XXIII
On Friday Mary was washing clothes at the spring. The tubs were set close beside a tree whose shade was thick that morning, but the sun had crept around and was shining hot and bright on her back. She was wet through with sweat, but she made up her mind not to stop until she was through. She might not get to wash for herself again soon. Her time was getting short. The next change in the moon might be the time. Surely she could not go much longer.
This was the heaviest child she had ever carried—somehow the strongest one, too. She raised herself from bending over the tubs, straightened her back, and with a smile patted her distended body and said gently, “You gittin tired, enty? I tired too. Me most ready though. Po creeter! I gittin dese same tings ready fo you. You don’ know dat, but it’s so. Po ting, shut up in de dark—you soon gwine git you work finished, too—soon, same as me.”
With a heavy sigh, she rolled her sleeves a little higher and bent over the tubs again.
She did not hear steps behind her and when Big Boy spoke to her, she turned with a start.
“Gawd! How you scared me!” she said with a laugh. “How you do, son?”
“Oh, I’m well, considerin, Si May-e. Pa sent me to ax if you didn’ want to go to Heaven’s Gate Church tonight?”
Mary straightened up and looked at him with a grin. “How-come Andrew sent me a answer like dat. E knows I’m gwine. I pure want to see de picture o Hell. I’m raven to see Hell.”
“Well, Pa tell me to say we got a automobile now so you could have de buggy to ride in if Budda Ben would go long wid you to drive de mule. Pa say it might do you good to ride out.”
Mary looked at Big Boy and smiled. “Tell you Daddy I’m much obliged. I b’lieve I will ride, I b’lieve I will,” she said slowly. “But how-come you’s in such a hurry, son? Stay a while an’ talk wid me an’ tell me what you see in town.”
But Big Boy hurried away.
When the buggy with Mary and Budda Ben reached the church, a large crowd was already gathered there. People were thick in the churchyard, and all the doors and windows were jammed. The Bury-league had turned out, and the members were marching and singing until the picture was ready to show. Solemn black faces dripping with sweat were wiped with sleeves to keep from soiling the white gloves that covered the awkward unaccustomed hands.
A dark cloud looming in the west, hiding the sky, was cleft at frequent intervals by sharp zigzag lightning.
“Lawd, it’s gwine to storm,” Mary murmured nervously, and Budda whispered that he ever had heard when a Christian was buried, rain always fell in the grave. Maybe all this marching and singing by the Bury-league was stirring up the clouds and making them think somebody was dead. “No, Budda, no,” Mary replied scornfully, “I seen rain fall plenty o time in a sinner grave when nobody wasn’ makin a sound. Clouds can’ see an’ hear like people.”
Budda did not argue the question.
“Le’s hitch de mule, Budda,” she said. “Le’s hitch em to dis saplin. De lightnin’s too close to hitch em to a big tree. Le’s get out.”
“Mind, ’oman! Don’ trip. I don’t want nothin to happen here dis night. Great Gawd! What you would do!”
Both of them laughed behind their hands at the thought of Mary’s tripping as they joined a crowd near a window. “How you all dis evenin?” they asked.
“I well, how you?” came many answers.
The Bury-league marchers were moving toward the church door.
“Dey better hurry,” Mary whispered as she watched the black, swift-moving cloud. As she spoke a blinding flash of lightning was followed by a deafening crash of thunder. The singing marchers moved faster. Reverend Duncan walked bareheaded at the head of them, and his hymn book was open, ready to begin the service.
Mary was glad to see Andrew coming toward them with his hand reaching out to shake theirs and a pleasant smile on his face.
“I’m glad to see yunnuh is come out tonight. Mighty glad. I saved two good places for you to sit. Come right on inside de church. Big Boy is a-sittin on all two until you get dere.”
Andrew went in first, Mary next, and Budda followed them down the aisle right to the Amen corner where their seats were.
Mary could see that the whole congregation was amazed. The Bury-league people who were marching in stared so hard at her that they almost forgot to sing. Some of them tripped and stumbled, so surprised were they to see Budda Ben and herself, the two toughest sinners in the whole country, escorted in by Andrew.
A great white cloth was stretched in front of the pulpit, and Reverend Duncan took his place in front of that to read out of the Book how scarlet sins could be made white as snow. It was a beautiful reading, and with the lightning flashing and the thunder crashing outside it sounded so solemn it reached clear down to the bottom of Mary’s heart. “Though you sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Reverend Duncan said nobody living could know how hot Hell was. He said that if all the stumps in the world, not only the stumps on this plantation, but all in the whole world, were dug up and put in a pile; and all the coal down in the bowels of the earth taken out and piled on top those stumps; then all the kerosene and gasoline and gunpowder in the world poured over the pile and set on fire; a sinner who had been in Hell no longer than three short weeks
