JEWISH GENTILE

I remember only once the local junk man coming to our home.  He’d come to the store occasionally to transact business but only that one evening to the house. Whenever they met they'd "josh a bit," as Father called it, about religion and community affairs. To the un-tuned ear it might have sounded serious but to them it was all in good humor. I've often thought it must have taken a great deal of patience as well as good humor for a Jewish junk man and his family to thrive in a Mormon community, but they did, and very well.

          "Yaw, how is with those hides you gonna bring in from the promontory?

You slower than the second coming."

"Bosh, a man can't be expected to get out there while the roads are like they are. There's more water out there in the slough than Pharaoh had in the Red Sea. Besides when the dry weather sets in, we can get more things seen to, make the trip out and back pay."

          "That the way it is with you Mormons,  always gotta save a nickel."

           "Oh pshaw, that's what made this country fit so there'd be a place here to make a go of it, even for a gentile like you. That's the trouble with you fellows, tighter than baled hay when it comes to business, but when it comes to religion you go to the extreme the other way. I understand you're not so careful with the way you use good meat, prepare a Passover lamb with all the trimmings and waste most of it, eat only certain parts."

          "That no worse than you buy a nice new pair a underwear and cut holes all in it. And who you call in a gentile, anyhow?"

          And so it went.