A Book of Short Stories

Bruce told me that because the mountains were so high, and so steep, and they were covered with ice and snow for seven or eight months every year, that the weight, of the gold, and the water forced the gold from the mountain down into the underground streams, they washed the gold down the mountain, underground,and it was forced into the small streams, above ground. That is where we will find the gold. He said that we may have to look closer and work on the very small particles; it will take longer, because I was finding so many nuggets that I never looked for the small flakes and pieces of gold. It made perfect sense to me, and because Bruce owned the property in front of this stream, and had a house and barn there, I told him that I would go any time he said. Mrs. Lang was going with us. She was going to sell her house and then come back with Bruce and I in late August or September. Lynshu would be in their new home here in Tennessee, with the boys. The last week in May the three of us boarded a plane for Beijing, China. I felt like that I was becoming a world traveler, and I liked it. My life has changed so much, I had sat there in that hardware store for so many years that I had become blind to the rest of the world. I feel like I now have freedom to travel.