shrilled around the corner of the cabin. The newspaper fringes on the
mantelshelf shook with a smoky draught that sucked down the chimney. The
heavy, black log made a crunching, frying sound. It had burned through,
and it broke in the middle and sent a shower of sparks crackling up the
wide, black chimney.
Daddy Cato wiped his eyes on his sleeve and one of the members began to
sing: “Hush! Hush! Somebody’s a-callin’ my name.”
Missie thought at first he meant what he said. He said it solemnly. But
the others began saying it with him. They sang it. Over and over again
they sang it, and a wailing chorus followed it:
“Oh, Lawd, what am I gwine do?”
It was so pitiful. They sounded so humble. So helpless. The little
children got closer together. Their lips moved too, as they sang the
words. When the song was ended, Daddy Cato called out:
“Come an’ pray, Brudder Andrew.”
Missie knew Andrew. He was Rose’s cousin. She watched him as he came
forward to the table and knelt down. He stepped in a slow, easy,
careless way, and after he knelt by the table the light of the kerosene
lamp in his wide-open eyes made Missie think of a rattlesnake’s eyes in
the sun. His head came out from a stoop in his big shoulders. As he
folded his arms on the table, his lean, sinewy hands grasped his elbows
firmly. His hair was clipped close from his head. The ridges in it
showed plain. His nostrils swelled out and his thin lips quivered with
the words that burred over them. And his eyes--maybe talking to God made
them shine so and glitter--and stare----
“Our Fader--we, Dy chillen, is bow heah be-fo
Dee to-night----
Come close--an’ listen----
Don’ le’ de win’ tek de wud we say.
An’ scatter dem----
We ain’ strong ez You. No. We weak.
You put we heah. You tek we ’way when You ready.
You ain’ ax we nuttin’. Nuttin’!”
Sweat oozed from his smooth black forehead. From his flattened nostrils.
He held his words to a smothered singing that almost ran them together.
Missie stood up to see his face better, but somebody touched her and she
sat down again and let the words flow over her.
O Gawd,
I know de time ain’ long
When my room gwine be lak a public hall,
My face gwine be lak a lookin’-glass,
An’ my teet’ll be shet ’gainst a silence.
No mo’ breat’ll heave een my breas’;
My han’s’ll be col’ an’ empty,
An’ be layin’ folded pun-top ’em.
Dese ol’ feet’ll be tu’n todes sunrise-side,
An’ dis head’ll be tu’n todes de wes’.
Tain’ no use den fo’ my eyes to crack dey-se’f open.
De life ob a man is same lak de pat’ ob de sun.
Een de mawnin’ e rise up bright een de east--
Ebyting look shine an’ beautiful.
’E soon sta’t plowin’ e furrow ’cross de element ob de sky.
’E strong, e brabe--
When de cloud come stan’ een ’e way, ’e fight em.
E knock em--e ain’ faid;
De lightnin’ flash een e han’
Tell de cloud fall down een rain.
But de time haffer come w’en ’e strengt’ gwine fail.
E ceasted f’om climbin’ higher.
’E sta’t fo’ drap todes de wes’.
’E moan tell de sky tu’n red.
But ’e haffer go to ’e res’.
’E sink.
’E gone.
’E gone down behime de hill,
De hill whe’ de pine trees is t’ick,
De hill whe’ de night be’s black.
Dey’s pine trees a waitin’ yonder now
Fo’ drap needle ober my grabe.
Oh, Lawd! dat’s de time!
My hea’t git weak w’en I t’ink on em--
Dat how-come I down on my knees!
Fader, stan’ by me den!
Be a light on da da’k crooked pat’;
Be a shade f’om da’ hot bunnin’ sun;
Be a bridge fo’ me ober deep water;
Hol’ my han’ tell I git across,
Tell I git Home!
Andrew’s black eyes were staring at something beyond the wall. His big,
strong teeth were bared. They ground together harshly, and his hands
strained at each other.
The room was still. Too still. Maybe Andrew was in a trance. Rose said
people went into a trance when they looked on the face of God.
But suddenly Andrew smiled and said: “Amen!”
He got up and walked slowly back to his seat, and wiped his face on his
sleeve as he went. The congregation sat up straight and Daddy Cato began
singing:
“Jedus is my maul and wedge----”
Everybody sang it with him. Then Daddy Cudjoe was called on to pray.
Daddy Cudjoe is old and crooked. His face was lined and creased with
deep wrinkles. His teeth were all gone so he speaks with a funny,
childish lisp.
Everybody smiled in a kindly way when he went forward and knelt by the
table. He bent over so low that his head almost touched the floor. The
lamplight fell on his snow-white hair and he rubbed his knotted, old,
trembling, black hands together.
Some of the children grinned when his thin cracked high voice cried out:
“Massuh Jedus--dis duh me--ol’ Cudjoe----!
I know good fo’-true I ain’ nuttin’!
Des’ a po’ ol’ black nigger!
But de Book say You know all dem lil sparrow-bud an’ ting----
Dat how-come me, Ol’ Cudjoe, hab de hea’t fo’ ax You fo’ don’ fo-git me.
I don’ be f’aid--not liken I nusen to be.
Seem lak--sometime--de grabe’ll be sweet----”
He began to sob, but the members encouraged him to go on.
“Go on, Daddy! Talk wid Him! E ain’ gwine fo-git you! E know you!”
Heartened by them, the old man tussled on with his prayer.
“When I git to heab’n I wan’ leddown an’ res’ tree week. On a big white
counterpane bed. Da’s all I wan’ do. Dis res’.
I ain’ no count, not fo’ wuk, no mo--I all de time wanter set down.
Yessuh.
I don’ wan’ no gol’ shoe, please, Suh--Shoe eber did hu’t my feet--Don’
gi’ me no okra an’ tomattus soup fo’ eat, Suh--I so lub clabber and
sweet milk. An’ honey an’ white flour bread.”
The children laughed out loud at this. Daddy Cato looked at them and
shook his head, then he said:
“Dat’ll do now, Cudjoe. You done talk wid Him good. You done say
a-plenty. Say ’Amen’ now.”
And Daddy Cudjoe did. He got up painfully from his curved knees and went
hobbling back to his seat by the fire, brushing the tears out of his
eyes.
Andrew began a spiritual, clapping his hands slowly together as he sang,
“I’m gwine to see my Jedus,
Set right by His side!
Set right by His side!”
“Push de bench back, chillen,” Daddy Cato directed.
There was a great fuss and clutter and rattling. Everybody was moving.
Missie felt dazed by the crowding and cramming. The benches were hurried
outside and put back under the house, except those placed around the
walls.
Sinners and Christians were all mixed together, the men singers in one
corner, and the women forming a ring in the middle of the room where
the table had been.
The shouting was starting.
Missie didn’t see Rose, so she got close beside Maum Hannah in a corner
out of the draught.
Women in the circle took short, shuffling steps and their hands were
held out in front of them limp from the wrist.
As the men’s singing and handclapping went faster, the women’s short,
shuffling steps became nimbler.
Mothers with babies in their arms stood close to the wall and sang in
sharp, high, piercing voices and shook the babies in time. Little
children with round, black eyes and spindling bare legs moved their lips
earnestly and beat time with small, bony palms and heels.
The cupped hands of the men in the corner made deafening claps. Their
knees bent and stiffened with frantic jerks. How could they do it? Their
strained throats were corded. Veins swelled in their temples. Their set
eyes glared. Sweat poured off their faces. Over and over they shouted
fiercely:
“I’m gwine to see my Jedus!
Set right by His side!
Set right by His side!”
Keen treble voices chimed above the thundering rhythm. Missie felt
terrified.
“Send de sperit, Jedus!” Daddy Cato cried, and the good part of his face
laughed with joy.
Rose was in the ring of shouters with her hat in her hand.
“Hol’ my hat tell I done,” she yelled to Missie as she passed. The hat
was tossed forward.
The exhausted singers stopped with a breathless laugh. The door was
choked with people trying to push out into the yard for air.
“I decla’ to Gawd, I ain’ got a dry t’read on.” Rose patted her thick
wet body as she said it.
“But you sho is shout nice, Cun Rose,” Andrew assured her politely.
There were two ways home. At Maum Hannah’s cabin, the road divided. One
way went around the fields and the other dwindled to a path that ran
through the woods and across the duck-dam gully.
“Le’s don’ go home t’rough dem woods, not to-night,” Rose suggested to
Missie, who was holding fast to her hand. “I ain’ ’f’aid de da’k, but
dem woods always hab a kinder strange look when de moon is young lak e
is to-night.”
Missie was glad to go around the long way, even if it did lead by the
graveyard. God was everywhere, Rose said, but the fields couldn’t hide
Him the way thick woods might do. As they walked on, Rose talked
pleasantly.
“You know, gal, ef you trabble roun’ at night, ’specialty een de spring
endurin’ de small o’ de moon, you more’n likely to see a plat eye,” Rose
changed to a husky whisper.
“Long up yonder by Gilliken’s sto’ at de cross-road, close by de two
notch mile post, a lil dawg’ll come runnin’ up by you and kinder rub
hisse’f up on you’ leg. Ef you shoot em e’ll tu’n to a hog. You shoot em
agin an’ e’ll tu’n to a hoss. Shoot em agin, an’ e’ll tu’n to a man
’thout no haid. Ef you keep on a shootin’ em e’ll tu’n to a fog--to dis
something nudder kinder like a cloud.
“Den you better run hard ez you kin. Dey say: ’A cowardly man don’ tote
no broke bones.’”
Missie listened, and shivered. A plat eye was as bad as God.
_Mount Pleasant_
The next Saturday morning Rose said to Killdee:
“I ain’ been to Mount Pleasant Church een so long, man. Lemme hab ol’
Mike an’ de wagon. Me an’ Missie could go by an’ tek Maum Hannah long,
too. Missie is a ign’ant gal. E ought to go to a reg-lar preachin’ one
time.”
“Sho. Go ef you wanter,” Killdee agreed cheerfully.
And so on Sunday morning before noon, Rose and Missie were dressed,
ready to go. Missie’s dress was white and a red ribbon was tied around
her waist. Rose washed her face clean and greased it with nice white hog
lard. It shone, Killdee said, and he laughed out loud when he looked at
her all ready to go.
Missie hardly knew Rose in her fine flowered purple muslin. It stayed in
the trunk in the shed room. Rose had on a corset, too, and her wrapped
hair was completely covered with a black, wool wig she had bought from
the cross-roads store. This fitted smooth and tight and it had a knot
right in the back. It made Rose’s black sailor hat almost too small for
her head, but it looked very grand.
Rose had no shoes that were whole, so she borrowed a pair from Mary
West, and Mary sent along her gold-rimmed spectacles, too, for Rose to
wear. Mary was a sinner. She hardly ever bothered to go to church, but
she was very kind about lending her things.
Rose’s feet were short and thick and Mary’s were long and narrow, but
that didn’t make much difference, because Rose didn’t put the shoes on
until she got in sight of the church. Shoes were just for looks.
Killdee helped them into the wagon and handed Rose the rope lines.
“Wait,” she said. “Git a quilt offen de bed fo’ put ober my lap. Dese
lines ain’ so clean.” Killdee hurried in and got the prettiest one, the
log-cabin one, red and blue and white and yellow.
Missie, sitting up on the plank seat beside Rose, covered her lap, too.
Her dress was so beautiful and clean and white she could not bear for
dust to get on it.
Maum Hannah was ready and waiting for them when they reached her cabin.
She wore a black sailor hat, too, over her black and white
head-handkerchief. She had on shoes and stockings, and a big, white
apron over her plain black calico dress. She was so neat. So clean. So
kind.
“See my new shoe?” she asked happily, holding out a foot. “I git dem
f’om de sto’ yestiddy. I been want a slim nine, but I had to tek a wide
eight, by de man ain’ had nuttin’ else.”
Mike stood patiently and switched his close-clipped tail at the stinging
flies, while Maum Hannah climbed up into the wagon and took her seat
beside Rose. Missie sat on a box behind them.
“Lawd, dis is settin’ up mighty high, enty! It good Mike duh walk slow
or we-all sho would fall out.”
Mike did walk slow, and Rose and Maum Hannah talked as they rolled on
over the rough, dusty road.
They said that Reverend Duncan was getting mighty old, and he was too
fat. But where would they ever get another pastor like him? He and his
wife were so large they had to ride in two buggies and drive two horses.
But he did preach powerful sermons.
Rose thought the assessment of a dollar and a chicken and a peck of corn
for each member was too heavy, for there were nine hundred members at
Mount Pleasant Church alone, and he had two other churches. But Maum
Hannah thought the price was cheap enough to hear the word preached as
Reverend Duncan could preach it. Every other Sunday, too. Not once a
month, as many churches had.
Rose thought a preacher ought to know how to read, but Maum Hannah said
reading out of books wasn’t good. It was better Reverend Duncan couldn’t
do it. There were other ways to read. So many things in books were not
so. If Reverend Duncan could read, he might get a lot of wrong notions.
As it was, he had to think things out by himself. He had to ask the
Father up-yonder to tell him what to say. He knew all the hymns. He
could line them out good as if he read them. He could marry people word
for word like it was in the book. He always held the book open in front
of him, and it did as well as if he were reading out of it.
Young people thought a lot about reading, but she was raised to know it
wasn’t good for everybody to be reading so much. Let the white people do
it if they wanted to take a chance, but the colored people didn’t know
enough about books to know what was good to read and what was good to
leave alone. There were plenty of other ways to find out about things
besides reading out of books. Plenty. All these schools and things were
foolish.
A sudden bend in the road brought Mount Pleasant Church into sight.
There it stood, facing the big road. A long, low, whitewashed building
with a grove of pines at its back. Mules and wagons and buggies and
people were thick around it.
Mike walked so slow that other wagons passed them. Clouds of red dust
rose and floated over them, then drifted away to the cotton fields on
each side of the road. Rose jerked at the rope lines. She tried to make
Mike hurry, but he paid no attention at all. He walked steadily, slowly,
quietly.
Missie wished for the quilt to put over her clean white dress. This
dust would soon spoil it. And she was hot. The sun shone blinding bright
down on them.
“Jedus, my haid sho is hot! I wish I ain’ wore my haih to-day,” Rose
complained.
“I decla’!” Maum Hannah exclaimed. “I been settin’ heah a-lookin’. I
wonder how you git you haih fix sich a way. You buy em outen de sto’,
enty? ’E look nice, fo’ true. But den, I rudder see natchel haih wrop’
an’ tie’ een a head-hank’cher. Da’s by I’m ol’, I reckon.”
At last the churchyard was reached. Mike turned in and walked up to one
of the trees. He stood while Andrew came and helped Rose and Maum Hannah
get out of the wagon.
Missie felt dazed by all she saw. There, right close to the well, with
its long pole sweep for drawing the water, was a square pool of water
sunk in the ground. How still and deep and green it looked in the gray
cement sides that held it. What was it?
Rose was looking at her and laughing.
“Lawd! Looka de gal. E ain’ know de baptizin’ pool. E tink people
baptize een de ribber! Git out, Missie. Come heah. Lemme show you wha’
’e is.”
Other black people stood around and listened and smiled while Rose
explained to Missie that this was a watery grave. Sinners buried in it
rose up out of it with all their sins left behind them. It did look
strange. Queer. Green. Full of sins.
There was to be a baptizing to-day. The pool was filled to the brim.
There were steps at one end--for the candidates to step down into it.
Andrew said that all the candidates to-day were young people, not much
older than Missie. Rose shook her head sadly and declared that older
people became hard in sin. Hard. They thought more of dancing and
singing reels than of being saved from everlasting fire and torment.
Killdee was in sin right now. Nobody could turn him. Missie must listen
to-day. Listen! Reverend Duncan would tell her how to escape hell.
Missie stood and thought while Rose and Maum Hannah greeted their
friends. The watery grave looked terrible. She couldn’t exactly
understand just all that Rose meant. Killdee was living in sin. Rose
wasn’t. And yet Killdee was better in every way.
There was a stir. Reverend Duncan was coming. Missie looked down the
road, where all eyes were turned. It was so dusty she could hardly see.
First a roan pony came trotting feebly along with a rattly buggy. A big,
fat, black man was driving. Right behind came a gray pony pulling
another buggy. A big, fat, black woman drove that.
“Yonder dey come,” Rose said, laughing. “All two so fat dey can’ ha’dly
set een de buggy. Good ol’ people, too. Good Lawd, who dat wid Miss
Duncan? Who?”
The people crowded around the preacher and his wife and helped them to
alight. Everybody bowed politely and shook hands with them.
“I wan’ mek yinner acquainted wid Reveren’ Felder,” Reverend Duncan
said, indicating a younger, slenderer, lighter-colored man, who was with
them.
“Dis gentleman is de child ob Gawd. ’E’s come to gib de people de
message of salwation to-day.”
Missie could hardly see for the crowd, but she held to Rose’s hand and
went up the aisle into Mount Pleasant Church. The house of God, Rose
said. Where was God?
Rose let her sit between Maum Hannah and herself. Both Reverend Felder
and Reverend Duncan went up into the pulpit and sat in the two chairs
there. The people who sang at meeting went up and sat on the front
bench.
Reverend Felder whispered to Reverend Duncan, then he got up and said:
“Breddern! Sistern! We will sing hymn number 524.”
Reverend Duncan stumbled forward anxiously.
“We ain’ hab book, Brudder Felder. De people can’ read. Line em out. Gi’
’em two line at a time.”
Reverend Felder seemed to cover a smile with his hand, then he read
slowly, distinctly:
“Welcome, sweet day of rest, that saw the Lord arise.”
Andrew raised the tune. The whole church was filled with the hymn. Some
voices were deep and low, some high. The sound of it all made something
inside Missie’s breast quiver. When the two lines were sung, Reverend
Felder read two more, and so on to the end of the hymn.
“Let us pray,” he said then, and while everybody stood hushed, quiet,
with heads bowed and eyes closed, he spoke to God.
Missie had to look at him. His teeth were shiny, like gold. His
eyeglasses were brighter than the ones Mary West lent Rose to wear. His
voice boomed like a bumblebee. Talking to God. He was telling God many
things. He said these people were going straight to hell! He stamped
with a foot on the pulpit floor. He yelled and shouted. Missie held to
Rose’s skirt. Reverend Duncan kept saying “Amen” all the way through. It
all must be so. Rose said Killdee was a sinner. Killdee would burn--she
would too, for she had never been baptized.
When the prayer was over, the people sang another hymn, then the sermon
began. Missie tried to listen, but she couldn’t stay awake. She had on a
wide-brimmed hat and leaning her head forward made her neck ache. She
was sleepy. She nodded. Maum Hannah took her hat off and whispered: “Put
you haid een my lap, chile, an’ go sleep.”
When she woke, the people were singing a pitiful tune. It made her cry.
The words were:
“Ne-ro--my--Gawd to Dee---- Ne-ro--to Dee----”
Rose shook her by the arm, and put a hot hand over her mouth.
“How-come you duh cry, gal? Shet you’ mout’.”
But Maum Hannah leaned over and patted her and said:
“Da’s all right, Honey. You ain’ wake up good yet. Set back down on de
bench.”
Missie did, but she thought of her mother and her brothers and sisters
and wondered where they were and if she would ever see them again, and
she sobbed on and on, until Rose said impatiently:
“Git up, gal! It time fo’ go to de baptizin’. Don’ wipe you’ dirty face
on you’ dress. You gwine ruint ’em.”
She had forgotten all about her fine dress. She didn’t want to spoil
that. She brushed the tears away with her bare hands and followed Rose
through the steamy crowd to the churchyard where Old Mike stood waiting
to take them home.
Reverend Felder and Reverend Duncan and the candidates for baptism
hurried around to the back of the church where a little shed served as a
dressing room. They came out dressed in long, white robes. They and the
deacons and the members formed a line and marched around the church
singing:
“We’re marching to Zion, the beautiful city of God.”
Maum Hannah had a painful knee that kept her from joining the marchers,
though her voice chimed in with them. Missie stood holding her hand.
When the hymn was finished, the marchers stood still while Reverend
Felder stepped down into the pool. Its green depths quivered. A sudden
playful breeze fluttered under his robe and parted it so everybody could
see his store-bought undergarments. He went waist-deep into the pool,
and while the congregation sang a solemn spiritual, one of the
candidates, a slim black boy, stepped doubtfully into the watery grave.
His face was ashy under the white cloth tied around his head. His
fingers clutched nervously at the front opening of his white robe.
“Come on, brother,” Reverend Felder exhorted him. “Soon you sin will be
washed white ez snow!”
“Amen!” shouted Reverend Duncan.
There was a sudden splash and strangled cough and a snort. A double
spurt of water sprang from his nostrils. He gasped for breath and broke
away from the preacher’s grasp.
“Wait, son! Come on back! You haffer dip again! You dis been dip een de
name of de Fader and de Son. You haffer dip een de name ob de Holy
Ghost.”
The members caught the unwilling, frightened candidate by the arms and
led him back to have his baptism completed.
Once more he was dipped. In the name of the Holy Ghost. That finished
it. He was a saved sinner. Saved from hell. One after another, all the
candidates were dipped three times.
When the baptizing was finished, Rose and Maum Hannah shook hands with
the preachers and curtseyed as they said good-by to everybody else.
Andrew came forward and politely helped them climb into the wagon and
they started home to Killdee and Jim and the little new baby. Maum
Hannah went along home with them, for the new baby had thrash in its
mouth and Rose didn’t know what to do for it.
Killdee came out to the wagon and helped them get out.
“How was meetin’?” he asked pleasantly.
“Fine! Fine!” Rose answered. “But I too glad fo’ git home.”
“Lawd, you sho ain’ look like de same ’oman lef’ heah,” Killdee laughed.
Rose didn’t. Missie held her hat and the wig of thick wool. Maum Hannah
held Mary West’s spectacles. Rose crawled out of the wagon in her
stocking feet, saying:
“Gawd, I too rabin’ fo’ git off dis heah cosset. It pure got my stomach
a-huttin’. Hurry, Missie, an’ git my pipe. I wan’ smoke too bad. Whe’ de
baby, Killdee?”
The baby was asleep, so Maum Hannah and Rose sat down to smoke a pipeful
while they told Killdee all about Reverend Felder and the wonderful
sermon he preached.
He was coming back when the crop was laid by to hold a revival meeting.
He knew a man who owned a moving picture of hell and he was going to get
him to come bring it. The people could see the misery that was ahead of
them in the next world in that wonderful picture.
Killdee asked thoughtfully:
“Who dat mek da picture? Who dat see hell an’ come back fo’ draw ’em?”
Neither Maum Hannah nor Rose knew, but Reverend Felder did. He knew
about it all. Killdee would have to go see it when it came. He’d change
his mind then about being a member. He’d join the church then.
Killdee laughed. He said he was willing for Rose to go whenever she
liked. He’d stay at home and keep Jim and the baby any time for her, but
he couldn’t go to church with her. He hadn’t time, he said.
Missie slipped into the shed room and took off her white dress and
folded it up carefully and put in back into Rose’s trunk. She lovingly
wrapped the red ribbon around her fingers and laid it smooth and shining
on top of the dress. Killdee was the best man in the whole world. He
bought the cloth for that dress and the red ribbon to wear with it, too.
Rose called her. The baby was awake. Missie hurried to the bed and took
the child up.
“Bring em heah, Missie. Le’ Auntie look at ’e mout’. ’E got de t’rash so
bad ’e can’ res’.”
Missie laid the tiny, black thing in Maum Hannah’s arms. Maum Hannah
peeped through the soft lips at the tender gums that were covered with
whitened patches.