06-04-2022, 05:47 PM
September 1882
Tobias slowly drove the trap downhill to the railway station, just as the train from Whitby approached with it's long smoky tail overhead. He stopped at a good distance as he did not want to frighten the horse. Father was normally the one to pick Bess up from the station on Friday evening. Another task Tobias had taken over.
When he had left school a year ago, he had bragged about being a grown man and had felt it, but it was only in the past few weeks, after learning his father's diagnosis, that he began to feel the weight of what it meant to become a man. It had been comfortable so far, working under his father and being told what to do; courting without a final commitment to seal the direction of his life and bury the past and other futures; sharing the job and having plenty of time left to escape to the moors to enjoy its wild beauty and let his mind and feet wander. He now knew that he had still been a boy. But it was coming to an end. He had known that he would take over the farm one day, but who would have thought 'one day' would come so fast?
When the train had stopped, Tobias gently shook the reigns and the horse and trap began to move again. At the station, he jumped down, held the horse still and looked over to the platform. Few people got off at this stop. There was his older sister. He waved.
Tobias slowly drove the trap downhill to the railway station, just as the train from Whitby approached with it's long smoky tail overhead. He stopped at a good distance as he did not want to frighten the horse. Father was normally the one to pick Bess up from the station on Friday evening. Another task Tobias had taken over.
When he had left school a year ago, he had bragged about being a grown man and had felt it, but it was only in the past few weeks, after learning his father's diagnosis, that he began to feel the weight of what it meant to become a man. It had been comfortable so far, working under his father and being told what to do; courting without a final commitment to seal the direction of his life and bury the past and other futures; sharing the job and having plenty of time left to escape to the moors to enjoy its wild beauty and let his mind and feet wander. He now knew that he had still been a boy. But it was coming to an end. He had known that he would take over the farm one day, but who would have thought 'one day' would come so fast?
When the train had stopped, Tobias gently shook the reigns and the horse and trap began to move again. At the station, he jumped down, held the horse still and looked over to the platform. Few people got off at this stop. There was his older sister. He waved.
