My grandfather, who lost his short-term memory sometime during the first Eisenhower Administration, calls me into his study beca
use he wants to tell me the story he’s never told anybody before again. . . . My grandfather slams the door and motions me to the chair in front of his desk. I’ll be thirteen in two weeks. “There’s something I want to tell you, son,” he says. “Something I’ve never told anybody. You think you’re ready? You think you’ve got the gumption?” “I think so.” “Think so?” “I know so, sir. I know I’ve got the gumption.” . . . “It was late,” he says. “Someone knocked on my stateroom door. I leaped up. In those days I slept in uniform—shoes, too.” My grandfather smiles. His face is so perfectly round that his smile looks like a gash in a basketball. I smile back. “Don’t smile,” he says. “Just because I’m smiling, don’t assume I couldn’t kill you right now. Know that about a man.” Source: Orner, Peter. “The Raft.” The Atlantic Online. The Atlantic Monthly Company, Apr. 2000. Web. 10 May 2011. Which point of view does the text use? third-person limited third-person omniscient second-person first-person
