Now it seems extraordinary to me, our night singing, loud and completely unabashed. Imagine you are walking a quiet Memphis street, summer, nearly dark, the big shade trees alert with cicadas, fireflies dreamy over the lawns and ivies. Nothing distinguishes this house from the others but this homemade music. The father might join in, though more likely he’s gone in to polish his shoes for tomorrow; the older sister’s usually out somewhere—a date? But the mother and son are reliable, evening after evening. The woman just now forty and the boy recently six sing the doxology, though you wouldn’t know that when it comes around to the line Praise him all creatures here below, the boy thinks of devils, underground things, that Creature from the Black Lagoon. Swing low, sweet chariot, He is tramping out the vintage, Wait till the tempest is done. They do every verse they know of “The Old Rugged Cross”; she teaches him all she can remember while they rock slowly and sing with abandon, so involved it never occurs to them what the neighbors might think, or to notice that you’ve stopped to watch, trying to guess their story. You wouldn’t think that boy has a shred of self-consciousness, nor his mother, while they pour themselves into their duet: I want to be in that number, when the stars refuse to shine. By this time the fireflies are drowsing down near the roots of the hydrangeas, the darkness has cooled and solidified, and some late quality in the air signals that it’s time to go in: We’ll sing again tomorrow. Oh, stranger, did you ever hear such a pair?