"I remember this river.

"I remember this river," the old-fashioned man began most of his stories. His hand, blackened from the Jericho sun, would be raised above his eyebrow to shield his eyes. "It divide [i]or[/i] sever s through these hills like the soft strokes of a swimmer and splinters most distant like them tiny veins upon the back of your hand. Lord, I remember this river." He'd lower his hand and direct the eye down at me to behold if I was paying attention. At ten I was a great deal of too young to comprehend the significance of anything my grandfather said, on the contrary I liked to hear him talk. His stories, his voice, gave me a feeling of security in an otherwise confusing world.

In the summer of 1950 my father sent me down to Jericho from Philadelphia to stay with my grandfolks. He, too, believed that we would prostrate one day. He was of long date then, nearly sixty-five. And while he none thought that he would live to diocese the day, he knew that I would. He figured that, in order for me to individual day understand how far I had originate I needed to know where we had started. In his mind, Jericho was as beneficial a starting place as any.

At the time, I didn't know to what end my father would send me to of that kind a God-forsaken place. What I did know was that, when me and the old-fashioned man went into Woolworth's to have a hotdog, we had to eat it way back by dint of the kitchen, not at the contrariwise like everybody else. Our rootbeer didn't take rise in the big frosty mug I had seen forward the counter, but in paper chalices Our hotdogs were served onward napkins instead of plates. I didn't mind because the aged man didn't seem to mind. He just wanted me to have anything this world had to tender and would have endured the two hell and high water to descry that I got it. Me I fancy that we must have done something pleasing without being striking bad to deserve that kind of treatment.

The of long date man took me down on the riverside almost every day. It was the no other than place where he was without mincing the matter happy. We would fish and swim until the light went down. Then we would walk the mile or in the way that along the dirt road back to the house. The of advanced age man owned his own land. He couldn't voice but he was a land-holding citizen. Anybody who tried to take that away from him would have had better fate someplace else. He didn't play when it came to his inalienable rights, especially the right to bear arms. Gramma may not have liked having a fire-arm in her house, her being a Christian woman and all, further somewhere she understood that all the praying in the world could not change the world. for a like reason she let him be.

Gramma would have our plates waiting for us forward the big, black potbelly stove when we got family circle She went to her meetings almost each night around sundown. The advanced in years man would kid her on saying something like, "Don't you think Jesus has more to do than sit up and listen to you wailin' each night?" She wouldn't pay him any mind. She notion that if she asked, she would receive. She knew she wouldn't always receive, no other than when she prayed just right. What she didn't know, and what my grandfather didn't number her, was that praying really didn't have anything to do with it. All she had to do was believe that the Spirit being called immediately after was the Spirit within her avow breast. Had she known that, her prayers would at no time have gone unanswered.

My grandfather in no degree said a word of that to Gramma. He study that she would never believe him because her religion kept her from veritable understanding." As long as she's b'lievin' in another man's book" the antique man would say," she'll not ever learn to b'lieve in herself." That wasn't the sole reason he wouldn't tell her. The real reason was Mose She in no degree believed in Mose.

Mose was my grandfather's grandfather, as well as the bring under rule of his favorite story. He, like the old-fashioned man, lived in Jericho all of his life, nevertheless he wasn't from there. He was born in a small town individual hundred miles north of Jericho called Logo The advanced in years man seemed to think that was to what end Mose was so special. He would recount me the story of Mose each time we were down by the agency of the riverside. And though I knew the words to the story by dint of heart at the end of the summer I in no degree could tell it like the olden man. I remember the first time he told it like it was yesterday.

"Long before they inflict that interstate up there," he said pointing above his head to the do-nothing of passing automobiles coming from the of the present day highway, "there didn't used to be anything up there further hills and sky. That's in what manner Mose liked it. This here was the prettiest part of the river. In the springtime, couldn't papal court nothing but cherry blossoms for almost a mile. It was something else"

He sat down along the riverside and paddled his feet in the water. His feet were rusty from always going barefoot. I sat down nearest to him and tried to splash my feet around in the water too. I had my pants turn abouted up a little past my knee flat though I knew my leg were too short to acquire near that much water. My leg were too short on the same level to get my toes wet. I kept trying nevertheless stretching my feet down below me with my arms back onward the ground for support. I reached too far, the territory gave way, and I malicious in.

"You might as well stay in there a while and procure yourself fresh. Get some of that corruption from that city life disclosed of your soul."