finished the job and loaded up their tools. Those same eyes followed them as they left. They were the blackest eyes you have ever seen, and they belonged to an old woman with a wrinkled face who stood about five foot six.
Jerry heard a knock on his door. “Morning, Miss Ella. Won’t you come in and have coffee? I just made it fresh.”
“Why, thank you, Mistuh Cherrybooks. I believe I will.” Jerry held out a chair until the old woman was seated. “Sho’ is hot for a mawnin’ ain’t it?”
“I reckon it is, Miss Ella.”
“Mistuh Cherrybooks, I reckon de Lawd done built you another church and it a little bit bigger than de las’ one de Klan burnt down.”
“I reckon so Miss Ella… Miss Ella, what’s on your mind? I know it isn’t my coffee.”
“No, I don’t reckon ‘tis, Mistuh Cherrybooks. Are you gone stay, Mistuh Cherrybooks? Dese kids need you; in fact, dis whole island needs you.”
“Now, Miss Ella, you know me well enough by now to know that I don’t do much running.”
“I knows it Mistuh Cherrybooks, and de Lawd knows it too!” Her coal black eyes stared at him. They were different eyes than when he had first met her, gentle as a summer’s evening.
“De Klan gone come after you, an dey gone kill you if you stay here.”
Jerry looked at her, startled. “How do you know this, Miss Ella?”
“De Lawd, he tole me in a dream last night. It gonna happen, Mistuh Cherrybooks, jess sure as I’m sittin’ here.”
“Miss Ella, I have to stay and you know it.”
The old woman got up to go and he rose from his seat. She put her arms around him and said, “My chile, my chile, de Lawd love you. I reckon he gone have a hard time lovin’ you mo’ den I do. I wisht you would go, ’cause dey gone kill you. But I know you ain’t!” Tears streamed from the old woman’s eyes as she left.
Jerry stood staring after her long after she was out of sight. The next morning he opened the school’s single door.
“Good morning, class.”
“Good mawnin’ Mistuh Cherrybooks,” the class sang in unison.
A year later they buried Mr. Cherrybooks by the side of the church, which was still standing. He had been killed by a single rifle bullet, fired from the woods, as he walked up to the front door of church on Sunday morning.
The day after they buried Mr. Cherrybooks, Sarah began teaching the children.
“J is for Jesus…”
The End
Matthew 16:18: And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
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