W. H. Seaward, Lincoln's secretary of State

Brent carefully stacked the blocks of firewood he had brought in
for the fireplace. As he built a log cabin type tower he grinned
up at Mom who was resting in the recliner.
"That reminds me of the little cabins my brothers used to
make from the wood blocks Daddy brought home from a box factory
in St. John. My earliest memory is of my brothers allowing Marie and
I to play with them. I think sometimes Mother made them.
"Anyway, they would place the wood blocks in a huge circle,
well, I was three, what can I say, it was huge to me. There were
spaces between each block and then they stacked the next layer
between the blocks resting on the bottom row. The let us go
inside when we promised to be very careful. I remember the sun
making little squares o the ground inside the wooden igloo as it
shone through between each block."
"Both of them are still really good builders. Uncle Glenn
built his house in Eagar and Uncle Duane has changed this
whole house around."
Lynae joined the conversation. "I sure like how he made
this apartment for you in the basement of his own house.
"Yeah, my big brothers have always been my heroes and my
rescuers. I don't know how I would have lived without them. It's
funny when we were still in school I didn't get along with them
much and they weren't around much when I was in high school.
Duane went into the Navy and Glenn went on a church mission to
Central America and then into officer's training school in the
army. The they got married and it was just us scraps at home in
Scottsdale.
"Scraps?" Lynae questioned her choice of words.
"When Cheryse was about ten she and I were home with
baby Monte, before you two were eve thought of, and I suggested we
go to the swimming pool for family time they had a special
family rate. Becky and Monte were off somewhere with their dad,
probably at the pig farm.
Cheryse asked me, "are you sure they'll count us as a
family, just us scraps?"
I loved the expression so I use it when referring to just a
part of the family. She even painted me a little plaque that I
have hanging upstairs inn Aunt Jean's sewing area because she
makes theses fabulous lone star quilts for all her kid's
weddings.
It says, "When life gives you scraps, make a quilt."
"That's pretty much how you've done the last ten years, Mom,
you've been given some pretty tough scraps, and have turned it
into a beautiful quilt of adventures and education for us," Brent
admitted taking a break from the block house that now nearly
filled the floor of the Orem apartment living room.
"I've enjoyed the stories you tell us about our family
history, Mom," Monte added. "You kind of make the whole thing
seem real."
and Lynae were talking later as they cleaned the
kitchen after dinner.
"I guess we can never go back to the past now, Lynae, the
apartment in Las Vegas seemed to hold the magic carpet to travel
through our New Mexico History, and now that Dad moved us to
Henderson, everything is different.
"At least you didn't have to change schools because you were
already into your Aerospace academy at Rancho. I had to leave
all my friends at church and school and go to a strange school.
Everyone says your eighth grade is the best year of your life,
but I had to move right in the middle and it's a harder school,
so I'll probably get all C's instead of straight A's like I
usually do. And the school can't even give me a grade for last
semester because they can't give me a grade for fifteen days, and
I've only been in school twelve days."
"Even though both schools are in Clark County School
District? that seems strange." Mom asked rhetorically, having
overheard the conversation on her way in.
"And besides all that, the day after we moved to Henderson I
called my friends Meredith and Luanne in a three way phone
conversation and they said that Terry said that if he would have
known I liked him four months earlier he would have asked me
out."
"Well, you cant even date til your sixteen anyway, so what
the big deal? Mote questioned his little sister.
"Well I would have said no but it would have been nice to
know and be friends." Lynae countered, forcing the ring she had
fashioned onto Mom's ring finger.
"What's that thing?" Brent asked catching a glimpse of the
ring. "Lynae made it from the scraps of the glue gun when you
used it on your project.
"Well, even though I didn't change schools, I had to learn a
new bus route from Henderson down town to Rancho and I had to get
involved in a new scout group just after I was inducted into
Order of the arrow, and I have to make new friends at churchªwhich we actually haven't been to yet because we've been here
during Christmas vacation. One thing is the same, I'm never at
home because I have to leave at five a.m. and don't get home til
after five thirty, then I find something to eat and go to bed."
"Oh I thought you'd be closer to your school in Henderson."
"I am, but the bus route is longer so I actually have to
leave earlier.
"Well Monte has had some big changes in his life too. You
guys abandoned him to live with his Grandma and finish up his
senior year©©so he basically lived on his own that year, the wet
down to ASU in Tempe to start college. Now he's here with me
until he leaves on his church mission to Spokane Washington on
tax day.
"Yeah everyone life has changed this year. You moved here to
Orem, We moved to Henderson, Cheryse got remarried and is
expecting her fourth baby, Jenny and Aaron got married.
"Stop stop," Brent shouted. "You're giving me a headache. I
feel like the world is just spinning too fast for me."
"Well my sons the world is changing rapidly for our people. "
Lynae imitated the ancient ancestor Cristobal Baca that they had
met on their first journey through time over a year before.
"You sounded just like him," Brent laughed, and added, I just
wish we still had the magic."
Mom was talking to Monte and missed the exchange. The following afternoon the weather was unseasonably warm due to the El Niño phenomenon, and Monte had taken Brent's
hammock and strung it up on the swing set. The hammock actually
had been given to Brent by his oldest brother Doug who had served
a church mission in Brazil some years before. He was married a
lived near their home in Las Vegas.
Monte was enjoying the warm sun, reading as was his usual
pastime, the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln

"Come on Monte," Lynae whined, tugging at Monte's hand and
pushing his book away with the other. All you have done on this
vacation is read that book. What's so interesting in that book?"

"Leave me alone, Lynae." Monte gripped.
"I'm on vacation. Besides someone has to read in this family. You
act like you're allergic to books. I just want to read and get
some rest. Just back off."

"You could come on an adventure with us. You are always away
when Brent and I go on adventures. You do know that we have been
traveling through time and meeting our ancestors, don't you."
"Yeah, right.” Monte said, a pulling the book closer to his
face to block out the sight of anything else.

"Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2 of 3, The war Years." Lynae read the
title, "by Carl Sandberg." she continued, determined to get
attention from this big brother she saw so seldom.

"Brent! Help me get Monte out of the hammock. Let's take him on
a history adventure with us."

Brent glanced at the cover of the book Monte was holding very
tightly and very close to his face. Behind the book, Brent could
see the grimace that he knew so well. Monte was not to be
disturbed.

"Oh come on, Lynae, leave him alone. He probably doesn't even
know that he is holding onto an element of our time travel."
Brent lowered his voice to a confidential tone, and said, as if
only to Lynae, "he doesn't know that we could take that book and
go right back to John Hoblit, l861." Brent caught a movement
from Monte in his peripheral vision, and noticed a losing in his
grip on the book. As if at a signal the two younger teens leaped
on Monte in the hammock, the ropes holding it up broke and the
three fell to a pile on the ground, which opened up and in a
spinning whooshing sensation, the laws of time and space
suspended and the three found themselves in Springfield, Illinois."
John Hoblit kept the halfway house between Lincoln and
Springfield. Abe Lincoln often stopped there on his trips
between towns and was a good friend of the Hoblit family." Brent
whispered, quoting from the Jacobs' genealogy history book.
"That was written on one of the divider pages in great grandma
Grace Hoblit's book in her own writing. "that must be 'Uncle Sam ‘look, there's the cane Lincoln
gave him when he was inaugurated as President. "
Millicent Seward walked into the room and greeted 'Uncle Sam',
"I don't want to lose this invitation to the inauguration. That
was such a wonderful affair, in spite of the (describe
inauguration and conflict in the country using Sandberg's book
with Monte's help. . . . ( elaborate: Millicent Seward was
a cousin to W. H. Seaward, Lincoln's secretary of State. Their
father's were brothers. John and Millicent are buried in the old
Clear Creed cemetery, John had donate the land for the cemetery
he was the e first to be buried in it. Many Larisons and Hoblitsare buried there as well as in the Atlanta Cemetery."