CHAPTER 9

Aaaaaaaayeeeee …! It ripped his ears in a rising curve, choked and bubbling like the shout of a convert who had started screaming while Daddy Hickman was still raising his head from beneath the baptismal waters.… Aaaaaaaaayeeeeee! and he could feel it coming in sharp, shrill bursts but the redheaded woman was holding him so fiercely that he could not tell if they came from her heaving body or his own. Arms and hands were flying and he was plunging toward the coffin, catching sight of Teddy sprawled in the sawdust—only to be snatched up again, feeling a pain burning its way straight up his back as she screamed He’s mine! He’s—her head snapping back and the scream becoming the sound of Daddy Hickman’s trombone and he saw the white sleeve of a tall sister’s arm flash red, hearing, “Y’all leave her to me now,” and thinking Blood as they whirled him around and her arms tightening and thinking That’s flying bloody blare of horn she’s bleeding—feeling himself being ripped completely away from her now, the sisters with faces hard and masklike coming on and twisting him from her arms like a lamb bone popped out of its socket, holding him kicking high and passing him between them as he looked wildly for the flowing blood….

Catch him! someone shouted, and he then felt himself hanging by his heels and they were grabbing and slapping him across his burning back, lifting, and his head came up into a confusion of voices, hearing, Here, let me take him. Let’s get the poor child out of here, seeing Sister Wilhite and another sister was saying Better give him to Sister Mary, holding her broad hand against his stomach, Sister Mary’s home, she’s got kids of her own, and another voice saying, No, she’s too crowded and lives too close to here…. and Then who? Sister Wilhite was saying and long smooth fingers were reaching for him saying, Me, Sister Wilhite, let me have him and Sister Wilhite looking intensely at the young woman, her eyes sparkling, You? and the smooth Elberta peach brown face with curly hair covering her ears saying, Let me, Sister Wilhite, I live far and I got no husband and I know my way through these woods like a rabbit…. And Sister Wilhite turning her head, saying, What you all think? and he tried to open his mouth but she shook him—Hush, Revern’ Bliss—and someone said, She’s right. Give him to Sister Georgia, only get him out of here. And he was leaning forward, hearing Sister Wilhite’s Here, sister, take him, and he began again, I want Daddy Hickman, and Sister Wilhite saying, And you hurry. He was being handed over once more and he said, I want Daddy Hickman, hearing, Hush Revern’ Bliss, honey, in the hot blast of Sister Georgia’s breath against his cheek. You’re going with me ’cause this ain’t no place for you to be—not right now it ain’t. Then she turned and he caught sight of Daddy Hickman climbing down from the platform. Then he recognized the little slant-shouldered sister’s deep voice—Will y’all sisters get out of the woman’s way? she said—and the others were pushing and shoving and Sister Georgia was pushing him against them and the little sister said with her head on Sister Georgia’s shoulder Go with the speed of angels, love. Madame Herod done come, Mister Herod be coming soon; the snake! So take that child and let ’em diga my grave….

And already Sister Georgia was rushing him along with her quick, swinging-from-side-to-side walk, away from the screaming white woman and the angry deaconesses in their ruffled baby caps, going straight through the strangely silent members, stepping over fallen folding chairs, lunch baskets and scattered hymnbooks, past the slanting tent ropes and a smoking flare, into the open. Beginning to run now as though someone was chasing them, on out across the sawdust-covered earth of the clearing, through the big trees into the bushes in the dark. She was saying baby words to him as she ran and he twisted around to see behind them, hearing, “Hold still now, honey,” as he looked back to the moiling within the yellow light of the tent. The woman was screaming again and a team of mules was pitching in their harness rising up and breaking toward the light, then plunging off into the shadow. Then Deacon Wilhite’s voice was leading some of the members to singing and the sound rose up strong, causing the woman’s screams to sound like red sparks shooting through a cloud of thick black smoke. Sister Georgia stumbled sending them jolting forward and he could hear her grunt and her breath coming hard and fast as she balanced herself, causing him to sway back and forth in her arms and his back to burn like fire.

“It’s all right now, Revern’ Bliss,” she said as he began to cry.

“I want Daddy Hickman,” he cried. “I want to go back.”

“Not now, Revern’ Bliss, darling, Right now he’s got his hands full with that awful woman.”

“But I hurt,” he cried. “I hurt bad.”

“Hurt? What’s hurting you, Revern’ Bliss?”

“I hurt all over. They scratched me. Please take me back.”

“But the meeting’s all over for tonight,” she said. “That woman broke it up. Lord help us, but she really wrecked it. I hope the Lord makes her suffer for it too. Doing such an awful thing, and we supposed to act Christian toward them. Knocking over your coffin and everything …”

He thought, I want Teddy and my Bible. Then, remembering the look on the woman’s face when she picked him up, he was silent. It was like a dream. He had been in the coffin, ready to rise up, and all of a sudden there she was, screaming. Now it was like a picture he was looking at in a book or in a dream—even as he watched the tear-sparkling tent falling rapidly away. And in the up-and-down swaying of the sister’s movement he could no longer tell one member from another; he couldn’t even see Daddy Hickman. She was really one of them passed through his mind, then the road was dipping swiftly down a hill in the dark and he was being taken where he could no longer see the peak shape of the tent rising white above the yellow light. Only the sound of singing came to him now and fading.

They were moving through low-branched trees where he could smell the sticky little blossoms which the honeybees and flea-flies loved so well; then the branches grew higher up on the trunks of the trees and the trees were taller and they were dropping down a slope. “Hold tight, Revern’ Bliss,” she said. “We have to cross over somewhere along here.”

“Over water?” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Deep water?”

“Not very. You don’t have to be afraid. Hush now, we be there in a minute.”

“I’m not afraid of any water,” he said.

She was moving carefully and he looked down, hearing the quiet swirl of the stream somewhere ahead before he could see its smoothly glinting flow. And she said, “Hold tight, honey, hold real tight, we got to cross this log,” and was balancing and carrying him rapidly along a narrow tree trunk that lay across the stream, then breathing hard up the steep slope of a hill into the bushes. He could hear twigs snapping and plucking at her dress and raised his arm to keep the limbs from his face as she climbed. She was breathing hard and he could feel her softness sweating through the cloth of his full dress jacket and the heat of her body rising to him. And he could hear himself thinking just as Body would have said, She’s starting to smell kinda funky, and was ashamed. Body said that ladies could smell a good funky and a bad funky but men just smelled like funky bears. But this was a good smell although it wasn’t supposed to be and the sister was good to be carrying him so gently and she was nice and soft. Her pace slowed again now and suddenly they were out of the dusty bushes and he sneezed. They were moving along a sandy road.

“Wheew!” she said. “That was some thicket, Revern’ Bliss, and you went through it like a natural man. You all right now?”

“Yes, mam,” he said. “But I want to go back to Daddy Hickman.”

“Oh, he’ll be coming to get you soon, Revern’ Bliss. He knows where you’ll be. You’re not afraid of me are you?”

“No, mam, but I have to go back and help him.”

“I guess we can rest now,” she said, bending, and he felt the sand give beneath his feet. She was breathing hard. Her white dress made it easier to see in the dark, just as his white suit did. She was younger than Sister Wilhite and the others. And he thought, We are like ghosts on this road.

“Of course you want to help, Revern’,” she said, “and as much as I’d like to have a little boy as smart as you, I know you’re a minister and not meant to be mine or anybody else’s. So don’t worry, Revern’ Bliss, because as soon as Revern’ gets through he’ll be coming after you. That woman needs a good beating for doing this to you….”

She was breathing easier now and looking up and down the dark road.

“She called me a funny name,” he said.

“I could hear her yelling something when she broke in. What’d she call you?”

“Cudworth …”

“Cudworth—Revern’ Bliss, are you sure?”

“I think so,” he said.

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. Doing what she done it’s a wonder she didn’t call you Lazarus … or Peter Wheatstraw … even Shorty George,” and she laughed. “The old heifer. They always slapping us with some name that don’t have nothing to do with us. The freckle-faced cow! You think you can walk now, Revern’ Bliss? My house is just up the road behind those trees up yonder. See, up there.”

“Yes, mam, I can walk,” he said. But he couldn’t see her house, only a dark line of bushes and trees. This is a deep black night, he thought. She’s got eyes like a cat.

“Walk over here on the side,” she said. “It’s firmer.”

“She made the members afraid,” he heard himself saying.

“Afraid? Now where’d you get that idea, Revern’ Bliss? As outraged as those sisters was and you talking about them being afraid? Were you afraid?”

“Yes, mam,” he said, “but the sisters were hurting me. They were afraid too. I could smell them….”

“Smell them? Well did I ever!” She stopped, her hands on her hips, looking down into his face. “Revern’ Bliss, what are you talking about? You must be tired and near-half asleep, talking about smelling folks. Give me your hand so I can get you to bed.”

She was annoyed now and he could feel the tug on his shoulder as she pulled him rapidly along. She doesn’t want me to know it, he thought, but they were afraid.

“Revern’ Bliss, you are something,” she said.

They went along a path through the trees; then they were climbing, and suddenly there was the house on a hill in the dark. He could smell orange blossoms as she led him up to it; then they were going across the porch up to a doorway.

“Stand right here a minute while I light the lamp,” she said. Then the room was lighted and she said, “Welcome to my house, Revern’ Bliss,” and he went in. She was fanning herself with a handkerchief and sighing. “Lord, what a hot evening, and it had been going so good too—Revern’ Bliss, would you like a piece of cold watermelon before you go to bed?”

“Yes, mam, thank you, mam,” he said. And he was glad that she wasn’t angry anymore.

“You don’t think it’ll make you have to get up in the night, do you?”

“Oh no, mam. Daddy Hickman lets me have watermelon at night all the time.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, mam. He gives me melon and ice cream too. You wouldn’t have any ice cream, would you, mam?”

“No I don’t, Revern’ Bliss, bless your heart. But if you come back on Sunday I’ll make you a whole freezer full and bake you a cake, all for yourself. Would you like that, Revern’ Bliss?”

“Yes, mam, I sure would,” he said. And she bent down and hugged him then and the woman smell came to him sharp and intriguing. Then her face left and she was smiling in the lamplight and beyond her head two tinted pictures of old folks frozen in attitudes of dreamy and remote dignity looked down from where they hung high on the wall in oval frames, seeming to float behind curved glass. They had the feel of the statues of the saints he’d seen in that white church in New Orleans. It was strange. And he could see the reflection of his shadowed face showing above her bending shoulders and against the side of her darkened head. He felt her about to lift him then and suddenly he hugged her. And in the warm surge that flowed over him, he kissed her cheek, then pulled quickly away.

“Why, Revern’ Bliss, that was right sweet of you. I don’t remember ever being kissed by a minister before.” She smiled down at him. “Let’s us go get that melon,” she said.

He felt the warmth of her hand as she led him out through a dark kitchen that sprang into shadow-shrouded light before them, placing the lamp on the blue oilcloth that covered the table, saying, “Come on, Revern’ Bliss.” And they went out into the dark, into the warm blast of the orange-blossom night and across the porch into the dark of the moon. Fireflies flickered before them as they moved across the yard.

“It’s down in the well, Revern’ Bliss; it’s been down there cooling since yesterday.”

She went up and leaned against the post that held the crosspiece, looking down into the wide dark mouth of the well, and he followed to stand beside her, looking at the rope curving up through the big iron pulley that hung above. And she said, “Look down there, Revern’ Bliss; look down at the water before I touch the rope and disturb it. You see those stars down there? You see them floating down there in the water?”

And he boosted himself up the side, balancing on his elbows, as he looked down into the cool darkness. It was a wide well and there were the high stars, mirrored below in the watery sky, and he felt himself carried down and yet up. He seemed to fall down into the sky and to hang there, as though his darkened image floated among the stars. It was frightening and yet peaceful, and close beside him he could hear her breathing.

Then suddenly he heard himself saying, “I am the bright and morning star,” and peered below, hearing her give a low laugh and her voice above him saying serenely, “You are too, at that,” and she was touching his head.

Then her hand left and she touched the rope and he could see the sky toss below, shuddering and breaking and splashing liquidly with a dark silver tossing. And he wanted to please her.

“Look at them now,” he said. “See there, the morning stars are singing together.”

And she said, “Why, I know where that’s from, it’s from the book of Job, my daddy’s favorite book of the Bible. Do you preach Job too, Revern’ Bliss?”

“Yes, mam. I preaches Job and Jeremiah too. Just listen to this: The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations….”

“Amen, Revern’ Bliss …” she said.

“… Ah, Lord, God!” he said, making his voice strong and full, “Behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child,” and it seemed to echo in the well, surprising him.

“Now ain’t that wonderful?” she said. “Revern’ Bliss, do you understand all of that you just said?”

“Not all of it, mam. Even grown preachers don’t understand all of it, and Daddy Hickman says we can only see as through a glass darkly.”

“Ah yes,” she sighed. “There’s a heap of mystery about us people.”

She was pulling the rope now and he could hear the low song of the pulley and the water dripping a little uneven musical scale—a ping pong pitty-pat ping ping pong-pat back into the well, and he said,

“Sure, I preaches Job,” and started to quote more of the scripture but he couldn’t remember how it started. It’s the thirty-eighth chapter, seventh verse, he thought, that’s where it tells about the stars singing together….

“Revern’ Bliss, this melon’s heavy,” she said. “Help me draw it up.”

“Yes, mam,” he said, taking hold of the rope. And as he helped her he remembered some of it and said, “Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me….” He heard the pulley singing a different tune now and as the melon came up the water from the rope was running cool over his hands and his throat remembered some more of the lines and they came out hand over fist as the melon came up from the well:

Then she said, “There!” and he saw the melon come gleaming from the well and she reached out and pulled it over to the side, setting the bucket on the rim. He could hear it dripping a quiet wet little tune far below as she removed it from the bucket.

“It’s a mystery to me how you manage to remember so much, Revern’ Bliss—Lord, but this sure is a heavy one we got us tonight! Come on over here where we can sit down.”

So he followed her over the bare ground and sat on the floor of the porch beside the wet, cold melon, his feet dangling while she went into the kitchen. Behind him he could hear the opening of a drawer and the rattling of knives and forks; then she was back holding a butcher knife, the screen slamming sharply behind her.

She said, “Would you like to cut the melon, Revern’ Bliss?”

“Yes, mam, thank you, mam.”

“I thought you would,” she said. “The men always want to do the cutting. So here it is, let’s see how you do it.”

“Shall I plug it, mam?” he said, taking the knife.

“Plug it? Plug this melon that I know is ripe? Listen to that,” she said, thumping it with her fingers.

“Daddy Hickman always plugs his melons,” he said.

“All right, Revern’ Bliss, if that’s the way it has to be, go ahead. I guess Revern’ has plugged him quite a few.”

And he took the knife and felt the point go in hard and deep to the width of the blade; then again, and again, and again, making a square in the rind. He felt the blade go deep and deep and then deep and deep again. Then he removed the blade, just like Daddy Hickman did and stuck the point in the middle of the square and lifted out the wedge-shaped plug, offering it to her.

“Thank you, Revern’ Bliss,” she said with a smile in her voice, and he could hear the sound of the juice as she tasted it.

“See there, I knew it was ripe,” she said. “You try it.”

It was cold and very sweet and the taste of it made him hurry. He cut two lengthwise pieces then, saying, “There you are, mam,” and watched her lift them out, giving him one and taking the other.

And they sat there in the dark with the orange blossoms heavy around them, eating the cold melon. He tried spitting the seeds at the fireflies, hearing them striking the hard earth around the porch and the fireflies still blinking. Then Sister Georgia stopped eating.

“Revern’ Bliss,” she said, “I don’t think we want to raise us any crop of melons this close to the porch, do you? ’Cause after all, they’d just be under our feet and getting squashed all the time and everything.”

“No’m, I don’t guess we do and I’m sorry, mam.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Revern Bliss. You care for some salt?”

“No’m, I like it just like it is.”

“You really like it?”

“Oh yes, mam! It’s ’bout the sweetest, juiciest melon I ever et.”

“Thank you, Revern’ Bliss. I told you it was a ripe one and I’m glad you like it.”

“You sure told the truth, mam.”

So they sat eating the melon and he watched the fireflies but held the slippery seeds in his fist. Then suddenly from far away he could hear boys’ voices floating to them. “Abernathy!” they called. “Hey, you, Abernathy!” and waited. There was no answer. Then it came again. “Where you at, ole big-headed, box-ankled Abernathy!” And she laughed, saying “That Abernathy’ll be looking to fight them tomorrow, ’cause he’s got a real big head and don’t like to be teased about it.”

“Who’s Abernathy?” he said.

“Oh, he’s a little ole mannish boy that lives down the road over yonder. You’ll see him tomorrow,” she said. “You’ll hear him too, ’cause his head is big and he’s got a big deep voice just like a grown man.”

He could hear the boys still calling as she talked on—until a grown woman’s voice came clear as a note through a horn, “Abernathy’s in bed, just where y’all ought to be. So clear on ’way from here.”

“And who is you?” a voice then called.

“Who you think you is?” the woman’s voice said.

“Don’t know and don’t care!”

“Well, I’m his mother, and you heard what I just said.”

“Well ’scuse us, I thought you was his cousin,” the voice yelled mocking her, and he could hear some of them laughing and running off into the night, calling “Hey, Abernathy—how’s your ma, Abernathy? Hey you, Abernathy’s ma, how’s ole big-headed Abernathy?”

“That part about being in bed goes for you too, Revern’ Bliss,” she said, “considering all you been through with that terrible woman and all. You sleepy?”

“Yes, mam,” he said. He’d had enough of the melon and his stomach was tight. “Where must I put this melon rind, mam?” he said.

“I’ll take care of it,” she said. “Don’t you think you better pee-pee before you go to bed? The privy’s right out there at the back of the lot.”

“But I don’t have to now,” he said, thinking, She must think I’m a baby.… Body says the first thing a man has to learn is to hold his water.

“Well, you will by the time you get your clothes off, so you go on and do it now.”

“No,” he said, “because I don’t have it.”

“Then you do it for me, Revern’ Bliss,” she said. “Because while you might know all about the Bible, I know all about little boys from having to take care of a couple on my job—and even they ain’t the first. So now don’t be ashame and go make pee-pee. After all, I only have but one sofa and us don’t want to ruin it, do us now?”

“No’m,” he said.

So he walked back through the dark and came to grass and growing things and stopped, looking around. But then she called through the dark,

“You can do it right there if you scaird to go clear to the back, Revern’ Bliss; just don’t do it on my lettus.”

He didn’t answer, hearing her low laughter as he walked back until he could smell the hot dryness of lime and sun-shrunken wood. He paused before it but didn’t go in, standing looking down the hill where he could see a streetlight glowing near a house with a picket fence and a flowering tree. The blossoms were white and thick and motionless in the breathless dark and he stood looking at it and making a dull thudding upon the hard earth, his mind aware of the hush around him. Then he looked back toward the house and there was Sister Georgia, a black shadow in the door with the light behind her.

“I told you so,” she said, her voice low but carrying to him sharp and clear. “I can hear you way up here. Sounded like a full-grown man.”

And he could hear her laughing mysteriously, like the big girls when they teased him. He didn’t answer, there were no words to say when a lady teased you like that. He could feel the pulsing of his blood between his fingers and the orange blossoms came to him mixed with the sharp smell of the lime. He turned and looked past the yard with the fence and the tree, to a row of houses where a single light showed. Then the confusion in the tent seemed to break through the surface of his mind, bringing a surge of fear and loneliness….

“Come on in, Revern’ Bliss,” she called. “You can sleep on the sofa without my having to worry now. We’ll leave the door open so the breeze can cool you.”

So he went back across the yard into the house and sat up on the sofa, looking around the room as she stood near the doorway, smiling. There was an old upright piano across the room and he went to it and struck a yellowed key, hearing the dull shimmer of its tone echoing sadly out of tune.

“Don’t tell me you play on the piano too, Revern’ Bliss,” she said.

“No, mam, but Daddy Hickman does.”

“Oh him,” she said, “Revern’ can do just about anything, and I suspect he has too.”

“He sure can do a heap of things,” he said, yawning.

“Oh, oh! Somebody’s sleepy; I better make down the bed.”

He watched her go into a dark room and light a lamp; then he took off his shoes and socks, then his soiled white dress trousers. Then she came back with a sheet and pillow in her arms and he stood up, watching her spread the sofa and fluffing up the pillow and putting it in place. She left then and he could hear her humming softly and the sound of a bedcover being shaken as he removed his tie and shirt. In his undersuit now, he sat looking up at the people in the frames on the wall and at a paper fan with the picture of a colored angel pinned below them to the wallpaper. Wonder are they her mother and father, he thought. Daddy Hickman has some little pictures of his mother and father in his trunk.… He had a brother too.

She came through the door with a glass of milk in her hand and gave it to him.

“You tired, Revern’ Bliss?” she said.

“Not very much, mam,” he said.

“You lonesome?”

“No mam.”

She shook her head. “Well, you sure ought to be tired. After all that preaching you did this week. And all those women pulling on you. Anyway, I bet you’re sleepy, so I’m going to say nighty-night now. That is, unless you want me to hear you say your prayers….”

“No thank you, mam,” he said, taking a sip of the milk. “A preacher like me has to pray to the Lord strictly by hisself.”

He could see the question in her eyes as she looked down into his face. “I guess you right, Revern’ Bliss,” she said, “but I still just can’t get it out of my head that you needs your mama….”

“I don’t have a mama,” he said firmly. “I just have Daddy Hickman and my Jesus.” He sat the milk on the table and pushed it away.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “And no papa either, have you?”

“No mam. But Daddy Hickman teaches us that the Father of all the orphans is God.”

“Poor li’l lamb,” she said. And he could see her moving toward him with tears welling in her eyes and stuck out his hand to halt it there. She hesitated, staring down at his extended hand in puzzlement with that sudden suspension of movement just as the deaconesses had done when the woman had taken hold of him. For a long moment her eyes swam with tears; then she moved past and turned back the sheet, and waited silently for him to lie down. He could see the hurt still there in her eyes but was afraid to feel sorry. She smiled sadly as he moved past and got in and he lay looking straight up at the dim ceiling. She turned to the table and blew out the light. Now she moved to the doorway of her room, her face half in shadow.

“Nighty-night,” she said. “Night-night, Revern’ Bliss.”

“Good night, mam,” he said. He felt sad, lying down now and watching her standing there watching him. She seemed to be there a long time, and then suddenly someone was calling Cudworth, Cudworth, and he looked toward her and she was still standing there and he could hear someone shaking a tambourine and he began to preach and call for converts, looking lonely and yearning as the others responded to the Word, and still there watching as a woman wearing a black veil came down the aisle past the rows of members wearing a thick veil over her face, and he thought, This is my mother. Without surprise but a surge of peace, he took her hand with deep joy and pointed to the bench and watched her going over to take her place upon it. And he was filled with pride that with his voice he had brought her forward at last, had brought her forth from the darkness, and he turned now to exhort the others to witness the power and the glory and the living Word.… But when he looked again she had disappeared. The congregation was gone and a great body of water swirled up where it had been, shooting toward him to wash him from the pulpit. And he was screaming and trying to run, as now the waterspout became a spray of phosphorescent fish shooting at him, sweeping him off his feet now and pulling him across the floor with a loud thump. And now he could hear screaming. And through the dream into the dark he saw Sister Georgia still there bending over him, saying, “Lord, Revern’ Bliss, I thought you was eating too much of that melon for so late at night. Hush now, you’ll be all right. You really are having yourself a time. All scratched and bruised purple like a grape and now this here bad dream. And all you was trying to do was convert a few sinners….”

“No! I wasn’t dreaming,” he said. “It wasn’t a dream. I don’t want it to be a dream….”

“Wasn’t a dream? Well, you might be a preacher but I know all about li’l-boy dreams and nightmares.” She lit the lamp, looking down upon him with a puzzled frown.

“You was having a nightmare, all right, and judging from that slobber drying on your mouth you was sucking the old sow too. So don’t try to tell me, Revern’ Bliss, ’cause once in a while the li’l boys where I work have trouble just like you been having.”

She came over and helped him back onto the sofa. “Let me see your back, Revern’ Bliss,” she said. “That’s it, take off your undershirt. Now turn round here so’s I can see.”

He saw her bend and could feel the tips of her fingers on his skin. “Lord, look what she did to you! All those scratches. I better get the salve.”

He saw her take the light into the kitchen; then she returned with a small jar in her hand.

“Will it burn?” he said.

“Burn? Not this salve, Revern’ Bliss. It’ll soothe and heal you, though. Hold still now.”

“Yes, mam.” He could feel the cool spreading over his back beneath the soft circular motion of her hand. Then she was doing the scratches on his arms and legs. His eyes were growing heavy again and she said, “There, that ought to do it. This is a wonderful salve, Revern’ Bliss, and it don’t burn or make grease spots either. You’ll feel good by morning.”

“Thank you, mam,” he said.

“You welcome, Revern’ Bliss; and I’ll tell you what we’ll do about that nightmare—you just come and get in bed with me awhile and it’ll be sure not to come back.”

She lifted him gently then and he could feel the heat of the lamp come close as she bent to blow out the flame; then they were moving carefully through the dark and he was being lowered to her bed.

“Go to sleep now,” she said. “You’ll be all right here.”

He lay feeling the night and the strangeness of the room and the bed. He could not remember ever being in bed with a woman before and it seemed like another dream. And he thought, So this is the way it is. This is what Body and the others have…. Then far off in the dark a train whistle blew and he could feel a slight breeze sweeping gently across the bed, bringing the orange blossoms into the room to fade away in the heat as it died, and he could see the stars in the well again and there came again the rising feeling of falling wellward into the watery sky, falling freely, well and sky, uply downly skyly, starly brightly well-ly wishing her mother No finish go to sleep No this out there She welly she was she very nice to let me see them there she was very nice as sugar and spice nicely well-ly nice are made of are you a lady or a girl Sister Elberta—I sleep? Shake the tree run hide and seek No are you no are you not one like Georgia peaches no shake not the tree was very nice Will there be any seeds in the well? Asleep? Awake. No stars in my crown. And now he moved close I curl beside, she sighing sleeping soft. Not she close Awake how here? It’s her—

“Thank you for being so nice to me, Sister Georgia,” he said very quietly, and waited. But she didn’t stir. Zoom! Slide down the hill. She a-snoring? She sleep pretending? I rise up, her face flowed my eyes rock heavy my head wandering in here out there stars She there she gone she dreaming? She see she sigh she saw the morning stars she singing she well she ward her father who our awake … There she is. I see like watching real quiet while a mouse came out of its hole and ran around the floor. A feeling of tingling delight came over him. He stared hard, trying to see her clearly in the dark, nodding, thinking She there Then before he was aware he had thrust himself forward and was kissing her softly on the cheek. Mother, he said, Mother … you are my mother. And something unfolded within him and he kissed her again. She was what he’d never allowed himself to yearn for. She was what Body’s mother meant to him when he hurt himself or felt so sad. She’s what she said I need. Mother, he thought, Mother, and suddenly he could feel his eyelids stinging and tried to hold it back, but it came on anyway. He stuffed the corner of the sheet into his mouth, rolling to the edge of the bed, crying silently.

Before him the window opened onto the porch and he lay looking through his tears into the shimmering night now lighted with a lately risen moon. Brightness lay beyond the shadows and on the tops of trees and the tears were coming now, steadily, as though they flowed straight from the moon. Mother, mother … He could feel the bed giving as she stirred in sleep and held his breath, thinking Mother, I wish—Mother until it was as though he had yearned to the end of the world, to the point where the night became day and the day night and on until he seemed to float … Then he was back in the hands of the angry woman, seeing the members freezing and the redheaded woman taking hold of him and her hands white against his own and his own white, not yellow as Body said and he thought We are the same—Cudworth am I she called and the others were afraid beneath Daddy Hickman’s sliding horn Cudworth she called me out of darkness for a mother, not you not you not you just one of the sisters … Then Body was there and they were walking through the thick weeds beside a road and Looka yonder, man, Body said, pointing to something half-concealed in the dirt, saying Peeeeew! And he could see Body hold his nose and spit. Ain’t on my mama’s table, Body said. And he looked again wondering what it was and saying Mine neither. You better spit then, Body said. But when he tried his mouth was too dry to spit and he looked around and the women had him again and his hands had turned white as the belly of a summer flounder….

Suddenly the sound of fighting cats streaked across the night with a swirl of flashing claws and he was sitting up in the bed, looking wildly around him. She was still there, sleeping quietly. The room was breathless and her odor, warm and secret, came to him, and just then she turned to rest on her back, her breathing becoming a quiet, catchy snore. Somehow all had changed. He shook his head, “No, I can’t sleep with you,” he said to her sleeping face. “I don’t want you for my mother. I’m going back to the sofa.”

Then it was as though a hand had reached down and held him, forcing him to look at her once more, and before he realized it he was looking at the hem of her gown resting high across her round, wide-spread thighs. I’ve got to get out of here, he thought. I got to move. But suddenly he was caught between the movement of his body and the new idea welling swiftly in his mind, feeling his foot dangling over the side of the bed while in the dreamlike, underwater dimness of the light, he seemed to be looking across a narrow passage into a strange room where another, bolder Bliss was about to perform some frightful deed. No, he thought, no no! seeing his own hand reaching out like a small white paw to where the hem of her nightgown lay rumpled upon the sheet, and lifting it slowly back, stealthily, cunningly, as though he had done so many times before, lifting it up and back. He watched from far back in a corner of his mind, disbelieving even as he saw the gauzelike cloth lifted like a mosquito net above a baby’s crib—then he had crossed the passage and was there with the other Bliss, peering down at what he had uncovered, peering into the shadow of the mystery. Peering past the small white paw to where the smooth flesh curved in the dim light, into the thing itself, the dark impression in the dark. But what, he almost said.… He saw yet he didn’t see what he saw. There was nothing at all, a little hill where Body’d said he’d find a lake, a bushy slope where he thought he’d find a cave.… It was as though he had opened a box and found another box inside in which he was sure he’d find another and in that, still another—and by then she’d wake up. Yet he couldn’t leave. Fragments of stories about digging for buried treasure whirled through his mind and suddenly he was standing in a great hole reaching for an iron-bound chest which he had uncovered, but just as he took hold of it a flock of white geese thundered up and around him, becoming as he watched with arms upraised a troop of moldy Confederate cavalry galloping off into the sky with silent rebel yells bursting from their distorted faces. He wanted desperately to move away but the cloth seemed to hold him, and now she gave a slight movement and his eyes were drawn to her face, seeing faint lights where before there had been dark shadows.… He jumped, hearing himself say “Oh!” and feeling the film of cloth rolling like a grain of sand between his fingers.

“Revern’ Bliss, is that you?” she said from far away.

“I didn’t mean to do it, mam….”

She sighed sleepily. “Do? What’d you do, honey?”

He held his breath, hearing dododododododododododo!

And again, “Revern’ Bliss?”  … dododo …

She stirred and he saw her arm go over as she started to turn only to halt with a deep intake of breath which suddenly stopped and he realized that he had trapped himself. It’s happening and it will be like Daddy Hickman says Torment is, forever and forever and ever…. Then, as though the other Bliss had spoken in an undertone, he thought, You’re It this time for sure but you must never be caught again. Not like this again—move. When they come toward you, move. Be somewhere else, move. Move!

But he couldn’t move. He was watching her hand reaching out searchingly, patting the spot where he had lain. And he thought, She thinks I wet the bed and I didn’t and now her fingers are telling her that it’s dry and if I only had, like the Jaybirds spying on you and telling the ants and telling the Devil, and she’s raising up and her eyes growing wide and I shall be punished for what I can’t even see. Please Lady God Sister Mother.

“Oh!” Sister Georgia said, sitting up with a creaking of the bed-springs, and he felt the sheet swing across his leg and up around her body so swiftly that it was as though she or I’d never been exposed. He could see his upraised thumb and finger making an “O” of the darkness and she was saying, “Oh, oh, oh,” very fast and the night seemed to rush backwards like a worm sliding back into its hole. And he told himself, It was only a dream I am in the other room lying on the sofa where I went to bed and that woman with the veil is coming toward me and I know who she is and I’m overjoyed to see her save her and now dodging waterspout offish and falling and screaming and now this one will come in a second and lift me from the floor, save me from—

“No!” she said. “OH NO! Revern’ Bliss, Revern’ Bliss! YOU WERE LOOKING AT MY NAKEDNESS! YOU WERE EXPOSING MY NAKEDNESS!”

He was mute, shrinking within himself, his head turning from side to side as he thought, If I could fall off the bed it would go away. If I had wings I could—

But her words were calling up dreadful shapes in his mind. A black horse with buzzards tearing at its dripping entrails went galloping across a burning field, making no sound.… A naked, roaring-drunk Noah stumbled up waving a jug of corn whiskey and cursing in vehement silence while two younger men fought with another trying to cover his head with a quilt of many-colored cloth and he could feel her words still sounding. All the darkness seemed to leave the room. Nearby the cats which had hurtled across the night like a swirling wheel of knives had cornered now, filling the air with an agony of howling.

“You were, weren’t you, Revern’ Bliss?” she said. “Tell me, what was you doing!” And the minor note of doubt in her voice warned him that there was still time to lie, to erase it all with words and he seemed to be running, trying to catch up but he wasn’t fast enough and felt the chance slipping through his hand like a silver minnow. He seemed to hear his voice sounding unreal even before he spoke.

“I didn’t mean to do it, mam, honestly, I didn’t….”

“But you did!” she said in a fierce whisper. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, peeping at my nakedness and me asleep. Sneaking up on me like a thief in the night, trying to steal me in my sleep! You, who’s supposed to be Revern’ Bliss, the young preacher!”

“Please, mam, please mam. I really didn’t mean to do it. Forgive me. Please, forgive me….”

She shook her head sadly, sitting higher and clutching the sheet around her.

“Oh you really ought to be ashamed,” she said. “That’s the least you can do. Acting like that, like an old rounder or something that’s had no training or anything. What I want to know is ain’t there any of you men a God-fearing woman can trust! I thought you was a real genuine preacher of the gospel and I was proud to have you staying in my house. You never would’ve had to sleep in any hay around here. But now just look what you done. I guess I been offering my hospitality to an old jackleg. A midnight creeper. I guess you just another one of these old no-good jacklegs. You’re not good and sanctified like Revern’ Hickman at all and it’ll probably break his heart to hear what you done.”

He cried soundlessly now, wanting to go to her, his whole body, even his guilty fingers crying Mother me, forgive me. He felt cast into the blackest darkness, the world being transformed swiftly into iron.

“Please,” he cried, touching her arm, but she pulled away, refusing to touch him as he reached out to her.

“No,” she said, “oh no. You get out of my bed. Get on out!”

“Please, Sister Georgia.”

“I said, get!”

“Yes, mam,” he said. He dragged himself from the bed now and found his way back to the sofa and lay sobbing in the dark.

“Sister Georgia,” he called to the other room. “Sister Georgia …”

“What is it, ole jackleg?”

“Sister Georgia, please don’t call me that. Pleeease …”

“Then you oughtn’t to act like one. What is it you want?”

“Sister Georgia,” he said, “are you a lady or a girl?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you a lady or a girl?” he said.

She was silent; then: “After what you done you shouldn’t have to ask.”

“But I have to know,” he said.

“I’m a woman,” she said. “What difference does it make, ole jackleg preacher?”

“Because … maybe if you’re a girl what I did isn’t really so bad….”

She was silent and he lay straining to hear. Finally, she said, “You go to sleep. It won’t be long before day and I have to have my sleep.”

She won’t tell me, he thought, she won’t say.

His tears were gone now and he lay face downward, thinking, I don’t care, the other one is the one for a mother….