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“Well, how old are you?”

“Not near old enough yet to suit me.”  He chuckled at his quip; his still broad shoulders bouncing in cadence.

“We ain't quite sure," explained Esther with seriousness.  "There wadn’t a bunch of records for black folk back then, plus there was a bunch of courthouse fires that burned up whatever records there was.”

Now it was my time to shrug.  I had hundreds of questions to prod the conversation, but I didn’t like to deal my hold cards so early in the game.  “It’s your story, Mr. Jefferson.  Why don't you start from wherever you wish.”

He looked out over the weed infested field and nodded as he thought.  Finally, after a full minute, it was Esther who spoke first.

“Well, get on with it, Mr. Jefferson.  This pretty young thing ain’t got all day and we got guests a comin'.”

He began in a deep, yet breathy voice; the voice of wisdom.

"Everybody would like to be contented.  And most folks suppose being rich would make them that ways."

"Money can't buy me love," I quoted rather unprofessionally.

His eyes shot to my face.

"I like that.  Did you think that up your ownself?" he asked.

"No, ah, I didn't," I confessed, not sure if I should introduce him to Paul McCartney.

"Well, whoever did hit it right on the head.  You mind if I use it sometime?"

"Of course not," I said, figuring what Paul didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"Thanks.  Now, most folks figure money and happiness go hand in hand, like rice and gravy, like you said.  These misguided folks just don't understand the real nature of man, even though it's as plain as the nose on your face," said Jeremias as he slowly moved to and fro in the creaking rocker, the small sharp blade of his well-worn and oft honed pocket knife darting around the block of wood, making a nick here and another careful nick there.

Esther lay her knitting in her lap and patted beads of sweat from her upper lip and forehead with a small handkerchief.

"The Good Book tells us that if we love God then we will prosper, and I believe that with all my heart," said Esther, as she used the same handkerchief to wipe tears from her eyes as she likewise swayed in her chair, her eyes glued on the crest of a small hill in the pasture to my left, her right.  "We always thought we would make it if we stayed busy every minute of every day."

Her husband gently laid a tender hand atop her large forearm and squeezed it lovingly.

I felt so sorry for them.  They had obviously toiled their whole lives and still lived below the poverty level, yet, somehow, they had found strength in one another.  Before the tears blurred my eyes too much, I snapped off a couple of photographs.  Through my lens I noticed that both of the people were looking at something far away.  I turned and saw the cloud of dust from an approaching pickup which was at least a mile down the only road to the farm.

"I figure money ain't nothin' but just money," continued the old man.  "The souls that it touches is all very different, don't you know, and that's how come it can bring light to some and darkness to others, according to how the two jumble together."