Mr. Sam is Here

"But the waiter was nowhere to be seen. There was nobody in the picture. Nothing moved there. Even the Merry-go-Round had disappeared. Only the still stress and the grass and the unmoving little patch of sea remained."  – Travers, Mary Poppins









What had happened next, as they all began their tour of Snapdragon Farm, Sam could only consider a very sharp experience of deja vu. Out the back door into the wide open lawn between the home and the small hobby barn, and then, out into the distance the great prairie that led to a vast savannah, it seemed he had been here before, felt the very place. He found himself picturing small fence lines around the back side of the bar, seeing crabapple trees nearer the back of the yard, even the location of the chicken coop, down on the long side of the barn, seemed familiar.  "Mr. Sam, are you alright?" Rose asked, as a look must have come over him that was easy to see. Caitlin and Natalie had already split off and where just opening the small service door of the barn and a moment later were displayed inside the hayloft opening on the second floor. "Dad, come up here, there is a rope for swinging tied to the rafters!" Sam had pictured this and felt that he had swung on that rope before. It was a most unusual feeling. "Mary," he said quite quickly, "who did you say you bought this from? When you and Jack initially bought it, do you remember?" Mary thought for a moment, as they walked past what looked like an old mechanical shed of sorts, and smelled still, of hay and milk. "When we bought it, I wasn't living here, so I really don't know, but I do remember him saying it was a very old couple, too old stay on a hobby any longer, and none of their children lived anywhere near. It just about broke them to sell it, but we gave them a very good price, Jack said. He made sure of that. Why do you ask? Over here is a bean shed, just enough room for an old pick up to lay underneath the floor." "Well, I..." the words couldn't quite come out, so silly, and he didn't want to come off as some dreamer, not on his first visit to the children. "It just has a familiarity about it, that's all." Paige and Rose had split off in their own direction, toward the chickens, and were beginning to call out specific names, "Esmerelda, Candice, Eustice." Needless to say, none of the hens immediately came their way, until they began to drop some feed near them at the fence, and then they came. "Well, it has that feel to it, many others have said, a kind of farm that looks like the prairie days. Many kids of a couple of generations ago still had oak openings on their farms. That was where the cattle grazed."