Back at the Ranch

Trappings

Dennis's ranch house had been opened for summer guests. Perfumed wild flowers off the meadow and prairie air ran through the rooms to relieve the musty odor of having been closed for so long. Fresh linens sprinkled with lavender water were on the beds, furniture was polished and dusted with sweet-smelling oil and the rugs were vacuumed with an early day invention that worked okay since the rugs were not thick pile, but spread out flat and close to the floor.

That old Victrola was cranked up and lovely music filled with notes from harpsichords were ringing throughout with nostalgic melodies. There was forever the feeling of having stepped back into another era almost as if in a time warp of sorts.

The house had been built so tight there was never much dust. Grasslands did not promote a dusty environment like the wheatfields around Ponca City. This tight built house kept any varmints out.

Drapes on the windows were heavy velveteen in a berry color and they seldom had to be cleaned. The feeling of an English country home was maintained in this way. Venetian blinds in the bedrooms were easily wiped down, while the windows of the other rooms were left so that the swing out fixtures could hold the drapes open. The light came streaming through and anyone driving up the long drive could literally see through the large living and dining area.

"Please Mama? Please, please can I stay with Ura May at the ranch house tonight?" Colleen begged for special favors.

"You don't want to stay in that house do you?" Velma looked directly at Colleen.

"I do," Colleen replied with defiance.

"Lee? Do you think we should let her go out there?" Velma depended on Lee's decision.

"Now Velda, we've talked about that." Lee was soothing his wife Velma's insecurities because of her belief in the presence of remaining spirits after the death of Bertha made her nervous about having her child stay overnight in what she considered to be a haunted house. These teaching by her Ponca family made her reluctant to be in the place. Lee didn't want the children to be weighted down with superstition, and he made a valiant attempt to keep them free from those stories and legends dealing with the supernatural.

So it was, the child was allowed to stay the night at the most usually, ostracized, house.

"We were not the one who had committed the malevolent crime and neither had the house," was Lee's reasoning.

Ura May, Dennis's daughter, came after Colleen in her small, classy, maroon colored convertible. The little girl had grown up beside her cousin, Ura May, and with her friends, as she was involved with her activities or hobbies. These days she didn't have very much private time with her older cousin, even though she was thoroughly in love with the girl's good looks, pretty clothes and sassy ways. Colleen always was the nuisance child under Ura May's feet, just a cousin who was constantly interested in grown-up activities. There had never been any question in her mind that Ura May was simply the most beautiful and talented person of any her age. The thing about it was that so many in the community agreed.

"I think Ura May is just so beautiful, " so many would tell her. She was in agreement, but kept silent. Her mother had warned her not to talk about her cousin and in some way cause her any more problems than she already had. Being wealthy during a time of depression, when so many were so impoverished, wasn't the idyllic conditions everyone believed them to have. There were fears involved, too. Fear had been met by her ancestors with fear causing backlash, enemies, and studied efforts for revenge. How could a child know about these things. The only life saving way was the culture Velma had been taught. If a bear was to come upon those of her former more primitive family the only thing to save them would be their immediate obedience to the adult in attendance.

Was it a something learned from the animal kingdom itself, where the bear mother immediately swatted and snarled her cubs away from a imminent attack? At any rate this was the way of the mother, whose ancestor was named, "Standing Bear."

Some might wonder how children can be helped by having to swing back and forth through, in and out of so many mixed cultures as well as the other variables involving economic highs and lows. Actually, if the issues are handled correctly each element can be and, in fact, was a learning experience. Forever, throughout her life time Colleen had a tender compassion for those who were children of the wealthy, because she understood their world. Those truly in the grips and at the mercy of their parents lives were, indeed, more vulnerable than they could let anyone know. The loneliness of these ones, created from their own surroundings, few knew. All the onlookers could see were the trappings of material things. Is this why the word, trappings is used? The trap of it all was her cousin's destiny.