A farmer and a teacher a hooker and a preacher riding on a midnight bus bound from Mexico One was headed for vacation one for higher education and two of them were searching for lost souls That driver never ever saw the stop sign And eighteen wheelers can't stop on a dime There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway why there's not four of them Heaven only knows I guess it's not what you take when you leave this world behind you it's what you leave behind you when you go That farmer left a harvest a home and eighty acres the faith and love for growing things in his young son's heart And that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children and did her best to give them all a better start And that preacher whispered Can't you see the promise land As he laid his blood-stain bible in that hooker's hand There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway why there's not four of them Heaven only knows I guess it's not what you take when you leave this world behind you it's what you leave behind you when you go That's the story that our preacher told last Sunday as he held that blood-stain bible up for all of us to see He said Bless the farmer and the teacher and the preacher who gave this bible to my mama who read it to me There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway why there's not four of them now I guess we know It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you it's what you leave behind you when you go There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway