eading one of
the books which she had given him. He looked up at their red faces and
smiled with indulgence. They would never know what went on inside his
heart, what was in his mind behind that kindly smile. That he knew and
understood everything was clear to them, but they did not and would not
have believed that he had, for a minute, hated Terabon as standing
between him and happiness.

"What are we going to do?" Terabon cried, when he had told the Parson
that they loved each other, that they would complete the voyage down the
river together, that her husband still lived, and that they could get a
$17.50 divorce at Memphis.

"Hit wouldn't be no 'count, that divorce." The Prophet shrugged his
shoulders, and the two hung their heads. They knew it, and yet they had
been willing to plead ignorance as an excuse for sin.

He seemed to close the incident by suggesting that it was time to eat
something, and the three turned to getting a square meal. They cooked a
bountiful dinner, and sat down to it, the Prophet asking a blessing that
seared the hearts of the two because of its fervour.

Rasba asked her to read to them after they had cleared up the dishes,
and she took down the familiar volumes and read. Rasba sat with his eyes
closed, listening. Terabon watched her face. She seemed to choose the
pages at random, and read haphazardly, but it was all delight and all
poetry.

She was reading, which was strange, the Humphrey-Abbott book about the
Mississippi River levees, the classic report on river facts, all
fascinating to the mind that grasps with pleasure any river fact. When
Rasba looked up and smiled, the two were absorbed in their occupations,
one reading, the other watching her read. She stopped in conscious
confusion.

"Yas, suh!" he smiled aloud. "I 'low we uns can leave hit to Old
Mississip', these yeah things that trouble us: I, my triflin' doubts,
and you children yo' own don't-know-yets."

What made him say that, if he wasn't a River Prophet? Who told him, what
voice informed him, at that moment? Who can say?

The following morning the big mission boat and Missy Nelia's boat landed
in at Memphis wharf, and the three went up town to buy groceries,
newspapers and magazines to read, and to help Nelia choose another set
of books from the shelves of local book stores. Old Rasba had never been
in a book store before, and he stared at the hundreds of feet of
shelves, with books of all sizes, kinds, and makes.