cooking dinner to take to church, fixing a basket, and China dishes to
hold it. Her best clothes, and Breeze’s, were laid out on chairs to be
put on. They must be ready when Uncle Bill came for them in his new
buggy. He had to go ahead of time, for he had charge of the communion
as well as of the Bury League which would be organized when the service
was over and the dinner eaten. The head man of the Bury League had
come to preach and to form a Society to Bury. Big Sue baked rising
bread yesterday in the Big House kitchen stove. The brown loaves,
uncovered, sat in a row on the shelf, waiting to be wrapped up. They’d
turn to Jesus’ own body when the preacher prayed over them, and blessed
them. Blackberry wine, in the two big demijohns in the corner of the
shed-room, would turn into Jesus’ blood. Breeze couldn’t make it out
in his head exactly, but Big Sue said it was so. Breeze had picked the
blackberries that made the wine, and he’d bought the white flour for
the bread from the store. How could they turn to Jesus? But Big Sue
said prayer can do anything. Anything! When a fine preacher like the
Bury League leader prays. Not everybody knows how to pray right, but he
did. Yes, Lord, he did!
Before taking time to swallow down a mouthful of bread for breakfast,
Breeze and Big Sue put the demijohns on the front porch, ready to go
to church. They packed up all the fine dinner in one box, and the
communion bread in another, so when she was dressed in her Sunday
clothes, she’d have nothing to do but sit still and wait and rest.
How different she looked with her body pulled in tight with a great
corset full of steel bands! Like a cotton bale pressed too small. The
frills of her petticoat were lace-trimmed. Over them, hiding them
carefully, was her new purple sateen dress.
She sat down on the porch with a pan of breakfast in her lap and began
to eat. Breeze was back in the shed-room dressing when he heard her
laugh and scramble to her feet to say in her company manners voice:
“How you do dis mawnin’, Reverend?”
Breeze peeped through the open door in time to see her draw a foot
adroitly behind her in a low curtsey to a strange man who answered in a
familiar voice:
“Quite well, thank you, Mrs. Good-wine. How you do this morning?”
“Not so good,” she said sweetly. “Bad luck’s been a-hangin’ round de
plantation lately.”
“Bad luck ought not to pester a lady who can fix frog legs like the
ones you sent us last night for supper. They were elegant.”
Breeze stood still and listened. He knew that voice, sure as the world.
The Bury League preacher was his own stepfather. Hurrying into his
clothes he tipped across the room to the window to see better, but Big
Sue’s antics held his eyes. She was down on her knees, shaking all over
in the drollest way, with laughter that took her breath. Her company
manners were gone. Between gasps and shouts she gurgled, “Great Gawd!
You ought o’ seen dem frogs dis mawnin’. Dat fool Breeze didn’ kill em!
He cut off dey hind legs an’ turned dem loose in de back yard! I liken
to a broke my foot jumpin’ when I missed an’ stepped slam on one!”
“Who did you say done it?” The Reverend was disturbed. The greenish
cast of his long-tailed coat and derby hat spread over his swarthy
face, and he sat down so suddenly on the steps that Big Sue’s roars
hushed and her company manners came back. Scrambling to her feet
and casting a fierce look toward the window where Breeze stood, she
sympathized:
“I’m too sorry. No wonder you’s sick! Eatin’ de legs of a livin’ frog!
But dey’s dead now. I made Breeze knock ’em in de head a while ago.
Breeze is a crazy boy. When I git home to-night, I’m gwine gi’ em de
heaviest lickin’ ever was. I ain’ gwine leave a whole piece o’ hide on
em. No, suh! I’m gwine bust his crust, sure as you’ bawn.”
“Whe’d you git dat boy? Is he you’ own?” The Reverend’s voice was
weakly.
“No, Lawd. My son, Lijah, is got plenty o’ sense. Breeze is a li’l’
boy I got f’om Sandy Island to stay wid me, by I was so lonesome in de
night by myself.”
The Reverend took a handkerchief out of the pocket in the tail of his
long coat and wiped the sweat off his face, then he leaned his head on
his hand. Big Sue was anxious.
“Would you like a li’l’ sweetened water, suh?”
He shook his head.
“How ’bout a li’l’ cookin’ soda? Dat might settle you.” He didn’t need
a thing. He must go now. He and Miss Leah were to talk over the hymns
so she could lead the choir. He was subject to spells of swimming in
the head, but they didn’t last long.
His mention of Leah’s name changed Big Sue’s tone altogether. She
laughed out.
“Lawdy, I bet Leah’ll strut to-day. April took em to town an’ bought em
some teeth. Dey don’ fit good like you’ own, dough. Leah wouldn’ trust
to chaw wid ’em, not fo’ nothin’. I don’ blame em, dough. I’d hate to
broke ’em if dey was mine. Leah is sho’ tryin’ to look young dese days.
E natural hair is white as cotton, but e polishes em wid soot an’ lark.”
Except for Big Sue’s displeasure about the frogs, Breeze would have
told her that the Reverend was his mother’s husband who disappeared the
day his grandfather cut the big pine, but the boy’s one wish was to
have her forget him, and maybe she’d forget the licking she promised to
lay on his hide.
When Uncle Bill drove up to the door with one of the biggest pertest
mules from the barnyard hitched to a one-horse wagon, Big Sue, instead
of praising the beast’s fresh-clipped mane and tail, looked doubtfully
at the cloth strings tying the harness in many places.
“If de mule gits to kickin’ or either runnin’, how you gwine rule em?”
she asked anxiously, but Uncle Bill laughed at her fears and helped her
to the seat in front, putting the basket of dinner and the communion
bread and wine back where Breeze sat on the floor.
At first the mule could not be moved out of a slow walk, but when the
wagon crossed over a root in the road and the wheels made a creak and
a bump, the mule jumped so that one demijohn turned over, its stopper
flew out and some of the wine spilled. Big Sue scolded Breeze for
letting it happen and told him to steady the jugs the rest of the way.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t even bend with her corset on. It cut her
wind and had her so heated she had to take off her big sailor hat and
fan herself to catch air.
The wagon wheels ground slowly along in the deep sandy ruts. White
clouds of dust rose above the slow-moving hoofs of mules and oxen that
toiled along, pulling buggies and wagons and carts crowded with black
people going to Heaven’s Gate Church. Other church-goers were walking,
many of the women in their stocking feet, carrying their shoes in
their hands along with their dinner baskets. Well-greased faces shone,
everybody saluted everybody else, some with simple bows, others with
bows beneath upraised arms.
Heaven’s Gate Church stretched its whitewashed length from the road
clear back to the picnic tables made of clean new boards nailed
together and fastened to wide-spreading trees whose shade made the
grounds cool and darkened. The sweep of the open well was kept busy
drawing water. The churchyard swarmed with people hurrying about like
a nest of ants before summer rain. Women crowded behind the church,
putting on shoes, fixing hair, smoothing crumpled dresses and aprons.
Big Sue sucked her teeth at the sight of Leah who was strutting, sure
enough. Big Sue grumbled bitterly because Leah was not only the choir
leader to-day, but chairman of the lemonade committee. Leah had no
judgment. The last time she fixed the lemonade, she had it sour enough
to cut your very heart-strings. Leah pushed herself. She gave nobody
else a chance. No wonder she got salivated.
The chain of wagons and buggies and carts that had stretched along the
road crowding out people on foot, now filled the churchyard completely.
Every low tree limb, every bush, held a tethered beast. Oxen chewed
cuds. Mules dozed, roused to switch off gnats and stinging flies with
close-clipped tails, then dozed again.
Every bench inside the long low whitewashed church was finally packed
with people, waiting respectfully until the time came for the Reverend
to get up in the pulpit and preach God’s word. He was very different
from Reverend Salty, the kind old preacher who had lately died and left
the congregation of Heaven’s Gate Church like sheep without a shepherd.
Reverend Salty was fat and easy to laugh, but this Reverend was slim
and tall and solemn. He was so educated that he could read scripture
right out of the Book. No word could trip his nimble tongue, but he
said he had to wear glasses because he had strained his eyes searching
the scriptures day and night to find out how to lead the people.
As he adjusted his glasses, carefully placing the curve of the gold
frames behind his small ears, Maum Hannah, who sat next to Breeze on
the front bench of the Amen corner, boomed right out with an earnest,
“T’ank Gawd for life, son! T’ank Gawd! Praise be to His blessed name! I
too glad I could git here to hear you read Gawd’s book dis day!”
The Reverend cleared his throat and stared sternly at her, but when
his eyes slipped a glance at Breeze, they turned quickly to another
direction. Big Sue in the choir on the other side of the pulpit shook
her head, but Maum Hannah was wiping her joyful tears on an apron
string, and she saw nothing until Uncle Bill’s old Louder trotted in
and lay down near her feet, then she smiled and welcomed him with a
gentle, “I glad you come to pray, Louder.”
The first scripture lesson told how Moses led the Children of Israel
over Jordan on their journey toward Canaan, the promised land. The
Reverend stopped, and took off his fine glasses with fingers that
trembled, and it seemed to Breeze the preacher looked more at him than
at Maum Hannah. Getting a white fresh-ironed pocket handkerchief out
of his pants pocket, he unfolded it and made little delicate wipes at
the corners of both his eyes. He polished each spectacle glass, cleared
his throat and coughed until his voice was clear, then he read the
second lesson. April, who had come in late, listened intently. Lord,
how the man could read. He used to read at meeting on Sandy Island
sometimes. He read now, about charity, which he said meant love, and as
the familiar words fell clear on Maum Hannah’s ears, the beauty of them
stirred her heart. Her eyes closed, her body rocked from side to side.
She murmured low praise to God, then louder words of encouragement to
the preacher. “Tell de people, son! Don’ hold back! You’s a stranger in
a strange land, but you’s a child of Gawd! Read em, son, read em!” she
crooned. “Read de word of Gawd. Let de people hear all wha’ Jedus say!
We got to love ev’ybody! Sinners an’ all! Love de sinners! Hate de sin!”
Old Reverend Salty had never objected to Maum Hannah’s taking a part in
the service, but this preacher was new. He didn’t understand that Maum
Hannah’s heart was so moved that she had to speak out. He got more and
more nervous and fretted. Every now and then he turned his head to one
side and cast a disapproving frown toward her, but she was too happy to
notice that anything was wrong.
When he began lining out the hymn:
“Come ye that love the Lord
And let your joy be known,”
Uncle Bill leaned close and whispered in the old woman’s ear, “You
mustn’ talk out loud, Auntie. Dis preacher is used to town ways.”
Leah raised the tune, and her strong voice, swelled by the
congregation, made it hard to hear what Uncle Bill said. Maum Hannah
gave him a puzzled questioning look, and her old lips haltingly
inquired:
“Enty?”
Whole stanzas were sung before she joined in with the great volume
of harmony. Did Uncle Bill say she mustn’t talk out loud because the
preacher was used to town ways! Breeze nodded. That was exactly what
Uncle Bill said. Maum Hannah sighed, and mumbled. She didn’t mean any
disrespect. His beautiful reading had moved the spirit in her and
stirred her heart so deep, her tongue could not lie dumb in her mouth.
She’d try not to talk out loud again.
When the hymn was done Reverend stepped to the side of the pulpit to
say he would add something new to the service. The Ten Commandments.
People must understand what the laws of God are before they can keep
them rightly. He would read them, one at a time, and at the end of each
the congregation must pray.
“Do, Lord, help us to keep this law.”
“Does everybody understand?”
A roar of answers came back, “Yes suh, we understan’ good, suh!” but
Maum Hannah shook her head and objected in clear distinct words, “No,
son, dat’s how de white folks pray! Gawd ain’ used to we prayin’ dat
way!”
April smiled, but Uncle Bill was worried. “Hush, Auntie! You’ll git de
preacher all tangled up.”
She gave up. Her eyes fell. Her hands caught at each other and held
fast. The thin-veined, blue-nailed fingers, knotted at every joint,
twisted into a tight uneasy grip, then sank into a fold of her white
apron. Tears ran out from under her shut eyelids.
The preacher opened the Bible, and turned the leaves over for the right
place. When it lay under his eyes he began a solemn,
“‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’!”
When he raised his eyes to the congregation Uncle Bill led a ragged
wave of voices into a loud, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”
The preacher smiled and nodded approval, then bent over the Book to
read the next commandment. It was a long one. The people didn’t know
exactly when it ended, but he started them off, and they responded with
an eager rush, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”
The Reverend lost his place, his long forefinger had to help his eyes
find it, but presently he began with a loud, “‘Remember the Sabbath
day’!” He read on and on. The congregation listened breathlessly for
the end, and when his voice fell, every soul broke into the crashing
prayer, “Do Lawd, help us to keep dis law!” April frowned.
Maum Hannah’s head dropped, her chin was on her breast, her eyes were
shut tight, her lips moving in whispers. Breeze could tell she was
praying alone, quite apart from the preacher and the congregation which
had strangely become two beings: one, a lone, black, shiny-skinned,
shiny-eyed man in the pulpit, repeating God’s commandments, in the high
sing-song, and clapping his hands for the people to respond; and the
congregation, now knitted into a many-mouthed, many-handed, many-eyed
mass, that swayed and rocked like one body from side to side, crying to
God in an agonized, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!” A shrill voice
screamed out of the rumbling body, “Hallelujah! I feel de sperit!” A
chill crept over Breeze. He felt something strange himself. He couldn’t
hear his own voice in the flood of shouted praying, but he knew he was
one with the rest. The preacher’s tall form swayed this way and that,
his long slew-feet patted the floor. He was like a tree rocked by a
strong wind.
“Honour thy father and thy mother,” he chanted. His upheld hands opened
and clenched into straining fists, but the congregation was too full to
wait for the rest. Their fierce, full-throated cry rang out, “Do, Lawd,
help us to keep dis law!”
“Thou shalt kill!” His voice swelled and thickened with hoarseness, his
arms swung about.
“Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”
The preacher’s tongue was twisted by his fervor, the ears of the
congregation deafened by their own shouting.
“Thou shalt commit adultery!” he yelled.
“Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!” they yelled back.
Breeze’s blood seethed hot, his heart beat wildly, the whole church
full of people boiled with commotion. Shouts of praise to God broke
into the din and tumult of prayer.
“Thou shalt steal!” came like wind on a flame and the congregation’s
answer sprang hot from the heart, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”
Maum Hannah jerked up her head and listened. Her hands wavered apart,
then reached out toward the preacher. She got to her feet and waved her
arms, “You got em wrong, son! Wrong! Great Lawd, don’ say em dat way!”
Nobody paid her any attention but Uncle Bill, and he pulled her by
the arm and made her sit down, “Wait, Auntie! It ain’ time to shout
yet. Set down till after de sermon.” Then he joined in with the
others, whose words lost in feeling, surged back and forth, throbbing,
thundering, until the old church trembled and shook.
“Thou shalt bear false witness against thy neighbor!”
The preacher’s flashing eyes blazed with fire, as they gazed at the
people, his shortened breath panted his words, and the congregation
burst into prayer, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”
From his seat in the Amen corner Breeze could see every face. Standing
out by itself, April’s bold daring countenance was lit with a cool
sneering smile.
The Ten Commandments were all said, but the preacher knew others.
“Thou shalt be a father to the fatherless!”
“Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!” The holy spirit filled the
close-packed swaying crowd.
“Thou shalt be a husband to the widow!”
The ever-rising tide of prayer rolled into a flood that swallowed
every soul but April. He sat upright. Unmoved. Passionless. When the
preacher’s ranting halted to give out a hymn, April got up and walked
down the aisle, and on out of the door. A no-mannered brazen thing for
anybody to do. Every eye gazed at him, the preacher stared, but Uncle
Bill hurriedly raised the hymn.
The congregation sang it as the preacher lined it out two lines at a
time. When it was finished, then he opened the Bible and took his text.
“Hold fast and repent!” He read it twice and closed the Book, then shut
his eyes and prayed in silence before he asked the question:
“Does all o’ you members fast?” Throughout the church a solemn silence
fell, then a great cry answered:
“Sho’! Sho’! Yes, suh.”
“You can not pray rightly without fasting.”
“No, suh! It’s de Gawd’s truth.”
“The longer you fast, the better you can repent!”
“Yes, brother! You right!”
“The longer you fast, the quicker your sins will be forgiven!”
“Praise His name! Hallelujah!” Leah led the women of the choir into a
low humming tune.
“Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights!”
“Yes, Gawd!” The choir’s humming swelled and spread to the women of the
congregation.
“He got stronger and stronger as He fasted.”
“Yes, suh!” Bodies rocked and swayed to the mournful tune.
“He got strong as the devil!” The preacher’s eyes flashed bright behind
his glasses, but Maum Hannah jumped forward at such reckless words.
“He beat the devil at his own game!” The Reverend shouted as he shook
his clenched fists.
“Glory! Hallelujah!” The congregation cried loud above the women’s
solemn wordless chanting.
“Yunnuh hold fast! Get strong like Jesus!” The preacher stamped on the
floor.
“Yes, Gawd! Praise His name!” The women were getting to their feet and
patting time.
“God’ll feed you on the bread of life!”
“Do, Master!” Maum Hannah cried out so clear, that he looked at her
and caught Breeze’s eye. The holy spirit left him all of a sudden.
Maybe he thought of the frog legs, maybe of old Breeze, but he stopped
short and cleared his throat and fumbled with the leaves of the book.
He presently said the time had come for making their offerings. They
must sing an old hymn, and the people must come forward and lay their
gifts on God’s holy altar, which was a small pine table in front of
the pulpit. They crushed into the aisle, an array of gaudy dresses,
weaving in and out among the dark men. Both aisles were choked with
singing people. Waves of hot breath smote Breeze in the face. Sunday
shoes squeaked. Outside in the churchyard a mule brayed long and loud.
Coins rolled and clinked against one another on the table. One rolled
on the floor and fell through a crack, lost, as Uncle Bill gave Breeze
a brownie to carry up.
The hymn was all sung, and the preacher went behind the pulpit again.
In a high voice he declared that the stay of Jesus on earth was divided
into four parts: the birth, the life, the death and the resurrection.
“Which was the biggest part? Which, brethren? Speak out!” he urged
them, for the congregation was hushed with interest.
“De resurrection!” Uncle Bill shouted.
“De life!” somebody else chimed.
“No, son!” Maum Hannah stood up. “No! De birthin’ was. If his mammy
didn’ birth em Jedus couldn’ live or either die. No, suh! De birthin’
was de biggest part.”
But the preacher wasn’t listening. He blared out his answer to his own
question:
“The resurrection of Jesus took the sting out of death! Brethren!
Sisters! The resurrection brought angels to the tomb! The resurrection
showed Heaven in the sky!”
Breeze’s head ached as the sermon went on. His neck hurt. His feet went
to sleep.
When it was at last ended, sinners were invited to come up to the
mourner’s bench and kneel for prayer, the preacher plead with them
not to wait and be damned, but to come up and promise God they’d seek
forgiveness for their sins until He gave them some sign by which they’d
know they were saved. A multitude thronged forward and fell on their
knees, sobbing and calling on Jesus for mercy.
The preacher begged God to look down. To come near and bring His holy
spirit to save these souls. Breeze’s heart beat hammer strokes against
his breast. He wanted to be saved too. He wanted to go kneel with the
rest of the sinners. The fear of Hell, and timidity, combined, shook
his knees, and broke him out in a cold sweat. All his blood felt
frozen, leaking through his skin as he staggered forward and knelt
down, and shut his eyes, and tried his best to pray.
A rough hand gripped his shoulder, and Big Sue whispered harshly in his
ear, “Is you gone plum crazy, Breeze? Git up an’ go on back an’ set
down. Don’t you jerk ’way from me! You ain’ got no business seekin’! If
you miss an’ find peace an’ git religion you couldn’ bat ball on Sunday
wid li’l’ young Cap’n when he come! Not if you’s a Christian! Git up!
You don’ know nothin’ ’bout prayin!”
Breeze got up sheepishly and went to his seat, but he thought bitterly;
Big Sue didn’t care if he burned in Hell. Many a time she had told
him how those wicked, hell-bent buckras spent Sundays in sin. Riding
horses. Singing reels. Dancing and frolicking on God’s day. Young Cap’n
played ball, baseball, under the trees, on the holy Sabbath, just as
if it were the middle of the week. Big Sue said God didn’t like people
to even pick a flower on Sunday. And now she wanted him to have sin
right along with those brazen white people. She didn’t care how much he
burned in Hell. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. When he got bigger he
was going to pray, no matter what Big Sue said.
The prayer for the sinners was done, and the sinners went to their
seats. The deacons passed the Lord’s Supper; small squares of bread
piled up on a plate, and water glasses full of blackberry wine. Each
member took a crumb and a sip, no more.
Maum Hannah’s fingers shook and fumbled over the bread and a tiny crumb
fell off the plate in her lap. A bit of Jesus’ own body. Broken for
the sins of men. As soon as Maum Hannah stood up, it would fall on the
floor and be trampled under foot. Why not get it and eat it? Nobody’d
know.
Breeze watched it. Once it seemed to move toward him, to creep nearer
to his fingers. The congregation was singing. Their voices rose, some
high, some low, Maum Hannah’s and Uncle Bill’s with the rest.
Nobody was looking. Why not take that crumb and taste it?
Breeze’s unsteady, frightened fingers stole sidewise, following the
apron’s folds until they got in reach of the bit of bread. They closed
over it and eased back to safety, then they slowly, slyly thrust it
into Breeze’s mouth.
It fell on his tongue which kept still, trying to get its flavor. But
it was small. Too small. It melted quickly and slipped down his throat
before Breeze could stop it. A bit of Jesus’ own precious body. The
preacher said it was that. Poor Jesus. Sold by His friend to bad people
who killed Him, hung Him on a cross. He let them do it. He wanted to
show God how sorry He was to see poor sinners going down to Hell.
Hopping. Burning. Weeping. Gnashing their teeth for ever and ever.
Jesus was a good man to do that. Breeze’s heart was rapt with pity. His
body quivered. Tears ran down his cheeks in floods. God must have a a
hard heart to let Jesus suffer so bad.
“Nee-ro my Gawd, to thee--
Nee-ro to thee----”
the congregation sang. Old Louder raised up his head and bayed, like
his heart ached too. Nobody noticed him but Maum Hannah who leaned and
patted his head. “Hush, Louder. Keep quiet. Pray easy, son. Easy.”
The service was finally over, the benediction said, people crowded the
aisles, poured out through the wide-open doors, slowly, quietly, until
the church was empty and its yard full.
An empty hogshead, got from the store, was half filled with water from
the spring at the picnic grounds. Lemons were cut and squeezed and
added. A great cloth bag full of sugar was poured in. A great block
of ice was stripped out of its sack and washed clean of sawdust, and
dumped into the barrel with the lemons and sugar and water.
Maum Hannah disapproved again, and some of the old people sided with
her. She said ice wasn’t a healthy thing. But the fine stylish town
preacher said she was mistaken. Once, a long time ago, people used to
think ice was not healthy, but everybody knows better now. In town
people never drink lemonade without ice. Never.
Uncle Bill was worried because the ice’s coldness seemed to soak up
the sugar. The lemonade didn’t taste at all right. There was no more
sugar to put in unless they sent all the way to the store, and this was
Sunday. It would be a sin to buy sugar on Sunday.