yes, I was thinking about that on the ride in. Since we’re both college graduates, we could tell them we have a college degree and that might help us get a better job. It’s not like it’s going to be easy for them to check those things out, since they don’t have phones or the internet yet.”

“Phones should have been invented by now, it’s just that they’re not widely used in smaller cities, towns, or rural areas yet, but that doesn’t matter. We’ll just choose a college that isn’t very close to here, so they’ll be less likely to check it out. I was thinking we could tell them we both got a degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. I think we’re good enough at math and know enough about accounting and business to pull it off. We’ve also visited the campus, and although it looked different than it would have in the early 1900s, I think we can bluff our way through it. That way we can get better paying jobs.”

“Yeah, that sounds good to me.”

“Since we lived near Barberton and worked in Akron for the past few years, we know a little about the history of the area, so that’s a great place to start.”

We then discussed everything we knew about the University of Pennsylvania and talked about the types of jobs we might want to pursue. Akron isn’t very far way and we could eventually move there and seek better jobs, because the only major business in Barberton is the Diamond Match Company. We also realized the Firestone and Goodyear Tire Companies were once big in Akron, but we both felt we’d do better in banking or hotel management. For now, however, we’d try to find something here in Barberton that would earn us enough money so we could eventually move to Akron.

We were still discussing this when we heard Mabel yelled that supper was on the table, so we went down to eat with her and the rest of her boarders. Mabel introduced us to the others, and the first two we met were an elderly man and woman, although they weren’t married to each other. The man could have been a Civil War veteran and the woman was much older than Mabel, but not as plumb. There were two other men besides Ben and myself, and they were probably ten or fifteen years older than us.

Once the introductions had been completed, Mabel had us all bow our heads as she said grace before we started eating. It was a family-style dinner where the food was passed around the table and everyone took a small share and placed it on their plate. Considering the equipment she had to work with, the food not only smelled wonderful, but it was also delicious.

Even though Mabel was a decent cook, it was easy to see how people who weren’t overly active would gain a great deal of weight. The meal consisted of a lot of starches and a ton of calories in the various items that were served, and this included the very large cookies she offered for dessert. They were about the same diameter as a softball, and the two elderly residents ate half of the cookie now and kept the other half for later, but the rest of us quickly scarfed it down.

When we finished eating, Mabel asked Ben and me to stay behind so she could speak with us once the others had left the table. They either went up to their rooms, headed outside to sit on the porch, or went for a walk. It was a very simple lifestyle.

“Since you boys don’t have any money, you can wash and dry the dishes for me.”

She then took us out to the kitchen, pointed out the hand pump that sat on the counter beside the sink and indicated the kettle we could use to heat the water on the wood burning stove. It was a labor intensive and very time-consuming process, unlike merely stacking the dishes in the dishwasher like we did at home. It took us a while to finish up, which included the pots and pans she’d used to make the meal, and then we headed up to our room for the night.

“Are we going to have to do this after every meal?” I asked.

“Probably, so as soon as we wash the breakfast dishes we’d better go see if we can find a job that pays a salary.”

Before we went to sleep, we discussed the idea of going back to the Starkweather farm from time-to-time so we could attempt to find the portal again. We decided to do it once a month when the weather was good, but we’d have to rent a horse and wagon to get there, because we didn’t think we could effectively ride a horse. This was another reason we needed to get a job.

The next morning after breakfast, we decided to speak with Mabel before we washed the breakfast dishes.

“Mabel, we’re thinking about going out to look for jobs after we wash the dishes, so how much do you charge for room and board?”

“Do you want half or full board?”

“We’ve never done this before, so we don’t know the difference.”

“Half board includes breakfast and supper, while full board also includes the noon meal. Half board is $2.50 a week and full board is $3.00 a week. Seeing you two are sharing a room, I’ll only charge you $4.00 a week for half board or $5.00 a week for full board.”

“Thank you and we’ll probably do the half board.”

After we finished doing the dishes, we went out to look for a job. We tried the bank first, and after we introduced ourselves to the bank manager, we asked if he had any openings because we both needed a job. We told him we knew Levi Starkweather and his family and we were staying at Mabel Olson’s boarding house, to give him the impression that we had local ties.

“I run a small bank and we only require five tellers. You’re in luck, though, because I lost one of the tellers a couple of weeks ago and haven’t replaced him yet, but I can only take one of you.”

The man was dressed similar to what Doc Adams had been wearing the day before, but he was probably twenty years younger. He then tested our math skills, and ran us through some simulations of handling money and making change, and when he finished, he spoke.

“Damn, you’re both pretty sharp and I wish I could take each of you, but since I only have one opening, I’ll let you decide who wants to take it. Since you’re brothers, I feel you can handle this between yourselves without fighting.”

Ben offered to let me take the job and said he’d go over to the hotel to see if they needed help.

“Ok, I’ll take it then,” I said to the bank manager.

“You can start tomorrow. The job pays $13.00 a week, but you’ll need better clothes than you’re currently wearing.”

“We don’t have any extra money right now, so would you be able to give me an advance? You can deduct it from my first week’s salary.”

“Ok, I’ll advance you your first week’s salary, but you’ll need to sign a promissory note first.”

“That’s not a problem.”

While the manager was writing out the promissory note, I told Ben to go over to the hotel and see if they needed help, and then I’d meet him there shortly. He then took off while I waited for the manager, and once he gave me the cash, I went over to find Ben at the hotel.

“Any luck?”

“Sort of, they need a desk clerk, but it’s for the night shift.”

“Isn’t that better than washing dishes?”

“Yes, but we won’t be seeing much of each other if we’re working at different times.”

“What does it pay?”

“$12.00 a week and a free room here at the hotel?”

“Would I be able to stay in the room with you?”

“Yes, but we’ll have to pay for our own meals.”

“I don’t see that as a problem, and it will allow us to save up some money for the move to Akron. We need the jobs so we can buy new clothes, because we’ll have to be even better dressed in Akron. If you do a good job as the night desk clerk, which I know you will, then maybe you can get moved to the day shift. We’ll find other jobs when we get to Akron.”

“Ok, I’ll take it and see if I can get an advance too.”

Once Ben got an advance on his first week’s salary, we went shopping for clothes that would be appropriate for our new positions. When we returned to the boarding house, we broke the news to Mabel and she took it more calmly than we’d anticipated.

Now that we both had jobs and a place to stay, it took some of the pressure off of us. After a couple of weeks, we were also able to pay Doc Adams for examining us, and we went out to the Starkweather farm to return the clothes they had loaned us, since we felt they might need them. We also walked out the path again to see if we could locate the portal, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.

Whenever we could, we would repeat our search to find the portal. We even went out there around Halloween during the two years we lived in Barberton, because we wondered if the portal only opened around that time, but we still didn’t find it. Eventually, we saved up enough money to make the move to Akron and we both went to work in one of the larger banks there.

We managed to avoid the flu epidemic of 1918 and most other illnesses from that time, but we had difficulty making the transition to the simpler lifestyle of nearly a century before we were born. Even though work took our minds off it temporarily, we were bored the rest of the time. There wasn’t a lot to do and we found the silent movies, early talkies, and vaudeville all outdated and not very entertaining. We ended up visiting the library quite frequently and took out a great many books to read, and we also started playing bridge with some of the others who worked at the same bank as us.

Due to our having a better education than most of the others, along with limited knowledge about the future, we quickly rose through the ranks. By the mid-1920s, we were vice presidents at two different banks and we took advantage of the ‘roaring twenties’ and the prosperity of the era to better our situation. We purchased a house and hired a cook, a maid, and a handyman to do odd jobs around the place.

Since we also knew the stock market was going to crash in late 1929, we prepared for it. We both had a fairly large safety deposit box at our banks and we’d save part of our salary and place it in there so we’d have it to use during the rough times to come. We were also able to take a few measures to lessen the effect of the ‘crash’ on our banks, and we were able to continue employing the cook, maid, and handyman during this period, which also helped their families.

After World War II ended, we also got to enjoy the prosperity of the 1950s and 60s, and Ben and I had a good life together. Our main regret was that on Halloween all those years ago we unwittingly took the path less taken and it led us to this point in time. We wondered what happen to all of our friends and relatives, and we also considered if they ever wondered what had happened to us.

Ironically, we would occasionally ‘bump into’ one of our ancestors, although Ben felt uncomfortable meeting any of his relatives. In my case, however, if they happened to learn about our surnames, they would frequently question whether we might be related. We would do our best to skirt those types of discussions by merely responding that we didn’t know if our father had any other relatives that lived in this area. We would also tell them his given name if they asked, since during that time he either hadn’t even been born yet or was a very young child.

Fortunately, it wasn’t unusual for unmarried siblings to live together and they merely referred to us as ‘confirmed bachelors’, so we got away with secretly remaining married and having sex. This wasn’t a problem since we lived alone and the cook, maid, and handyman didn’t work for us at night. For the most part, we merely tried to make the best of a bad situation, and hopefully we didn’t do anything to drastically change the future, but one thing I can state for certain – we never felt the same way about Halloween again.

THE END.