While my mother and I were in the kitchen of the Gay Street House, she told me my grandmother Mabel had recently married a man whom my grandmother had been seeing. I was shocked; I had had no idea that such a marriage was imminent, and I was upset to think my grandmother would have married someone without even telling me. I asked my mother when the marriage had taken place, and she said the wedding had been last Thursday. Since it was now the weekend, I realized the wedding had only been a few days ago.

I also quickly realized if my grandmother had remarried, her new husband would inherit half of my grandmother's property, including half the Gallia County Farm. If my grandmother's new husband inherited half the Farm, I would probably end up with only a small part of the Farm. That wasn't what I had counted on.

But suddenly I realized I didn't need to worry about that. I remembered that my grandmother had already deeded the Farm to my father. My father was now the owner of the Farm, and it didn't make any difference whom my grandmother married.

***

I was sitting in the front living room of the Farmhouse with my grandmother and her new husband. Now that I knew the new husband wasn't a threat to my inheritance, I didn't mind his being here.

The new husband was just now beginning to realize that before getting married, my grandmother had given all her property to my father. Now the new husband was busily going through my grandmother's papers, and he had just found a canceled check for $81,000 from my grandmother to my father. Apparently the new husband had already known about the check, because he mentioned that my father had already told him the check had been a gift from my grandmother to my father. I heard my grandmother snort that the check wasn't really a gift.

I was sitting on the couch in front of the large picture window which looks out over Symmes Creek at the bottom of the hill, when I noticed a beaver swimming in the creek. I loved to watch beaver, but seeing them this close to the Farmhouse was rare. When I noticed a second beaver, I called to the new husband to come see. He walked over and watched with me. When we saw more and more beavers, we counted till we reached seven. Even more interesting, the beavers had climbed out of the water and were walking along the shore, so we could completely see them.

It didn't seem particularly strange to me when the beavers began walking up the hill toward the house; nor did it seem strange that they were walking on two legs, like hominoids. As they came closer to the house, they resembled the ape-like creatures on the "Planet of the Apes" movies. They were even wearing gray clothes, raggedy but clean-looking.

I walked out on the front porch to greet them. I thought they would probably run away when they saw me; but even though the looked frightened, they didn't run away. I reached out my hand in a friendly gesture, as if I wanted to shake hands with them, and I repeated over and over, "Friend. Friend."

When one of them finally did take my hand, I wondered if I were making a mistake: he might bite me. Instead, he held my hand to his mouth, as if he were kissing it or examining it.

I realized a whole group of these creatures must be living on the Farm. I envisioned their living up near my Cabin which I had built many years before. Little children were even among them. I talked with them and realized they could speak English, although English didn't appear to be their native language. I asked if the children went to school, and they indicated that they didn't. I immediately thought that would have to change. I was already beginning to assume a protective role toward them as I told them it would be necessary for the children to go to school.

I might even let some of them live in my Cabin, which was still in good shape and could easily be fixed up. I even thought about getting some clothes for the children – Goodwill stores in Dallas had tons of cheap clothes. I had always thought some good use could be made of all those clothes, and now I finally saw what.

I would enjoy helping these creatures. It also occurred to me I would enjoy telling the members of my dream group (with whom I had been exchanging dreams on the Internet) about the creatures. I thought the other members would find it interesting that I had discovered another race of people right there on the Farm. But I still didn't know how I would explain the sudden appearance of these creatures. Suddenly it occurred to me that these creatures might be Amish. I knew Gallia County was being rapidly settled by groups of Amish people. But I had never known the Amish looked like this. Describing to my dream group just what the Amish looked like would be interesting. I certainly found them interesting and I thought the other members of my group would, too.

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