It was evening in early summer,and after our supper Mrs.White Smith climbed the steps of the dike built high along the sides of the river to hold in its water in the rainy season.She did this every day yo see how high the river had risen.She Knew what the river would do.One by one the villagers followed her up the dike,and stood staring down at the malicious yellow water;curing along like a lot of snakes; and biting at the high dike banks.
She gazed at the river for a moment.That river-it was full of good and evil together. it would water the fields when it was controlled,but then if it rose an inch above the dike,it would crash through like a roaring dragon.That was how husband had died.He always piled more earth on top of it,but one night,the river had risen and broken through.He had saved herself and it while he was drowned.Well,they had pushed the river back again behind its dike.Every day she herself walked up and down the length of the dike for which the village was reaponsible and examined it.The men laughed and said, If anything is wrong with the dike, Granny will tell us
It had never occurred to any of them to move the village away from the river.The Smiths had lived there for generations,and some had always escaped and afterwards had fought the river more fiercely than ever