I'll help you across the street."
"What's that you say?"
"I said, 'I'll wheel you across the street.'"
"I thought you said you'd help me jump the branch. Oh? It's
you, Dr. Shirey! Why, thank you. Yes, I must get back to the
nursing home. You're so kind to bother with an old lady like me.
My, my, I was lost in a reverie that took me back, way, way back,
Dr. Shirey."
"How far was that, Mrs. Goode?"
"Just a minute. Let me get my hearing aid adjusted. This
thing's a nuisance. Pastor, I don't think you could understand
how far it was. Things were different then. It was over half a
century ago, when I lived back along the Ouachita hills, in a
plain, bare, dogtrot house, where bread was white and the goose
was fat and a man's mule was part of his family. We still thought
God had made us all-man, goose, and mule-out of the same gully
dirt. Ah, I was a child! If things went bad, all I had to do was
crawl under my grandma's bed! Or run to Papa. Or to Mama."
"The grownups-what'd they do when things were bad?"
"Well, come to think of it, they just did the best they could
and let the Good Lord take care of the rest.
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