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| Delaware River at Shohola |
Together They Come
As Wilmot shepherded the family
across the Minisink’s first sixty miles,
he anguished over what had come to pass—
his mother dead, Benoni given up,
the settlement about to be destroyed,
the grief soon to befall his father, Diah.
He knew the dangers lurking in the woods,
yet sensed a deep and unseen power of grace.
Little Walter walked most of the way
and rarely asked to ride the patient horse.
As Diah rode back from Connecticut,
unsettling news he’d heard along the way
from families heading eastward on the trail
made sleep next to impossible. He reached
the shallow crossing on the Delaware
and stopped to rest his horse and stay the night
at Sam Wares’ inn and tavern at the clearing
Lenape named Shohola—Place of Peace.
He rose at daybreak, hoping to be back
with Rachel well before the week was out.
Diah saw them first. Bedraggled, barefoot,
at the water’s edge, waiting their turn
to mount the horse and ford the Delaware.
Beside himself with joy, he cried out, Wil!
then realized that Rachel wasn’t there.
On hearing every detail of his loss,
Diah neither wept nor censured God;
but, shouldering the blame for everything
that had occurred, he barely spoke a word
as they made their way back to Connecticut.
The chapter titled Together They Come comes from the poem “Joy and Sorrow” by Khalil Gibran.
Together they [joy and sorrow]come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Note: The author is directly descended from Walter Munson, the little boy in this chapter. The fact that he walked most of the way from Pennsylvania back to Connecticut is recorded in The Munson Record (Volume I).
COMING SOON - PART THREE, CHAPTER NINE
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