broken fence and across the yard. Dilsey stroked Ben's head, slowly and steadily, smoothing the bang upon his brow. He wailed quietly, unhurriedly. 'Hush,' Dilsey said. 'Hush, now. We be gone in a minute. Hush, now.' He wailed quietly and steadily.
Luster returned, wearing a stiff new straw hat with a colored band and carrying a cloth cap. The hat seemed to isolate Luster's skull, in the beholder's eye as a spotlight would, in all its individual planes and angles. So peculiarly individual was its shape that at first glance the hat appeared to be on the head of someone standing immediately behind Luster. Dilsey looked at the hat.
'Whyn't you wear yo old hat?' she said.
'Couldn't find hit,' Luster said.
'I bet you couldn't. I bet you fixed hit last night so you couldn't find hit. You fixin to ruin dat un.'
'Aw, mammy,' Luster said. 'Hit aint gwine rain.'
'How you know? You go git dat old hat en put dat new un away.'
'Aw, mammy.'
'Den you go git de umbreller.'
'Aw, mammy.'
'Take yo choice,' Dilsey said. 'Git yo old hat, er de umbreller. I dont keer which.'
Luster went to the cabin. Ben wailed quietly.
'Come on,' Dilsey said. 'Dey kin ketch up wid us. We 'wine to hear de singin.' They went around the house, toward the gate. 'Hush,' Dilsey said from time to time as they went down the drive. They reached the gate. Dilsey opened it. Luster was coming down the drive behind them, carrying the umbrella. A woman was with him. 'Here dey come,' Dilsey said. They passed out the gate. 'Now, den,' she said. Ben ceased. Luster and his mother overtook them. Frony wore a dress of bright blue silk and a flowered hat. She was a thin woman, with a flat, pleasant face.
'You got six weeks' work right dar on yo back,' Dilsey said. 'Whut you gwine do ef hit rain?'
'Git wet, I reckon,' Frony said. 'I aint never stopped no rain yit.'
'Mammy always talkin bout hit gwine rain,' Luster said.
'Ef I dont worry bout y'all, I dont know who is,' Dilsey said. 'Come on, we already late.'
'Rev'un Shegog gwine preach today,' Frony said.
'Is?' Dilsey said. 'Who him?'
'He fum Saint Looey,' Frony said. 'Dat big preacher.'
'Huh,' Dilsey said. 'Whut dey needs is a man kin put de fear of God into dese here triflin young niggers.'
'Rev'un Shegog kin do dat,' Frony said. 'So dey tells.'
They went on along the street. Along its quiet length white people in bright clumps moved churchward, under the windy bells, walking now and then in the random and tentative sun. The wind was gusty, out of the southeast, chill and raw after the warm days.
'I wish you wouldn't keep on bringin him to church, mammy,' Frony said. 'Folks talkin.'
'Whut folks?' Dilsey said.
'I hears em,' Frony said.
'And I knows whut kind of folks,' Dilsey said. 'Trash white folks. Dat's who it is. Thinks he aint good enough fer white church, but nigger church aint good enough fer him.'
'Dey talks, jes de same,' Frony said.
'Den you send um to me,' Dilsey said. 'Tell um de good Lawd dont keer whether he bright er not. Dont nobody but white trash keer dat.'
A street turned off at right angles, descending, and became a dirt road. On either hand the land dropped more sharply; a broad flat dotted with small cabins whose weathered roofs were on a level with the crown of the road. They were set in small grassless plots littered with broken things, bricks, planks, crockery, things of a once utilitarian value. What growth there was consisted of rank weeds and the trees were mulberries and locusts and sycamores--trees that partook also of the foul desiccation which surrounded the houses; trees whose very burgeoning seemed to be the sad and stubborn remnant of September, as if even spring had passed them by, leaving them to feed upon the rich and unmistakable smell of negroes in which they grew.
From the doors negroes spoke to them as they passed, to Dilsey usually:
'Sis' Gibson! How you dis mawnin?' 'I'm well. Is you well?'
'I'm right well, I thank you.'
They emerged from the cabins and struggled up the sharing levee to the road--men in staid, hard brown or black, with gold watch chains and now and then a stick; young men in cheap violent blues or stripes and swaggering hats; women a little stiffly sibilant, and children in garments bought second hand of white people, who looked at Ben with the covertness of nocturnal animals:
'I bet you wont go up en tech him.'
'How come I wont?'
'I bet you wont. I bet you skeered to.' 'He wont hurt folks. He des a looney.' 'How come a looney wont hurt folks?' 'sat un wont. I teched him.'
'I bet you wont now.'
'Case Miss Dilsey lookin.' 'You wont no ways.'
'He dont hurt folks. He des a looney.'
And steadily the older people speaking to Dilsey, though, unless they were quite old, Dilsey permitted Frony to respond.
'Mammy aint feelin well dis mawnin.'
'Dat's too bad. But Rev'un Shegog'll kyo dat. He'll give her de comfort en de unburdenin.'
The road rose again, to a scene like a painted backdrop. Notched into a cut of red clay crowned with oaks the road appeared to stop short off, like a cut ribbon. Beside it a weathered church lifted its crazy steeple like a painted church, and the whole scene was as flat and without perspective as a painted cardboard set upon the ultimate edge of the flat earth, against the windy sunlight of space and April and a midmorning filled with bells. Toward the church they thronged with slow sabbath deliberation, the women and children went on in, the men stopped outside and talked in quiet groups until the bell ceased ringing. Then they too entered.
The church had been decorated, with sparse flowers from kitchen gardens and hedgerows, and with streamers of colored crepe paper. Above the pulpit hung a battered Christmas bell, the accordion sort that collapses. The pulpit was empty, though the choir was already in place, fanning themselves although it was not warm.
Most of the women were gathered on one side of the room. They were talking. Then the bell struck one time and they dispersed to their seats and the congregation sat for an instant, expectant. The bell struck again one time. The choir rose and began to sing and the congregation turned its head as one as six small children--four girls with tight pigtails bound with small scraps of cloth like butterflies, and two boys with close napped heads-- entered and marched up the aisle, strung together in a harness of white ribbons and flowers, and followed by two men in single file. The second man was huge, of a light coffee color, imposing in a frock coat and white tie. His head was magisterial and profound, his neck rolled above his collar in rich folds. But he was familiar to them, and so the heads were still reverted when he had passed, and it was not until the choir ceased singing that they realised that the visiting clergyman had already entered, and when they saw the man who had preceded their minister enter the pulpit still ahead of him an indescribable sound went up, a sigh, a sound of astonishment and disappointment.
The visitor was undersized, in a shabby alpaca coat. He had a wizened black face like a small, aged monkey. And all the while that the choir sang again and while the six children rose and sang in thin, frightened, tuneless whispers, they watched the insignificant looking man sitting dwarfed and countrified by the minister's imposing bulk, with something like consternation. They were still looking at him with consternation and unbelief when the minister rose and introduced him in rich, rolling tones whose very unction served to increase the visitor's insignificance.
'En dey brung dat all de way fum Saint Looey,' Frony whispered.
'I've knowed de Lawd to use cuiser tools den dat,' Dilsey said. 'Hush, now,' she said to Ben. 'Dey fixin to sing again in a minute.'
When the visitor rose to speak he sounded like a white man. His voice was level and cold. It sounded too big
