"Sit here," said Grandma Lena, on the bank of the river. "Tell me what you see."
"Water," said Kit.
"More."
He looked harder. "Brown water. Fast in the middle, slow at the edges. Banks with some soil cut away."
"Good. Now — why is the bank cut away there?"
Kit thought. "The water hits that bend and it's going fast, so it cuts in?"
"Yes. And what does that tell us?"
He thought harder. "The river has been going around that bend for a long time?"
"For hundreds of years, probably. That bank shows erosion that takes centuries." She pointed downstream. "See those flat stones in the riverbed? Those are from a quarry four miles north. The river carried them here and left them when it slowed down. Possibly during a flood a hundred years ago. Possibly longer."
Kit looked at the stones.
"So the river carries history," he said.
"The river is history. Every flood, every drought, every change in the landscape upstream — it's all here, written in the mud and stone and the shape of the banks." She paused. "This river flooded badly in 1968. You can see where the channel widened. My mother told me about that flood."
Kit sat very still, looking at the water.
"How do you read it?" he asked.
"The same way you read anything," said Grandma Lena. "Slowly. Paying attention. And knowing that every detail means something, even if you don't know what yet."