I dried my hair, twisted it up in a loose knot which I secured with a couple of enameled clips, slid on a sleeveless blue dress that matched my eyes and put on a pair of dancing shoes in case we dropped by one of the clubs in Raleigh. Lipstick, mascara, and I was ready to ride.
During the week, I try to act mature and judge-like. Happily, the woman who grinned back at me in the mirror didn’t look one bit like a judge. Didn’t feel like one either as she slipped her toothbrush and a fresh pair of bikini-cut panties into her oversized straw purse.
Downstairs, Aunt Zell looked me over carefully, but all she said was, “Don’t forget we’re due early at Mount Olive tomorrow.”
13
Maidie had promised to save us seats if we got to Mount Olive early enough and a young girl, dressed all in white right down to the small white beads braided into her hair, was on the watch for Aunt Zell, Uncle Ash and me as we walked up the gravel drive from the parking area beside the church. She looked about twelve or thirteen, that endearing time when they teeter between childhood and adolescence, more at ease in sneakers than the one-inch heels she wore this morning.
As she handed us program leaflets, the tilt of her head, her deep-set eyes and something about her shy smile made me ask, “Aren’t you kin to Jimmy White?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “He’s my momma’s daddy.”
“You’re Alice’s daughter?”
“Wanda’s,” she murmured and led us inside and down the aisle to where Maidie was seated.
Alice had been a year ahead of me in school, Wanda two years behind. Sometimes I feel as if I’m the only graduate of West Colleton High who hasn’t gone forth, been fruitful and multiplied.
Mount Olive’s interior was as classically simple as its exterior. Sunlight streamed through the frosted glass windows into a large open space of dazzling brightness. Aunt Zell, Uncle Ash and I walked down an aisle carpeted in a royal blue that matched the pew cushions. Painted on the wall behind the choir was a large colorful mural of John the Baptist standing on the bank of the river Jordan with Jesus, ready to baptize him. Everything else was painted white: walls, ceilings, all the trimwork. Even the sturdy plantation-made pews had a hundred and fifty years’ worth of white enamel on them.
Four big white wooden chairs, seats and backs padded in royal blue leather, stood between the simple hand- carved pulpit and the choir stall like ecclesiastical thrones. I recognized the Reverend Anthony Ligon, who pastored here, and the activist attorney Wallace Adderly, of course. Sitting between Adderly and Ligon was the Reverend Floyd Putnam, a white preacher from Jones Chapel Baptist Church in Cotton Grove. On the other side of Adderly was the Reverend Ralph Freeman.
Sunday School wasn’t over yet and already the sanctuary was three-fourths full as Uncle Ash let me slide in beside Maidie. I glanced around and found more white faces than one usually saw at these things. I expected there would be even more for the picnic lunch. Mrs. Avery sat next to Jack and Judy Cater from Sweetwater and my friends Portland and Avery Brewer were there from First Baptist in Dobbs along with Chief District Court Judge Ned O’Donnell. Luther Parker nodded gravely from the end of the pew across from us and Louise gave me a wink.
To my surprise, I realized that the person in front of them with her eyes firmly fixed on the wall painting was Cyl DeGraffenried.
Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t tell if it was the imminent baptism of Jesus that held her attention or one of the men on the left. Wallace Adderly or Ralph Freeman.
The church was filled with the hum and murmur of voices as we waited for Sunday School to be over at eleven. Even the preachers and Wallace Adderly were talking together in low rumbles. I leaned my lips to Maidie’s ear and whispered, “Is Cyl DeGraffenried a member here?”
“Never moved her membership up from New Bern,” Maidie whispered back, “but here’s where she was baptized. That’s her granny sitting next to her. Miz Shirley Mitchiner.”
Just then, a large woman in a blue lace dress and wide brimmed white hat came in from a side door, went to the piano, and without hesitation swung straight into a rollicking hymn. Children and adults streamed in from the Sunday School classrooms. They filled the few remaining empty pew spaces and soon lined all the sides.
Singing a joyful praise song, the choir marched down the aisle in royal blue robes with white satin collars and took their places in the stall behind the pulpit.
The director signalled and soon we were all standing and singing and clapping in time to “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”
My mind often wanders during the sermon and today was no exception after Reverend Ligon introduced “my brother in Christ, the Reverend Floyd Putnam from Jones Chapel right here in Cotton Grove.”
Putnam was an earnest droner and even though the congregation encouraged his peace-and-harmony platitudes with polite amens and murmured yeses, he never caught fire and I soon found my thoughts drifting to Cyl and her grandmother.
From where I sat, I could see both profiles. Mrs. Mitchiner was at least seventy. She wore a rose linen suit, and a smart hat of pink roses covered most of her white hair. Her skin was so pale that she could probably pass for white if she chose, while Cyl was a dark rich brown. Mrs. Mitchiner’s nose was aquiline and her mouth had a thin- lipped severity. Cyl’s nose was slightly broader, her lips much fuller. If there was a family likeness, it wasn’t in facial features. Rather, it was the way they both sat so erectly, almost stiffly, their backs barely touching the back of their pew.
