Part 5

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.

“T’rash, fo-true. Po’ lil creeter,” she said, pulling the small chin down so she could see inside better.

“’E so little, ’e can’ stan’ strong treatment. I dunno wha’ fo’ say. Ef we had somebody heah--somebody wha’ ain’ nebber look on dey daddy face--da’ somebody could cure dis t’rash good----”

Rose beamed. “Looka Missie, Auntie. I doubt ef Missie eber see ’e daddy face een ’e life. We could try Missie--enty?”

Maum Hannah turned her bright, old eyes to meet Missie’s puzzled ones.

“Mebbe ’e ain’ nebber see ’e daddy, fo-true. Who you daddy, honey? Is you know?”

But Missie had no daddy. She never had had one. And she shook her head.

“Le’ Missie try, Rose. Mek em tek ’e finger an’ run em roun’ all een de baby mout’ eby mawnin’. Ef Missie ain’ nebber look on ’e daddy face, dat’ll do de baby all de good. You try dat, Missie. ’E ain’ gwine hu’t nuttin’ fo’ try.”

Rose repeated, “You heah, Missie, enty? Eby mawnin’ you do like Auntie say. Don’ fo-git. Sis mout’ is so so’ ’e can’ eat, eder sleep. You wan’ em fo’ git well, enty?”

Missie promised not to forget and she ran to the spring to get a fresh bucket of water while Rose fed the baby and Maum Hannah helped Killdee take the dinner from the pots on the hearth.

As Missie ran lightly down the hill, she was very happy. She had seen so much to-day. She had worn her new dress and red ribbon. She had heard how to be saved from hell. How to pray. She must seek forgiveness until Jesus gave her a sign.

As the water filled the bucket, she thought some day she’d be a member, too. And now if she could cure “t’rash” in babies’ mouths, Rose would be glad to have her here all the time. Sometimes Rose seemed cross with her and beat her for almost nothing. After this, Rose would like her better. When she became a member, maybe Rose would never beat her again.

With the bucket on her head, she climbed the hill thoughtfully. Reverend Felder was fine-looking. He wore fine clothes and he could read, but nobody was fine like Killdee. Nobody in the world. Killdee was so good. So easy. He never got vexed like Rose and said hard-sounding things.

She’d rather have Killdee for her daddy and look on his face than be able to cure all the sickness in the world. But he wasn’t, so there wasn’t any use to think about it.

Yet Killdee was a sinner. When he died he would go to hell. Rose said so. He would burn and burn always. Forever. He would never stop burning. Daddy Cato said that the fire in hell is seven times hotter than the fire people have here. God swam it through seven rivers to cool it before He brought it into the world.

What a strange man God must be!

When Missie thought about Him, she hurried and stumped her toe on a root in the path and the water spilled, and she had to pick up the bucket and hurry back to the spring for more. How cross Rose would be because she was taking so long! But Maum Hannah was there. Maybe Rose wouldn’t scold her much.

_Finding Peace_

The big farm bell rang loud. Clear. The noon hour was over. A little figure lying prone on the ditch bank in the warm spring sunshine rose slowly and looked around. It was a little black girl. Missie.

Her big, soft eyes had a rapt expression as they wandered over the wide cotton fields stretched far out in front of her. Heat waves shimmered over them, making the dark earth bright and blue as the sky, the blue sky that held heaven and God and the angels.

The child’s faded, checked homespun dress was stained purple with blackberries. So were her fingers and lips.

As if still in a dream, she took up the tin pail that was near her on the ground. It was filled to the brim with ripe, black fruit. With careful-stepping, slim, bare feet, she picked her way through the thorny, briery vines to the path that led to the cabin barely in sight yonder at the far edge of the woods. Maum Hannah’s house. She’d go by there and talk to her a little while before she took the berries to the store to sell.

She walked slowly until she could plainly see an old woman sitting there in the doorway bent over her sewing. Then she hurried forward and, when she got near, called out eagerly:

“Auntie! Auntie! I b’lieb I _done fine peace_! Kin you heah me? I b’lieb I is! I seen a house all wash-white. Yes’m.”

The words came distinct to the old woman’s ears. She looked up from the clean, ragged garment she was patching. Tenderness shone in her bright old eyes as she watched Missie coming toward her. They were keen old eyes, although their black lids were withered and hung in tiny, wrinkled folds about them.

“Auntie! Auntie!” the little girl called again, but the old woman answered with a caution:

“Mine, gal, mine! You gwine spill dem blackbe’y fus’ t’ing you know. Walk slow, an’ wait tell you git nigher to me fo’ talk!”

Missie came carefully up the path and up the steps and put the pail on the floor by the pile of clothes to be mended. She came close and leaned on Maum Hannah’s shoulder affectionately.

Maum Hannah searched her face curiously and sympathy showed in her warm, gentle voice as she said:

“Tell Auntie now, Honey. Whe’ you been? Wha’ all you been see? Tell me ’bout em. Whe’ you been when you fine peace?”

The little girl felt Maum Hannah’s arm around her. It gave her a feeling of security, of safety, of courage. Maum Hannah’s voice was saying again:

“Tell Auntie, gal.” Her tone was full of kindliness.

“Auntie----” Missie began, then hesitated. How could she tell it in words?”

From the cabin’s narrow doorway the blue hills far over the river yonder showed plain. They had never seemed so bright to her before. They were almost the color of the shiny clouds that they touched in the sky to-day. Something about them held her eyes until Auntie’s arm pressed her closer and Auntie’s patient voice roused her.

“Wha’ you duh dream ’bout, chile? Wha’ you duh see?”

Missie took a deep breath and the little berry-stained dress tightened across her chest. Maum Hannah’s wise old eyes noticed that coming maturity had already begun to develop slight, curving breasts there. Yes, they showed plain with each quick breath that Missie took. Missie’s little heart seemed very full of something.

Tears came into the wise old eyes, for it came to Maum Hannah for the first time that Missie was becoming a woman. A woman. Maum Hannah’s mind could hardly accept it, yet it was so. Little Missie would soon be a woman, with all the troubles, the sorrows, of womanhood.

Lately, Missie had been seeking peace. Peace. And Maum Hannah knew that womanhood would bring her no peace. None. Missie was already turning to religion. To God. Asking for peace. Tears wet the old eyes, but she could tell Missie nothing. Missie couldn’t understand. Nobody could tell her. Nobody.

Old age might bring her peace. It might. But that was far off for Missie. And old age---- But Missie had started talking. She must listen.

“Auntie,” the low voice was husky, “dis mawnin’ at I git my bucket full up wid blackbe’y, I leddown fo’ rest’--I sta’t den fo’ pray.”

“How much day dis is you been prayin’ and seekin’?” Maum Hannah interrupted.

Missie reflected and answered thoughtfully:

“Dis mus’ be de gwine on een de two week, Auntie.”

“I reckon e is,” Maum Hannah agreed.

Missie went on: