The village of Lentshin was tiny. It was surrounded by fields and little huts with thatched roofs. In the fields, the owners planted vegetables or pastured their goats.

In the smallest of these huts lived old Berl, a man in his eighties, and his wife Berlcha. Old Berl was one of the Jews driven out of Russia who had settled in Poland. He was short, broad-shouldered, and had a small white beard, and in summer and winter he wore a sheepskin hat, a padded cotton jacket, and stout boots. He had a half acre of field, a cow, a goat, and chickens.

The couple had a son, Samuel, who had gone to America forty years ago. It was said in Lentshin that he became a millionaire there. Every month, the Lentshin letter carrier brought old Berl a money order and a letter that no one could read because many of the words were English. How much money Samuel sent his parents remained a secret. They never seemed to use the money. What for? The garden, the cow, and the goat provided most of their needs.