Scarlet Sister Mary (1928, Bobbs-Merrill Company)/Chapter 30
The women woke up, and one of them ran to the doorway screaming and howling. Voices from the other houses answered and people came running down the street and into the room until it was jammed full. Everybody was moaning except Maum Hannah who stood outside in the yard, sending her long death cries out into the dawn so the whole world could know that Unex was gone.
"Oo—Oo—Ooo—Ee—Ee-Eee!
"Oo—Oo—Ooo—Ee—Ee-Eee!"
The cries rose higher and higher breath by breath. Mary felt that if they kept on they would cut the thread of her own life in two, tough and strong as it was.
Her bare feet kept padding across the room as she blundered back and forth from the bed to the window. She strove to think of the things that must be done, but she needed air to keep her from smothering.
Somebody had hung up an old shirt for a curtain and it kept fluttering backward into the room, then outward again, as two strong winds, one from the land, one from the sea, tried to rule the coming day.
The children were huddled in a corner, weeping softly, except Keepsie, who had forgotten his new crutches and went hopping about on his one leg. His face was drawn, his eyes winked fast with fear, now and then Mary felt his hand holding tight to hers. He must have seen her feet totter, for he hopped toward her with a chair. She sat down and held her face in her hands. Her palms could feel the quivering of her mouth and her gaspy breathing, but she held her silence doggedly.
She longed to scream out and butt her head on the wall, so God could see that she knew He had turned against her. But before all these people, these women, she must hold on to herself.
The hours passed slowly. Unex was washed and shrouded and covered over with a sheet. Andrew and Big Boy measured him and went away to make his box. The room was scoured until its cleanness looked bare and cold.
At last the day began shedding its light and heat. The sun was dropping. Mary sat by the window holding little motherless, fatherless Emma asleep in her lap.
Andrew touched her on the shoulder and cleared his throat.
"I reckon we better be gettin ready, Si May-e." He sniffed and fumbled the hat in his hands.
Big Boy stood wiping his red eyes.
"Si-Maye," Maum Hannah hobbled up, "gi Emma to me. You got to go now. De sun'll soon set."
The new pine box stood waiting on two chairs, its cover leaning against the table's legs, waiting to be nailed on. Andrew began turning back the sheet.
"Please, Cun Andrew, don' put Unex on de naked boards. E's so thin—dey is so hard."
She got a quilt which Andrew folded into a long narrow length and laid smooth in the box; then he put a pillow at the head. She stood watching all that was done in silence until Andrew took up the board cover, then she could not help crying out, "Oh, Gawd, why couldn' you le me keep my child a lil bit longer?"
She fell on her knees by the box and bowed her head to the floor. The cover fell out of Andrew's hands and clattered heavily down.
Big Boy picked it up and said brokenly, "Gi me de hammer and nails, Pa, I'll finish em." He called out solemnly to the crowd standing outside in the yard, "All o you-all what wants to look at de body come on in."
A long line of people filed in and then out. And the hammer in Big Boy's hand began falling on the nail-heads with quick telling strokes. Mary gripped her jaws tight together trying to keep her mouth shut, but she couldn't.
"Don' nail de cover down so tight, Big Boy. Seems like it'll smother em.—Oh, Jedus—Master—look down"
Andrew's mule was hitched to the plum tree, and as Andrew helped Mary climb up into the wagon, to sit on the board seat laid across the coffin, a soft shower of white petals fell over her.
"Tell Auntie to come set by me," Mary whispered, and Andrew lifted the old woman and put her on the seat beside Mary, then he took up the rope reins and the mule drew the creaking wagon down the street. Reverend Duncan came next. He was alone in his buggy, for his huge body so completely filled the buggy seat, there was no room for his big fat wife who drove alone in another buggy right behind him.
A stream of men and women and children on foot followed them. The sun was almost down, it soon would set in the open grave. The treetops glowed red; the people marched and sang.
Mary heard none of the words, but she knew that all these great waves of sound were prayers sent up to God.
Reverend Duncan took his place at the head of the grave and opened his Book, the same Book he used to marry her to July.
Doll yelled at the top of her voice. Andrew and Big Boy hurried to hold her and keep her from hurting herself in her grief. The whole congregation wailed and wept as Reverend Duncan told how Jesus rose from the dead.
Night fell before the service was done. Torches lighted the men who filled in the grave with heavy red earth and patted it smooth. All the medicine bottles were laid on it.
Then Reverend Duncan opened the Book again and read: "De Lawd gave, de Lawd have take em away. Blessed be de name o de Lawd."