Scarlet Sister Mary (1928, Bobbs-Merrill Company)/Chapter 22
The last time Mary was turned out of the church, she swore she would never darken the door of Heaven's Gate again, but now as the old building came in sight and a cloud of dust rose right in front of it, and a great booming and buzzing and puffing made the day quiver, curiosity filled her. An automobile was moving away from the church, swerving and rolling into the big road taking along with it a cloud of smoke. The birthing lesson was over, the teacher was going away. The midwives—Mary counted twelve of them—stood out in the churchyard watching. They all stood motionless until scarcely a sound was left, then they turned about and went back inside the church.
The cool morning wind fluttered their wide white aprons and their long full skirts, and tugged at the broad-brimmed hats they all wore perched uncertainly on top of their bandanna covered heads. They moved slowly as if they were in a trance. No wonder. That new birthing law was enough to addle their brains.
Through the open church door, Mary could see them all chattering at once, bobbing their heads until their hats threatened to topple off into their laps. Only Maum Hannah sat still and silent with her old head bowed. She shook it slowly now and then as the others discussed something earnestly. They were arguing with her, that was plain, but she was holding out firm.
Mary was no midwife and she had no intention of ever being one, but the church is a public place and if the door is left wide open anybody has a right to walk in and sit down to rest. And if there is a new and easy way to birth children, surely nobody had a better right than she to find out how it was done, whether she practised it or not.
Twelve women were already in the church, she made thirteen. It was a risk to go in. Mary stepped silently inside the door, then halted a minute to let her heart slow down a little, for a delicious suspense which was almost like fear had it thumping hard in her breast. Her wind was short, her breathing hurried, and her blood running fast and hot. The midwives were so engrossed in their talk that nobody saw her as she walked slowly up the aisle, between the long rows of empty brown benches, to where they all sat huddled in a group near the pulpit. Doll was there too, and when her sharp eyes glanced around and saw Mary she cried out, "Fo Gawd's sake, looka who's come!" The talk hushed. Maum Hannah must have been crying, for she took an apron-string and wiped her eyes so she could see. Something bad had happened, for more tears ran out to take the place of those that were wiped away.
Maum Hannah couldn't talk and the others seemed all excited, but no sooner had their astonished eyes turned on her than Mary felt herself suddenly strengthened. Face to face with that group of failing black women, some of them fat, some of them shriveled, she felt young, firm-bodied, a part of the fresh outside day. The church was cold with a damp chilly smell, but the blood in her veins rippled warm now. Life burned bright within her, making her feel young, strong, and light on her feet in spite of the troublesome burden she carried.
"How yunnuh all do dis mornin?" she asked politely, and a shower of answers greeted her.
"Come in, honey. I too giad to see you." Maum Hannah said over and over. "Too glad! Too glad."
"I'm too sorry you didn' got here sooner."
"Sooner! Great Gawd, I'm glad e didn'," Doll cried out. "If Si May-e had a walked in dis church befo dat fine lady from up-north, a-lookin like e looks, I would a been so shame I couldn' a held up my head to hear what e was a-sayin."
Maum Hannah made room on the bench and beckoned to Mary to come sit beside her.
"Come set down, Si May-e, I'm glad to see you. I need you to walk home wid me dis mawnin. I'm dat weakened down, I couldn' go dat far by mysef."
The old voice quivered pitifully and a lump came in Mary's own throat as she saw how the drops trickled out from under the shriveled eyelids and rolled down the wrinkled old cheeks.
"What de matter all you, Auntie? Who dat hurted you feelins so you got to cry? You don' like de new way you got to catch chillen?"
As she sat down beside Maum Hannah the narrow bench creaked sharply with the added weight. Mary jumped with a startled laugh, in which all the others but Doll joined. "Do Jedus! Don' let dis bench fall down wid me to-day!" she cried out.
"Fo Gawd's sake, don' make no mistake in dis church to-day, Si May-e. Dis is Gawd's house," Doll warned, but Mary declared there was no danger.
"Dat bench don' like to hold up sich a heavy load o sin, Si May-e," Doll suggested sourly, but Mary gave Doll a pleasant smile and told her that the bench would not have to hold its load very long. She had just happened to be passing by and when she saw that the church door was wide open, she stopped in to rest herself a minute.
"You sho look like you would need some rest. You better had go home an' hide."
"Dis child is a load fo-true, de heaviest one I ever carried yet." Mary still kept her temper although Doll's talk rasped her.
"You is gwine to have twins, enty," Doll suggested, but even this met with a polite answer.
"If you say so, Sister Doll. You knows a awful lot. Nothing couldn' please me better. I ever did wish my chillen could come in a litter. Havin' em one at a time is awful slow; it takes so long to get a house full. I been at it gwine on mighty nigh twenty years now."
Doll stared at her trying to shame her, but Mary talked on pleasantly.
Birthing children was not so bad. It was as easy for her as to pop her fingers, but she wanted to have some gal sleep once more. Good, sweet, quiet sleep. It had been many a long year since she had had one single night of it.
"When you gwine to stop a-sinnin, Si May-e?" Doll asked with a hiss on the edge of her words.
"When I get tired seein pleasure. A lot o mighty fine men round here ain' so awful satisfied wid dey wives. I might try one more round befo I stop fo good."
"Shut you mout', May-e. You can' talk such brazen talk in de house o Gawd. You must be forgot, enty?" Doll's tubby body, her husky, breathy voice, her little sharp eyes all made Mary feel suddenly cross.
"When did Gawd appint you to run His house, Doll?" she snapped out before she knew it.
Doll answered that she would rather live without a drop of bacon grease for her bread or a speck of molasses for sweetened water than to be like Mary with a pack of men for ever at her heels and bringing a poor little fatherless child into the world every other year God sent. Hatred for Doll scraped against Mary's heart.
She felt like slapping her. "Don' fret about me, Doll. You don' have but one man when I has a plenty, but dat don' make you so much better'n me. I couldn' stand to have de same man a-snorin in my face evy night Gawd sends. No Lawd. I rather change. I like to shoot down de ducks as dey rise. But I don' forget my manners like some women I know. I treats my men fine. When I sees em a-feelin down-hearted I cheers em up and sends em off a-struttin wid dey hats pure cocked on one side. You don' treat dat one man you got half-way decent. You got em all worried in his mind an' fretted half to death right now. Is you call dat bein a Christian?"
"What you got to say 'bout dem poor nameless chillen you got?"
Mary leaned back and laughed.
"Do fo Gawd's sake, Doll, don' talk so fool. My chillen come into dis world by de same road as you own. You know dat good as me. You own don' travel a bit easier road 'n my own either. Not a bit."
"Well, I can say dis much, Si May-e, July done right when e left you. You is pure slippery as okra."
"Ki, Doll," Mary said scornfully, "you's a fool." She sucked her teeth and all the women straightened up.
Maum Hannah took her hand. "You ain' to talk such a talk, Si May-e. De Book say if we call nobody a fool, Gawd would burn we in Hell-fire. Fool is a awful sinful word. Honey, do don' say em no more."
The women began murmuring, nodding their heads.
"Dat's de Gawd's truth, Auntie."
"You's right to talk to Si May-e."
"Si May-e is a heavy case in dis world."
"A heavy case fo-true."
Mary raised her arms and tightened her head-kerchief. "You have to excuse me, Auntie. Doll got me vexed an' befo I knew it de word slipped out my mouth. But if Doll had any manners e wouldn' be throwin up July's name to me, an' blowin at me like a porpoise."
"You must be forgot July's my own brother, enty?" Doll snapped out.
"No, I ain' forgot, Doll. An' I ain' forgot July used to be my own lawful husband too. Reverend Duncan read out o de Book over me an' July, but July didn' count dat readin no more'n air. Not July. E went off wid Cinder just de same as if e was a single man. Just de same. An' Cinder was my own second cousin, too. But July left Cinder de same way." Mary laughed carelessly. "No 'oman livin couldn' keep a some-time man like July."
"Dc Lawd have mussy," Maum Hannah sighed, and the other women stirred uneasily.
Mary loosened the string which held her full skirts tied up short, then she straightened up.
"Let me tell yunnuh someting. July's been gone a long time. I don' know whe e is, an' I don' care. But if de boat yonder on de river would fetch em home to-day, cold an' stiff in a box, I could look at em same as if e was & stranger. Not a drop o water wouldn' drean out my eyes."
Maum Hannah jumped.
"Jedus, gal, you pure scare me when you talk such a talk. Gawd'll make you eat dem same words yet. No matter whe you is, or whe July is, yunnuh two is man an' wife. You can' change dat. When Gawd joins people togedder nothin can' put em apart. Nothin. Not even sin."
"How long is July been gone, Si May-e?" one of the midwives asked.
Mary reflected. She could not remember exactly. Seraphine was in her sixteenth yearnow, so July must have been gone over sixteen years.
"How much chillen you had since July went?" asked another one.
"Plenty, sister, an' all of em is a-livin an' a-growin fine. Most of em big enough to work evy day. We has plenty to eat, plenty to wear, plenty to pleasure wid too."
"Mind how you brag, Si May-e," Maum Hannah warned.
"I ain' braggin, Auntie. All dis I'm tellin is de Gawd's truth. Me an' my chillen don' need no man. We can git on better widout em. I can easy pick three hundred pound o cotton in a day. I can hoe a acre clean o grass quick as any 'oman on de whole plantation. I done birthed all my chillen de old way an' I ain' never had a backache in my life."
Nobody answered this, and Mary looked Doll in the eyes.
"I know yunnuh talks about me behind my back, but I don' mind. Talk all you want to. I ain' no member o de church. I been baptized an' I been a member four different times in my life. A member, de same as you. When I git old an' tired seein pleasure, I'm gwine to seek and pray an' be a member again."
She looked around and smiled.
"If I was fat or either old, I might would settle down, but, tank Gawd, I ain' neither one. Not yet."
Maum Hannah got stiffly to her feet.
"Come on, gal," she said, taking Mary by the arm, "le's go home. Gawd's house ain' no place fo sinful talk."
"Befo I go I want to hear how to birth chillen de new lawful way, Auntie."
"Don' let's talk dat talk now, not till we get out o Gawd's house. It ain' decent. No. It ain' fitten to hear. I declare to Gawd, it made me have sin to hear about em."
"You had sin, Auntie? I bet you ain' sinned, not in forty years."
Mary could not help laughing, but Maum Hannah looked very sad. "You's wrong, honey, I sins all de time. Every breath I breathe, every word I say is a sin. Dat's how-come I have to pray so much an' ask Him up yonder to help me be faithful an' hold out to de end." She wiped her eyes and got to her feet. Mary took her arm, and together they went down the aisle and down the steps of Heaven's Gate Church.
The misery in Maum Hannah's knee was much worse since she heard the indecent things the white people wanted the midwives to do when they caught children.
"You ought to sit down, at home, Auntie, an' let de misery rest."
Maum Hannah shook her head. Sitting still was the worst thing for it. She needed to stir around. A bed or a chair will trick you if you stay still on them long at a time. They will draw out your strength and leave you weak as water. A hot earthworm poultice would help her to shed the misery. It always helped her. When she got home she would brew some green walnut tea and get Keepsie to pour it on the ground near Ben's wood-pile where the worms were thick. They'd rise up and he could get her a plenty for a poultice. Earthworms are fine things to run out pains and miseries. Thank God for making plenty of them.
"Tell me what de lady said, Auntie."
"I can' talk dat talk, honey. No. But I'll tell you dis much; de lady had a razor wid em. E took em out an' showed em right in de house o Gawd. E say all de midwives must carry razors. Great Gawd. Dat is one sinful 'oman in dis world. Honey, I hate to say a harm word, but dat 'oman ain' decent to come in a church."