Part 4

On the opposite wall was a double row of large pictures. Awful pictures. Negroes naked to the waist. All of them broken out with an ugly sickness. Missie did not know that they were pictures of small-pox victims sent out by the State, but she felt sick inside to see such swollen cheeks and bodies.

What did Maum Martha want with them there? Maybe they were sinners----

Daddy Cato was singing. The people were getting to their feet, and joining in the song. How solemn it sounded! Chills ran over her as she listened.

“Roll, Jordan, roll,” were the only words she could make out, but these were sung over and over.

Daddy Cato held up his hand and sang some words alone. His deep voice filled the cabin and roused an aching in Missie’s heart.

“Roll, Jordan, roll,” he sang, and the firelight flickered over the low, dark walls. Nobody else made a sound. His voice was enough. So sad. So pitiful. Missie could hardly keep from crying.

Poor Daddy Cato, old gray-headed man, was crying out to something for help. Was he singing to God?

Then Maum Hannah joined with him and the two old voices swelled upward. The others swayed from side to side and hummed low. Where was God?

Missie had never felt so lonely before. She had never felt sorrow before. But in the cry of those two old voices she felt her own helplessness, her insecurity against some unknown, strange power. She wished Killdee could have come. He was yonder at home taking care of little Jim. But then, Killdee was sinner. God was going to burn Killdee if he didn’t repent. Rose said so. There seemed to be no escape from this God. None.

“Sing, chillen, sing,” Daddy Cato bade, and the whole congregation united in a heaving flood of sound that pressed against the very walls and deadened the moaning of the wind outside.

“Roll, Jordan, roll.”

Missie’s lips moved with the words. Her heart moved with something like prayer. God must be hearing now. Everybody was singing. Calling to Him.

Daddy Cato began praying. Missie shut her eyes. In her darkness her mother’s face came before her. How she wished her mother were here to hold her hand! To keep her from being afraid! For she was afraid. Yes. Of God. Of this singing. Of those sick people on the walls. Of the darkness. Of everything. Yes, everything.

Cold, or maybe it was fear, made gooseflesh break out on her body.

“Chillen,” Daddy Cato said.

The congregation answered: “Yessuh.”

“Dey’s a stranger een de lan’,” he told them.

“Enty?” they answered in surprise.

“Somebody duh meet da stranger eby day.”

What was Daddy Cato talking about? A stranger. Who? The members facing Missie from the other side of the fire had their eyes fixed on Daddy Cato’s face. Maum Hannah nodded sorrowfully at him. She understood him.

“Chillen, da stranger pass me by, mighty close one time,” Daddy Cato said.

“Enty?” they mumbled back.

“So close tell I felt e breat’,----”

Somebody cried out: “Do, Jedus!”

“Yinner see my face---- how e lef’ em----”

A tremble cramped Daddy Cato’s black lips. He held up the smoky lamp and pointed to his motionless cheek. His face was wrong. One whole side of it. It was still. It didn’t move at all. Even when the other side cried it was quiet.

“E pa-lyze,” somebody whispered. “Da wha’ ’e duh talk ’bout----”

There were grunts of sympathy.

“Chillen----” Daddy Cato’s voice broke, then he went on earnestly: “When da stranger kiss you--an’ e gwine kiss eby one--eby one!”

The good side of his face began crying. It twisted like a child’s. The members on the front benches began praying and groaning and moaning: “Do, Jedus! Hab mussy, Lawd!”

Some of them rocked from side to side and begged Daddy Cato to go on.

“Tell em, brudder! Tell em! Heah em, sinners! Heah em fo-true!”

Missie shivered. She was a sinner. Rose said so. A sinner. And it made her afraid to look at Daddy Cato’s face, all crooked--wrong----

“Chillen,” he began again with his voice low and tight in his throat, “yinner know wha’ da stranger leab when e kiss you?”

“No, suh,” they answered him softly. The firelight shone bright in their wide-opened eyes.

“When da stranger kiss you--’e ain’ gwine leab nuttin’--nuttin’!”

Daddy Cato’s lips stumbled with what he wanted to say. “_Nuttin ain’ leab but a box o’ col’ meat. Col’ meat!_”

His words fell cold. Flat. There was no answer to them. A gust of wind 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.”