The Storyteller

Old houses, like old people, have stories to tell. But old houses don't need an audience. They tell their tales anyway, and they tell them all the time. All you have to do is enter into their imagination and listen carefully and you will be amazed by what they are saying.

This fine place speaks of a builder. A young man may have built it all alone or perhaps with a buddy or maybe his father helped him. A small family probably lived within its walls. Outside, in the yard, livestock they brought with them would gather around this old house, seeing it as a source of food and protection, and they would attract birds into the trees which gracefully spread over the roof. And like most new settlers, this family doubtless brought with them insects, and the insects brought mice.

After the family left, snakes could enter at will in search of the mice, and owls came in after the snakes. Then raccoons appeared and now finally, coyotes occasionally come by to call.

So this old house seems a dead house to those who speed by on the close-in road, but it is really a community attraction, a civic-center of sorts, a place where the show never ends and it is still a fine home to many special beings.

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.