3

To the amazement of the boys watching him, Jake walked bravely across the railroad tracks, across the park and right onto the front lawn of First Church. He walked right to Miss Olivia Buchanan. “Hello, Miss Buchanan. I’m Jake,” he said matter of factly, “I can’t buy your pie, but I would sure like to sit with you and talk awhile.”



And Miss Olivia Buchanan never looked at another boy. The prized razzelberry pie was sold to a hopeful suitor who sat with his mother to eat the pie and ice cream. Olivia and Jake sat under the big oak tree on the east side of the church and became fast friends.


Their romance had begun. Each morning, for the next year, Jake walked Olivia to her first morning class. After about three months, he asked if he might hold her hand. Gladly, she put her hand in his. “I wondered if you’d ever ask!” she smiled.


That was Jake’s senior in high school. At graduation, Mr. Buchanan offered Jake a job working in his oil fields. His motives were not exactly pure. Mr. Buchanan felt that if he could keep Jake busy enough and dirty enough, his only daughter would see Jake for the boy he was - a roughneck. Unfit to marry his prize daughter. Just a hired hand.

Matthew Buchanan was not a mean man. Just focused. He had known from a young age that there was money to be made in buying and selling land. He had bought his first farm at the age of 17. Foreclosed on by his banker daddy, Matthew had negotiated a fair price, in his eyes, for the 5 acres just south of town. Matthew dug a well on the property on the weekends, when school work wasn’t pressing. He cleared the brush away from the neglected farm house, readied the small garden and six months later, sold it for a profit. Not a large profit. But enough to pay his daddy’s bank and purchase another piece of land.

Matthew had pursued his wife with the same determination. He studied the girls at church socials and barn dances until he found one he felt would be suitable for the wealth he intended to accumulate. He settled on Sarah Jane Wilkins. Her family owned the bank in the neighboring community. As well as several businesses including a drugstore and mercantile. Then, in a courtship that resembled a business deal, Matthew outlined his plans for their future , told of the money he’d already banked and proposed a merger of the Buchanan-Wilkins clan. She agreed, or at least her daddy did, and 2 months later they were wed at First Church. Sarah was only 18 when she wed the 21 year old Matthew Buchanan. But she felt he was handsome and, though somewhat arrogant, she could learn to love him. Or at least deeply like him.

Sixteen months later, Sarah gave birth to Olivia Jane Buchanan. Though Sarah never truly loved her husband, she adored her daughter. There were no more children. Sarah had her daughter. She no longer needed her husband’s company or affection. And both Sarah and Matthew agreed to a new business arrangement. A clean house, good meals, beautiful daughter and no gossip in exchange for the finances to do as she wished.

It was Sarah who first approached Matthew with the idea to keep Jake busy and away from Olivia. Her daughter would go to the University next year, she imagined, and Jake would no longer be a problem. They just needed to keep them apart for the next 12 months.

But Jake was a hard worker. In many ways he was as focused and determined as Matthew. He learned faster than any roughneck the Buchanan’s employed. He worked longer days, took fewer vacations and was never sick. He saved his money, too. Matthew liked that. Jake did not waste anything – time or money. Soon, Matthew began to like the boy. He gave him more responsibility and allowed him to make decisions on the job site.

Sunday was a rest day. Work six days, rest one, his Grandpa had told him. He never went to First Church with the Buchanan’s although Olivia begged him. “I have no use for church. They have never had a use for me,” Jake would tell her. He wasn’t bitter, just factual. But each Sunday afternoon, after he had readied his work clothes for the next week, Jake would find his way to the Buchanan family porch. There he sat on the steps of the sweeping veranda and watched Olivia. Watched her knit. Watched her do needlework. Watched her read sometimes. He just wanted to be near her. To hear her laugh and to always see her smile.


And they would talk about their world. “Livie,” he would call her, “what makes life good? Fancy clothes? Rich food.”


“Being loved, Jake Williams” she’d state with defiance, “a person can face anything in life with absolutely nothing if they know they are loved.”

And this puzzled Jake. His grandpa was all he had ever had for family. He knew Grandpa loved him. And he knew what it was like to have nothing. To be from the wrong side of the railroad tracks. But was his life good?


Jake decided that if Livie loved him, life was good. And he smiled back at her.