“See that painting…there on the wall behind the English chest of drawers?” asked Ellen’s grandpa.
“Sure Papa…it’s…ah….nice …I guess.” Ellie, as grandpa usually called her, was more interested in the cuckoo clock that was about to strike “Three”.
Ellie’s grandpa smiled at his six year old (and only) granddaughter and left her alone as she stood in anticipation of the hourly event.
By the time grandpa made it back to his easy chair in his den, the cuckoo clock had marked the hour and Ellie was about to return to the children’s television show that she had been watching earlier when she heard the unmistakable “Toot” of a train whistle.
Ellie liked trains and knew that there were no train tracks near grandpa’s house and was puzzled by the sound. Then there was the sound of a “whoosh” that seemed to be coming from the painting that was her grandpa’s favorite, and as Ellie looked up at the picture, steam was pouring out beyond the frame!
Ellie’s wide open non-blinking eyes were fixed on the painting “Cove Halt”. All of the people and animals and yes, the train, seemed to be very slowly moving. There was a small child with its back turned to the viewer, standing in the lower left foreground of the painting. Ellie couldn’t tell by the way it was dressed if it was a boy or a girl.
“It must be a girl…look at that big hat…” Ellie thought. Then suddenly a bright flash as bright as anything she’d ever seen made her close her eyes to the extreme brightness of it.
When she opened her eyes she wasn’t standing in grandpa’s living room anymore. She was standing on a dirt and cinder road holding the reins of a very large draught horse and wearing a large straw hat with a wide black bow!
Looking up to the right she could see, hear and even smell the smoke from the old steam train. And there was another little girl being helped into an old car by a man and a woman…just…like…in grandpa’s painting.
She turned around and looked back but there was absolutely nothing behind her and just then the huge horse pulled his head to the left and jerked the reins completely out of her hands.
“Hey now..Ellie…hold him tight!” and a large man dressed in work clothes patted the horse and replaced the reins into Ellie’s hand.
“Let’s tie him up and go into the pub and get you a ginger beer. What do ya say to that eh?”
The man seemed to know her and when he turned to fully face her and give her the reins to the massive horse he looked just like her grandpa.
The train whistled and clanged and chugged off as they tied up the horse and made their way inside of the pub with the thatched roof.
Throughout the entire episode Ellie had not uttered a word but then asked the man who looked so much like her grandpa “Where are we?”
“Why… the Horseshoe Pub Ellie you’ve been here dozens of times before. You know I have to meet the train on the weekend in case there’s any freight to be hauled when you come to stay with me.”
Then he said to the pub owner “We’ll have the usual Sam.”
“Hi Ellie…how’s Clyde behavin’?”
Ellie had no idea who Clyde was, then remembered seeing “CLYDE” engraved on an old worn brass plate on the horse’s harness. “Ah…oh he tries to pull the reins away some but I can hold him!”
“Good girl!” smiled the owner, Mr. Sampson.
Ellie drank her ginger beer and smiled at the few other patrons in the pub and thought to herself “This is the first time that I had a dream and actually knew that it WAS a dream!”
After her second ginger beer the man who looked like her grandpa said…”Well…gotta get back now Sam, we’ll be seein’ you Saturday next if the good Lord’s willin’ eh!”
“Right you are Ned…and Ellie…you show that Clyde who’s Boss eh?”
“Ah…yes Mr. Sampson I will. Then Ellie took “Ned’s” hand and they left the pub and went outside to Clyde. The sun was shining brightly and as Ellie looked up into the sky another bright blast of whiteness made her squint and when she opened her eyes she found that she was back in grandpa’s living room looking at the painting.
Just then she felt her grandpa’s arm around her shoulders and she heard him say…
“That’s my favorite painting in the whole world Ellie!”
She looked up at her grandpa and said… “Mine too!”