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"Mr. Jeremias Jefferson!  Your Momma said that while I was very much in the same room with her.  She also said That as far as her money was concerned there's not much to boast about."

Jeremias looked at his wife.  "You can't live off beauty and many a lad gets tricked into thinking he's getting a well-off gal and then afterwards has to pay off  his in-laws' credit bills.  If she's healthy and don't mind workin', then everything will turn out all right.  You did own a few good shirts and two sets of clothes, didn't you, so that you wouldn't have to wear the same clothes Sundays and weekdays."

"Oh heavens, yes I did!" said Esther.  "You needn't of worried about that.  I had me a brand new shirt, and two was still kinda like new and four that was worn.  But my Momma said I'd get another one and my daddy said he'd make me my wedding shoes and they won't cost me a penny.  And I had an especially kind godmother who gave me something nice."

At the mention of homemade shoes I discretely looked at the footwear of the old people, more sure now than before that they were handmade.

"I believe it was a frying pan," mused he.

"It was a stew pot!  And for a while I thought there might be something to inherit when she died."

"She had her own young'uns."

"Well, they might of died."

"You want to see my pushcart?" asked Jeremias as he stood with a moan.

"Jeremias, you ain't gonna be able to roll that thing.  It ain't been out of that barn in twenty years.  Them axles is probably froze up and the bottom done rotted clean out of that thing."

"Well, I'm goin' to give it a try, Mrs. Jefferson.  Just watch me and see if I don't."

Esther looked at me, but she was actually speaking to Jeremias.  "You see what happens when men folk drink?  One little glass of elderberry wine and they think they're Hercules"

Jeremias tossed a hand of dismissal in the woman's direction and plodded toward what was left of the barn.

"So it was a nice wedding?"

She held out her hand, displaying a gold band.  Years of work had worn it so thin it looked as if it would snap at any minute.

"Mr. Jefferson made this himself."

"How do you make a gold ring?"

"Well, Mr. Jefferson took a five dollar gold piece and tapped the very middle with a spoon.  If you do that long enough you can tap right through the middle.  Then you put a big old nail in the hole and begin to tap on the rim and rotate the coin and before you know it you have a ring."

"May I?" I asked as I reached for her hand and took a close up of the item.

After settling back down I said, "So you were a married woman.  Was it all you had thought it would be?"

"We were both completely satisfied, especially me.  You see I wadn't sitting on the side of that very road that Jeremias traveled every Tuesday by no accident."

From the smirk on her old face I knew that Esther had arranged to meet Jeremias and in a private place of her choosing.