Go Tell It on the Mountain (29 page)

“Praise the Lord,” said his father. He did not move to touch him, did not kiss him, did not smile. They stood before each other in silence, while the saints rejoiced; and John struggled to speak the authoritative, the living word that would conquer the great division between his father and himself. But it did not come, the living word; in the silence something died in John, and something came alive. It came to him that he must testify: his tongue only could bear witness to the wonders he had seen. And he remembered, suddenly, the text of a sermon he had once heard his father preach. And he opened his mouth, feeling, as he watched his father, the darkness roar behind him, and the very earth beneath him seem to shake; yet he gave to his father their common testimony. “I’m saved,” he said, “and I know I’m saved.” And then, as his father did not speak, he repeated his father’s text: “My witness is in Heaven and my record is on high.”

“It come from your mouth,” said his father then. “I want to see you live it. It’s more than a notion.”

“I’m going to pray God,” said John—and his voice shook,
whether with joy or grief he could not say—“to keep me, and make me strong … to stand … to stand against the enemy … and against everything and everybody … that wants to cut down my soul.”

Then his tears came down again, like a wall between him and his father. His Aunt Florence came and took him in her arms. Her eyes were dry, and her face was old in the savage, morning light. But her voice, when she spoke, was gentler than he had ever known it to be before.

“You fight the good fight,” she said, “you hear? Don’t you get weary, and don’t you get scared. Because I
know
the Lord’s done laid His hands on you.”

“Yes,” he said, weeping, “yes. I’m going to serve the Lord.”

“Amen!” cried Elisha. “Bless our God!” The filthy streets rang with the early-morning light as they came out of the temple.

They were all there, save young Ella Mae, who had departed while John was still on the floor—she had a bad cold, said Praying Mother Washington, and needed to have her rest. Now, in three groups, they walked the long, gray, silent avenue: Praying Mother Washington with Elizabeth and Sister McCandless and Sister Price, and before them Gabriel and Florence, and Elisha and John ahead.

“You know, the Lord is a wonder,” said the praying mother. “Don’t you know, all this week He just burdened my soul, and kept me a-praying and a-weeping before Him? Look like I just couldn’t get no ease nohow—and I
know
He had me a-tarrying for that boy’s soul.”

“Well, amen,” said Sister Price. “Look like the Lord just wanted this church to
rock
. You remember how He spoke through Sister McCandless Friday night, and told us to pray, and He’d work a mighty wonder in our midst? And He done
moved
—hallelujah—He done troubled
everybody’s
mind.”

“I just tell you,” said Sister McCandless, “all you got to do is
listen
to the Lord; He’ll lead you right every
time;
He’ll move every
time
. Can’t nobody tell me
my
God ain’t real.”

“And you see the way the Lord worked with young Elisha there?” said Praying Mother Washington, with a calm, sweet smile. “Had that boy down there on the floor a-prophesying in
tongues
, amen, just the very
minute
before Johnny fell out a-screaming, and a-crying before the Lord. Look like the Lord was using Elisha to say: ‘It’s time, boy, come on home.’ ”

“Well, He is a wonder,” said Sister Price. “And Johnny’s got
two
brothers now.”

Elizabeth said nothing. She walked with her head bowed, hands clasped lightly before her. Sister Price turned to look at her, and smiled.

“I know,” she said, “you’s a mighty happy woman this morning.”

Elizabeth smiled and raised her head, but did not look directly at Sister Price. She looked ahead, down the long avenue, where Gabriel walked with Florence, where John walked with Elisha.

“Yes,” she said, at last, “I been praying. And I ain’t stopped praying yet.”

“Yes, Lord,” said Sister Price, “can’t none of us stop praying till we see His blessed face.”

“But I bet you didn’t never think,” said Sister McCandless, with a laugh, “that little Johnny was going to jump up so soon, and get religion.
Bless
our God!”

“The Lord’s going to bless that boy, you mark my words,” said Praying Mother Washington.

“Shake hands with the preacher, Johnny.”

“Got a man in the Bible, son, who liked music, too. And he got to dancing one day before the Lord. You reckon you going to dance before the Lord one of these days?”

“Yes, Lord,” said Sister Price, “the Lord done raised you up a holy son. He going to comfort your gray hairs.”

Elizabeth found that her tears were falling, slowly, bitterly, in the morning light. “I pray the Lord,” she said, “to bear him up on every side.”

“Yes,” said Sister McCandless, gravely, “it’s more than a notion. The Devil rises on every hand.”

Then, in silence, they came to the wide crossing where the streetcar line ran. A lean cat stalked the gutter and fled as they approached; turned to watch them, with yellow, malevolent eyes, from the ambush of a garbage can. A gray bird flew above them, above the electric wires for the streetcar line, and perched on the metal cornice of a roof. Then, far down the avenue, they heard a siren, and the clanging of a bell, and looked up to see the ambulance speed past them on the way to the hospital that was near the church.

“Another soul struck down,” murmured Sister McCandless. “Lord have mercy.”

“He said in the last days evil would abound,” said Sister Price.

“Well, yes, He
did
say it,” said Praying Mother Washington, “and I’m so glad He told us He wouldn’t leave us comfortless.”

“When ye see all these things, know that your salvation is at hand,” said Sister McCandless. “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand—but it ain’t going to come nigh thee.
So
glad, amen, this morning, bless my Redeemer.”

“You remember that day when you come into the store?”

“I didn’t think you never looked at me.”

“Well—you was mighty pretty.”

“Didn’t little Johnny never say nothing,” asked Praying Mother Washington, “to make you think the Lord was working in his heart?”

“He always kind of quiet,” said Elizabeth. “He don’t say much.”

“No,” said Sister McCandless, “he ain’t like all these rough young ones nowadays—
he
got some respect for his elders. You done raised him mighty well, Sister Grimes.”

“It was his birthday yesterday,” Elizabeth said.

“No!” cried Sister Price. “How old he got to be yesterday?”

“He done made fourteen,” she said.

“You hear that?” said Sister Price, with wonder. “The Lord done saved that boy’s soul on his birthday!”

“Well, he got two birthdays now,” smiled Sister McCandless, “just like he got two brothers—one in the flesh, and one in the Spirit.”

“Amen, bless the Lord!” cried Praying Mother Washington.

“What book was it, Richard?”

“Oh, I don’t remember. Just a book.”

“You smiled.”

“You was mighty pretty.”

She took her sodden handkerchief out of her bag, and dried her eyes; and dried her eyes again, looking down the avenue.

“Yes,” said Sister Price, gently, “you just
thank
the Lord. You just
let
the tears fall. I know your heart is full this morning.”

“The Lord’s done give you,” said Praying Mother Washington, “a mighty blessing—and what the Lord gives, can’t no man take away.”

“I open,” said Sister McCandless, “and no man can shut. I shut, and no man can open.”

“Amen,” said Sister Price. “Amen.”

“Well, I reckon,” Florence said, “your soul is praising God this morning.”

He looked straight ahead, saying nothing, holding his body more rigid than an arrow.

“You always been saying,” Florence said, “how the Lord would answer prayer.” And she looked sideways at him, with a little smile.

“He going to learn,” he said at last, “that it ain’t all in the singing and the shouting—the way of holiness is a hard way. He got the steep side of the mountain to climb.”

“But he got you there,” she said, “ain’t he, to help him when he stumbles, and to be a good example?”

“I’m going to see to it,” he said, “that he walks right before the Lord. The Lord’s done put his soul in
my
charge—and I ain’t going to have that boy’s blood on my hands.”

“No,” she said, mildly, “I reckon you don’t want that.”

Then they heard the siren, and the headlong, warning bell. She watched his face as he looked outward at the silent avenue and at the ambulance that raced to carry someone to healing, or to death.

“Yes,” she said, “that wagon’s coming, ain’t it, one day for everybody?”

“I pray,” he said, “it finds you ready, sister.”

“Is it going to find you ready?” she asked.

“I know my name is written in the Book of Life,” he said. “I know I’m going to look on my Saviour’s face in glory.”

“Yes,” she said, slowly, “we’s all going to be together there. Mama, and you, and me, and Deborah—and what was the name of that little girl who died not long after I left home?”

“What little girl who died?” he asked. “A
lot
of folks died after
you
left home—you left your
mother
on her dying bed.”

“This girl was a mother, too,” she said. “Look like she went North all by herself, and had her baby, and died—weren’t nobody to help her. Deborah wrote me about it. Sure, you ain’t forgotten that girl’s name, Gabriel!”

Then his step faltered—seemed, for a moment, to drag. And he looked at her. She smiled, and lightly touched his arm.

“You ain’t forgotten her name,” she said. “You can’t tell me you done forgot her name. Is you going to look on her face, too? Is her name written in the Book of Life?”

In utter silence they walked together, her hand still under his trembling arm.

“Deborah didn’t never write,” she at last pursued, “about what happened to the baby. Did you ever see him? You going to meet him in Heaven, too?”

“The Word tell us,” he said, “to let the dead bury the dead. Why you want to go rummaging around back there, digging up things what’s all forgotten now? The Lord, He knows my life—He done forgive me a long time ago.”

“Look like,” she said, “you think the Lord’s a man like you; you
think you can fool Him like you fool men, and you think He forgets, like men. But God don’t forget nothing, Gabriel—if your name’s down there in the Book, like you say, it’s got all what you done right down there with it. And you going to answer for it, too.”

“I done answered,” he said, “already before my God. I ain’t got to answer now, in front of you.”

She opened her handbag, and took out the letter.

“I been carrying this letter now,” she said, “for more than thirty years. And I been wondering all that time if I’d ever talk to you about it.”

And she looked at him. He was looking, unwillingly, at the letter, which she held tightly in one hand. It was old, and dirty, and brown, and torn; he recognized Deborah’s uncertain, trembling hand, and he could see her again in the cabin, bending over the table, laboriously trusting to paper the bitterness she had not spoken. It had lived in her silence, then, all of those years? He could not believe it. She had been praying for him as she died—she had sworn to meet him in glory. And yet, this letter, her witness, spoke, breaking her long silence, now that she was beyond his reach forever.

“Yes,” said Florence, watching his face, “you didn’t give her no bed of roses to sleep on, did you?—poor, simple, ugly, black girl. And you didn’t treat that other one no better. Who is you met, Gabriel, all your holy life long, you ain’t made to drink a cup of sorrow? And you doing it still—you going to be doing it till the Lord puts you in your grave.”

“God’s way,” he said, and his speech was thick, his face was slick with sweat, “ain’t man’s way. I been doing the will of the Lord, and can’t nobody sit in judgment on me but the Lord. The Lord called me out, He chose
me
, and I been running with Him ever since I made a start. You can’t keep your eyes on all this foolishness here below, all this wickedness here below—you got to lift up your eyes to the hills and run from the destruction falling on the earth, you got to put your hand in Jesus’ hand, and go where
He
says go.”

“And if you been but a stumbling-stone here below?” she said. “If you done caused souls right and left to stumble and fall, and lose their happiness, and lose their souls? What then, prophet? What then, the Lord’s anointed? Ain’t no reckoning going to be called of
you
? What you going to say when the wagon comes?”

He lifted up his head, and she saw tears mingled with his sweat. “The Lord,” he said, “He sees the heart—He sees the heart.”

“Yes,” she said, “but I done read the Bible, too, and it tells me you going to know the tree by its fruit. What fruit I seen from you if it ain’t been just sin and sorrow and shame?”

“You be careful,” he said, “how you talk to the Lord’s anointed. ’Cause my life ain’t in that letter—you don’t know my life.”

“Where
is
your life, Gabriel?” she asked, after a despairing pause. “Where
is
it? Ain’t it all done gone for nothing? Where’s your branches? Where’s your fruit?”

He said nothing; insistently, she tapped the letter with her thumbnail. They were approaching the corner where she must leave him, turning westward to take her subway home. In the light that filled the streets, the light that the sun was now beginning to corrupt with fire, she watched John and Elisha just before them, John’s listening head bent, Elisha’s arm about his shoulder.

“I got a son,” he said at last, “and the Lord’s going to raise him up. I know—the Lord has promised—His word is true.”

And then she laughed.
“That son,”
she said, “that Roy. You going to weep for many a eternity before you see him crying in front of the altar like Johnny was crying tonight.”