'They damn themselves!' A roar of agreement. 'This is where the word of God shines!'
There were cries now, shouts. A man stood up, lean, lean under thick clothing, and shouted. Dorothy thought he was angry. She flinched and drew closer to Aunty Em. Were people mad? Why were they shouting? Dorothy thought perhaps she liked church better.
Aunty Em kept staring ahead, a thin smile on her face. But her eyes were full of yearning. A hand crept up to her breast.
'So let it shine, brothers, sisters. Let the Word shine in you! Let the Lord Jesus come to you in the Spirit. Open up the gates! Don't shut Him out. He sings in the wind. He whispers in the breath of every innocent young babe. He is all around us, to heal, to salve, to bring comfort, to warm the heart and bring peace to the mind.'
Hally hoo hah. Hay men. Oh, he was good, this Preacher, who started out so slow.
Aunty Em seemed to melt. She listed sideways like a candle, hand still over her heart. The young Preacher prowled about his wagon. He'd started out so slow, and now he was waving his hands, commanding.
'Why are you so silent? Are you afraid of the Lord? Are you afraid of your speaking sins? Don't you know the Lord Jesus knows your sins, knows your pain, don't you know He loves you, and forgives you, leaves you as innocent as the child, the little children, whom He suffered to come unto Him? Go to Him as a child, be a child again in His presence!'
Aunty Em rose up, arms outstretched, her head shaking from side to side.
'The Spirit, the Spirit's on her!' called Harriet.
The old man with the beard grabbed her arms. Harriet stroked her brow.
'Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!' said Aunty-Em, her tongue rattling loose in her mouth. Her hands shook; her lined cheeks flapped loosely.
Dorothy wailed in terror. 'Oh!' she cried, the shadow of the terror of Lawrence still on her.
'Bulor ep ep ahhh no up shelopa no no no shelopa apa apa no ma!' cried Aunty Em.
'Oh, the Spirit's strong, the Spirit's good!' said Harriet, wrestling.
'I've never seen it like this,' said the old man, looking worried.
Then the train came, with a whiplash whine along the metal rails nearby and a piercing shriek of steam through a whistle. A bell began to clang over and over. The horses in the corral whinnied and snorted.
And Dorothy remembered. The train had come once before and taken her away and shown her a world full of reasonable people who did not love her. The train came closer with a sound of steam and smoke, and Dorothy saw her aunty tossing her head back and forth, held down by other people, back and forth as if saying no, no, no. Aunty Em wanted to be hauled away from this world, from the farm, from the past. Dorothy was suddenly afraid.
'Don't die, Aunty Em! Don't die!' Dorothy shouted. The shadow of the train was cast on the white canvas.
The skinny woman leaned down, all pine-tree smells, breathing into Dorothy's face. 'Your aunty's not going to die, darling,' she said. Dorothy clung to her aunty's dress.
The Preacher had stopped preaching. He fought his way through the other people. Dismayed, he knelt down to look at Aunty Em.
'If you gentlemen could help me carry her outside,' he said.
'You shouldn't have stopped, Preacher,' chuckled Harriet. 'It's what she came for.'
The men carried Aunty Em out to her wagon. The train was far down the track, leaving a slight haze over the field.
Broke it up as soon as it got going, said voices, complaining. Dorothy followed, a fist rubbing her eyes to make the point that she was unhappy too.
'It's all right, darling, this means your aunty is with Jesus.'
'Will she want to come back?' Dorothy asked.
The old man lifted Dorothy up into the wagon. Aunty Em was looking at her dimly. 'Hello, Dorothy,' she said gently, warm and soft and kind and far away.
'Oh, Aunty Em,' said Dorothy, and lay down on the rough boards. 'Oh, Aunty Em. I love you, love you, love you, love you.'
'Why, child!' chuckled Aunty Em, pleased. She hugged Dorothy and kissed the top of her head.
'I thought you were going to die!' the child said.
'Oh, no,' said Aunty Em, recalling the impact of Christ's love. 'Not die.'
A dog tied to a wagon began to bark. Dorothy looked up. 'Toto?' she asked.
Aunty Em's hand, stroking her hair, froze.
Toto had lived throughout the winter in the buffalo wallows. The wallows had frozen hard, and the marsh reeds heavy with ice had fallen against each other to make ice shelters.
All through that winter, Toto would appear as if from nowhere, barking as he ran out of freezing mist that blazed with sunlight. He would bring Dorothy sticks to throw for him. They sparkled with frost. He bounded across crisp frosty ground to bring them back and drop them again at Dorothy's feet.
When blizzards fell, making a low grinding sound as if the sky were being milled, Toto would bark as Dorothy passed the barn. She would find him in the hay, and he would whimper and lick her hands. Dorothy left him food in a broken bowl and would return each morning to find it clean.
