He came to the bed and stood glaring down upon her. She seemed not to notice and said calmly after a short pause, “Ahm glad tuh know dat, John. After all dese years and all dat done went on dat Ah ain’t been nothin’ but uh stumblin’-stone tuh yuh. Go ’head on, Mister, but remember—youse born but you ain’t dead. ’Tain’t nobody so slick but whut they kin stand uh ’nother greasin’. Ah done told yuh time and time uhgin dat ignorance is de hawse dat wisdom rides. Don’t git miss-put on yo’ road. God don’t eat okra.”
“Oh you always got uh mouf full uh opinions, but Ah don’t need you no mo’ nor nothing you got tuh say, Ahm uh man grown. Don’t need no guardzeen atall. So shet yo’ mouf wid me.”
“Ah ain’t going’ tuh hush nothin’ uh de kind. Youse livin’ dirty and Ahm goin’ tuh tell you ’bout it. Me and mah chillun got some rights. Big talk ain’t changin’ whut you doin’. You can’t clean yo’self wid yo’ tongue lak uh cat.”
There was a resounding smack. Lucy covered her face with her hand, and John drew back in a sort of horror, and instantly strove to remove the brand from his soul by words, “Ah tole yuh tuh hush.” He found himself shaking as he backed towards the door.
“De hidden wedge will come tuh light some day, John. Mark mah words. Youse in de majority now, but God sho don’t love ugly.”
John shambled out across the back porch, and stood for an unknowing time among the palmetto bushes in a sweating daze feeling like Nebuchadnezer in his exile.
Lucy turned her face to the wall and refused her supper that her older daughter Emmeline cooked and that Isis brought to her.
“But mama, you said special you wanted some battercakes.”
“You eat ’em, Isie. Mama don’t want uh thing. Come on in when you thru wid yo’ supper lak you always do and read mama something out yo’ reader.”
But Isis didn’t read. Lucy lay so still that she was frightened. She turned down the lamp by the head of the bed and started to leave, but Lucy stopped her.
“Thought you was sleep, mama.”
“Naw, Isie, been watchin’ dat great big ole spider.”
“Where?”
“Up dere on de wall next tuh de ceilin’. Look lak he done took up uh stand.”
“Want me tuh kill ’im wid de broom?”
“Naw, Isie, let ’im be. You didn’t put ’im dere. De one dat put ’im dere will move ’im in his own time.”
Isis could hear the other children playing in the back room.
“Reckon you wanta go play wid de rest, Isie, but mama wants tuh tell yuh somethin’.”
“Whut is it, mama?”
“Isie, Ah ain’t goin’ tuh be wid yuh much longer, and when Ahm dead Ah wants you tuh have dis bed. Iss mine. Ah sewed fuh uh white woman over in Maitland and she gimme dis bedstead fuh mah work. Ah wants you tuh have it. Dis mah feather tick on here too.”
“Yes’m mama, Ah—”
“Stop cryin’, Isie, you can’t hear whut Ahm sayin’, ’member tuh git all de education you kin. Dat’s de onliest way you kin keep out from under people’s feet. You always strain tuh be de bell cow, never be de tail uh nothin’. Do de best you kin, honey, ’cause neither yo’ paw nor dese older chillun is goin’ tuh be bothered too much wid yuh, but you goin’ tuh git ’long. Mark mah words. You got de spunk, but mah po’ li’l’ sandy-haired chile goin’ suffer uh lot ’fo’ she git tuh de place she kin ’fend fuh herself. And Isie, honey, stop cryin’ and lissen tuh me. Don’t you love nobody better’n you do yo’self. Do, you’ll be dying befo’ yo’ time is out. And, Isie, uh person kin be killed ’thout being stuck un blow. Some uh dese things Ahm tellin’ yuh, you wont understand ’em fuh years tuh come, but de time will come when you’ll know. And Isie, when Ahm dyin’ don’t you let ’em take de pillow from under mah head, and be covering up de clock and de lookin’ glass and all sich ez dat. Ah don’t want it done, heah? Ahm tellin’ you in preference tuh de rest ’cause Ah know you’ll see tuh it. Go wash yuh face and turn tuh de Twenty-Sixth Chapter of de Acts fuh me. Den you go git yo’ night rest. If Ah want yuh, Ah’ll call yuh.”
Way in the night Lucy heard John stealthily enter the room and stand with the lamp in his hand peering down into her face. When she opened her eyes she saw him start.
“Oh,” he exclaimed sharply with rising inflection. Lucy searched his face with her eyes but said nothing.
“Er, er, Ah jus’ thought Ah’d come see if you wanted anything,” John said nervously, “if you want anything, Lucy, all you got tuh do is tuh ast me. De favor is in me.”
Lucy looked at her husband in a way that stepped across the ordinary boundaries of life and said, “Jus’ have patience, John, uh few mo’ days,” and pulled down her lids over her eyes, and John was glad of that.
John rushed from Lucy’s bedside to the road and strode up and down in the white moonlight. Finally he took his stand beneath the umbrella tree before the house and watched the dim light in Lucy’s room. Nothing came to him there and he awoke Emmeline at daybreak, “Go in yo’ ma’s room Daught’ and come back and tell me how she makin’ it.”
“She say she ain’t no better,” Daught’ told him.
The spider was lower on the wall and Lucy entertained herself by watching to see if she could detect it move.
She sent Isis to bed early that Thursday night but she herself lay awake regarding the spider. She thought that she had not slept a moment, but when in the morning Isis brought the wash basin and tooth brush, Lucy noted that the spider was lower and she had not seen it move.
That afternoon Mrs. Mattie Clarke sat with her and sent Isis out to play.
“Lucy, how is it ’tween you and God?”
“You know Ah ain’t never been one to whoop and holler in church, Sister Clarke, but Ah done put on de whole armor uh faith. Ah ain’t afraid tuh die.”
“Ahm sho glad tuh hear dat, Sister Pearson. Yuh know uh person kin live uh clean life and den dey kin be so fretted on dey dyin’ bed ’til dey lose holt of de kingdom.”
“Don’t worry ’bout me, Sister Clarke. Ah done been in sorrow’s kitchen and Ah done licked out all de pots. Ah done died in grief and been buried in de bitter waters, and Ah done rose agin from de dead lak Lazarus. Nothin’ kin touch mah soul no mo’. It wuz hard tuh loose de string-holt on mah li’l’ chillun.” Her voice sank to a whisper, “But Ah reckon Ah done dat too.”
“Put whip tuh yo’ hawses, honey. Whip ’em up.”
Despite Lucy’s all-night vigil she never saw the spider when he moved, but at first light she noted that he was at least a foot from the ceiling but as motionless as a painted spider in a picture.
The evening train brought her second son, John, from Jacksonville. Lucy brightened.
“Where’s Hezekiah?” she asked eagerly.
“He’s comin’. His girl is gointer sing uh solo at de church on Sunday and he wants to hear her. Then he’s coming right on. He told me to wire him how you were.”
“Don’t do it, John. Let ’im enjoy de singin’.”
John told her a great deal about the school and the city and she listened brightly but said little.
After that look in the late watches of the night John was afraid to be alone with Lucy. His fear of her kept him from his bed at night. He was afraid lest she should die while he was asleep and he should awake to find her spirit standing over him. He was equally afraid of her reproaches should she live, and he was troubled. More troubled than he had ever been in all his life. In all his struggles of sleep, the large bright eyes looked thru and beyond him and saw too much. He wished those eyes would close and was afraid again because of his wish.
Lucy watched the spider each day as it stood lower. And late Sunday night she cried out, “O Evening Sun, when you git on de other side, tell mah Lawd Ahm here waitin’.”
And God awoke at last and nodded His head.
In the morning she told Emmeline to fry chicken for dinner. She sent Isis out to play. “You been denyin’ yo’ pleasure fuh me. G’wan out and play w
id de rest. Ah’ll call yuh if Ah want yuh. Tell everybody tuh leave me alone. Ah don’t want no bother. Shet de door tight.”
She never did call Isis. Late in the afternoon she saw people going and coming, coming and going. She was playing ball before the house, but she became alarmed and went in.
The afternoon was bright and a clear light streamed into the room from the bare windows. They had turned Lucy’s bed so that her face was to the East. The way from which the sun comes walking in red and white. Great drops of sweat stood out on her forehead and trickled upon the quilt and Isis saw a pool of sweat standing in a hollow at the elbow. She was breathing hard, and Isis saw her set eyes fasten on her as she came into the room. She thought that she tried to say something to her as she stood over her mother’s head, weeping with her heart.
“Get her head offa dat pillow!” Mattie Mosely ordered. “Let her head down so she kin die easy.”
Hoyt Thomas moved to do it, but Isis objected. “No, no, don’t touch her pillow! Mama don’t want de pillow from under her head!”
“Hush Isie!” Emmeline chided, “and let mama die easy. You makin’ her suffer.”
“Naw, naw! she said not tuh!” As her father pulled her away from her place above Lucy’s head, Isis thought her mother’s eyes followed her and she strained her ears to catch her words. But none came.
John stood where he could see his wife’s face, but where Lucy’s fixed eyes might not rest upon him. They drew the pillow from beneath Lucy’s head and she gulped hard once, and was dead. “6:40” someone said looking at a watch.
“Po’ thing,” John wept. “She don’t have tuh hear no mo’ hurtin’ things.” He hurried out to the wood pile and sat there between two feelings until Sam Mosely led him away.
“She’s gone!” rang out thru the crowded room and they heard it on the porch and Mattie Mosely ran shouting down the street, “She’s gone, she’s gone at last!”
And the work of the shrouding began. Little Lucy, somewhat smaller in death than she had been even in life, lay washed and dressed in white beneath a sheet upon the cooling board when her oldest son arrived that evening to break his heart in grief.
That night a wind arose about the house and blew from the kitchen wall to the clump of oleanders that screened the chicken house, from the oleanders to the fence palings and back again to the house wall, and the pack of dogs followed it, rearing against the wall, leaping and pawing the fence, howling, barking and whining until the break of day, and John huddled beneath his bed-covers shaking and afraid.
CHAPTER 17
They put Lucy in a little coffin next day, the shiny coffin that held the beginning and the ending of so much. And the September woods were ravished by the village to provide tight little bouquets for the funeral. Sam Mosely, tall, black and silent, hitched his bays to his light wagon and he bore Lucy from her house and children and husband and worries to the church, while John, surrounded by his weeping family, walked after the wagon, shaking and crying. The village came behind and filled the little church with weeping and wild-flowers. People were stirred. The vital Lucy was gone. The wife of Moderator Pearson was dead.
“There is rest for the weary” rose and fell like an organ. Harmony soaked in tears.
“She don’t need me no mo’ nohow,” John thought defensively.
“On the other side of Jordan, in the sweet fields of Eden—where the tree of life is blooming—”
And the hot blood in John’s veins made him deny kinship with any rider of the pale white horse of death.
“Man born of woman has but a few days.”
Clods of damp clay falling hollowly on the box. Out of sight of the world, and dead men heard her secrets.
That night they sat in the little parlor about the organ and the older children sang songs while the smaller ones cried and whimpered on. John sat a little apart and thought. He was free. He was sad, but underneath his sorrow was an exultation like a live coal under gray ashes. There was no longer guilt. But a few days before he had shuddered at the dread of discovery and of Lucy’s accusing eye. There was no more sin. Just a free man having his will of women. He was glad in his sadness.
The next day John Pearson and Sam Mosely met on Clarke’s porch. Sam remarked, “Funny thing, ain’t it John—Lucy come tuh town twelve years uhgo in mah wagon and mah wagon took her uhway.”
“Yeah, but she b’longed tuh me, though, all de time,” John said and exulted over his friend.
CHAPTER 18
Deacons Hambo, Watson, Hoffman and Harris waited on Rev. Pearson in his study at the parsonage.
“No mealy-moufin’, Harris. No whippin’ de Devil ’round de stump. He got tuh be told.” Hambo urged.
“Ahm goin’ tuh tell ’im how we feel. You too hot tuh talk. You ain’t in yo’ right mind.”
“Oh yes, Ah is too, Ahm hot, though. Ahm hot ez July jam. Jee-esus Christ!”
John entered the room radiating cheer.
“Hello, boys. How yuh do?”
“Don’t do all dey say, but Ah do mah share,” said Hambo quickly, “and damned if you don’t do yourn.”
Pearson didn’t know whether it was one of the bluff Hambo’s jokes or not. He started to laugh, then looked at the men’s faces and quit.
“Oh.”
“Now lemme handle dis, Hambo, lak we said,” begged Harris.
“Naw, lemme open mah mouf ’fo’ Ah bust mah gall. John, is you married tuh dat Hattie Tyson?”
“Yeah.”
“DeG—D—hell you is, man! Yo’ wife ain’t been dead but three months, and you done jumped up and married befo’ she got col’ in her grave!”
“Ah got dese li’l’ chillun and somebody got tuh see after ’em.”
“Well de somebody you got sho ain’t seein’ after ’em. They’s ’round de streets heah jes’ ez raggedy ez jay-birds in whistlin’ time. Dey sho ain’t gittin’ uh damn bit uh ’tention.”
“Course Ah didn’t marry her jus’ tuh wait on de chillun. She got tuh have some pleasure.”
“Course she is! Dat strumpet ain’t never done nothin’ but run up and down de road from one sawmill camp tuh de other and from de looks of her, times was hard. She ain’t never had nothin’—not eben doodly-squat, and when she gits uh chance tuh git holt uh sumpin de ole buzzard is gone on uh rampage. She ain’t got dis parsonage and dem po’ li’l’ motherless chillun tuh study ’bout.”
“Hold on dere, Hambo, y’all. Dat’s mah wife.”
“Sh-h-ucks! Who don’t know dat Hattie Tyson! Ah ain’t gonna bite mah tongue uh damn bit and if you don’t lak it, you kin jus’ try me wid yo’ fist. Ahm three times seben and uh button! And whut makes me mad ’nough tuh fight uh circle-saw is, you don’t want uh yo’self. You done got trapped and you ain’t got de guts tuh take uh rascal-beater and run her ’way from here. She done moved you ’way from Eatonville ’cause ’tain’t ’nough mens and likker dere tuh suit her.”
“Wait uh minute, Hambo.”
“Ain’t gonna wait nothin’ uh de kind. Wait broke de wagon down. Ah jes’ feel lak takin’ uh green club and waitin’ on dat wench’s head until she acknowledge Ahm God and besides me there’s no other! Gimme lief, John, and Ah’ll make haste and do it. Ah feels lak stayin’ wid yo’ head uh week. Dey tell me you eben drawed uh knife on yo’ son John, ’cause he tried tuh keep dah strumpet out his mama’s feather bed dat she give tuh li’l’ Isis on her death-bed, and nobody but uh lowdown woman would want you scornin’ yo’ name all up lak dat.”
Pearson hung his head.
“If y’all come heah tuh ’buke me, g’wan do it.”
Hoffman spoke up.
“We ain’t come to ’buke you, Reverend, but de church sho is talkin’ and gittin’ onrestless ’bout yo’ marriage.”
“Yeah, dat’s jus’ whut Ah come fuh—tuh ’buke yuh. Ah ain’t come tuh make yuh no play-party. Stoopin’ down from where you stand, fuh whut?” Hambo broke out again, “Jus ’cause you never seen no talcum powder and silk kimonos back
dere in Alabama.”
Harris and Hoffman took him by the arms and led him forth, and John went back upstairs and wept.
Hattie had heard it all, but she stayed out of sight until the rough tongued Hambo was gone. She went to John, but first she combed her hair and under-braided the piece of John-de-conquer root in her stiff back hair. “Dey can’t move me—not wid de help Ah got,” she gloated and went in to John where he lay weeping.
“Thought you tole me dat Hambo wuz yo’ bosom friend?”
“He is, Hattie. Ah don’t pay his rough talk no mind.”
“Ah don’t call dat no friend—comin’ right in yo’ house and talkin’ ’bout yo’ wife lak she wuz uh dog. If you wuz any kind of uh man you wouldn’t ’low it.”
“Uh preacher can’t be fightin’ and keerin’ on. Mo’ special uh Moderator. Hambo don’t mean no harm. He jus’ ’fraid de talk might hurt me.”
“Him and them sho treats me lak uh show man treats uh ape. Come right in mah house and run de hawg over me and tryin’ tuh put you ’ginst me. Youse over dem and you ought not tuh ’low ’em tuh cheap, but ’stid uh dat they comes right to yo’ face and calls yo’ wife uh barrel uh dem things. Lawd knows Ah ain’t got no puhtection uh tall! If Miss Lucy had tuh swaller all Ah does, Ah know she glad she dead.”
“Lucy ain’t never had nobody to call her out her name. Dey better not. Whut make you call her name? Hambo is de backbone uh mah church. Ah don’t aim to tear de place tuh pieces fuh nobody. Put dat in yo’ pipe and smoke it.”
Hattie heard and trembled. The moment that John left town to conduct a revival meeting, she gathered what money she could and hurried to the hut of An’ Dangie Dewoe.
CHAPTER 19
The Lord of the wheel that turns on itself slept, but the world kept spinning, and the troubled years sped on. Tales of weakness, tales of vice hung about John Pearson’s graying head. Tales of wifely incontinence which Zion Hope swallowed hard. The old ones especially. Sitting coolly in the shade of after-life, they looked with an utter lack of tolerance upon the brawls of Hattie and John. They heard her complaints often and believed her and only refused action because they knew the complainant to be equally guilty, but less popular than the man against whom she cried. Besides, the younger generation winked at what their elders cried over. Lucy had counselled well, but there were those who exulted in John’s ignominious fall from the Moderatorship after nine years tenure, and milled about him like a wolf pack about a tired old bull—looking for a throat-hold, but he had still enough of the former John to be formidable as an animal and enough of his Pagan poesy to thrill. The pack waited. John knew it and was tired unto death of fighting off the struggle which must surely come. The devouring force of the future leered at him at unexpected moments. Then too his daily self seemed to be wearing thin, and the past seeped thru and mastered him for increasingly longer periods. He whose present had always been so bubbling that it crowded out past and future now found himself with a memory.