Playing by the well...

I remember the smooth stones that surrounded the old well there in Oldfield. I sat on the concrete footing and sifted through the smooth creek stones that lay there. Once I found a completely flat stone. Maw told me it was a "mad stone". Something to be used in case of a dog bite. Somehow it was supposed to help if bitten by a rabid dog. Mamadesser was always worried about me playing near that old well. She must have imagined me falling through the old boards that made up the sides and falling down there to drown. Those afternoons back then felt like months. The summer days lasted so long to me. Sitting there on the cool cement playing in the cool earth was my world. Even the distance from the windlass to the cool water below seemed very far. I could stand down below the flower beds and gaze toward Bull Gap. Those hills were like a foreign land. Unreachable to my thinking. But I remember these days like that. Days before I learned to write or read or add or subtract. My whole life was just to enjoy and play. I would hear and see and do so many things for the first time. If one could go back to that time to change his future, what could be changed about that day. Would anyone trade those days of wonder and surprise for the eyes of age that grown weary of many things. Would it be good to look more deeply and drink in what you had or could one? What would you see that you haven't seen over and over. What would you talk about with those elders? What new wisdom would you learn that living hadn't already given?