The day had started clear as a bell with bright sun and high cotton clouds. By the time the factory whistle had blown at seven, Nana had stoked the old cast iron stove, made coffee, squeezed oranges for fresh juice and hung half the Monday wash. By mid-morning though, the skies had begun to turn pale gray and a fog bank was forming off Peter's Island. The air was thickening and rain wasn't a threat, it was a certainty. Well, I'll be damned! I heard my grandmother say as she noticed the light fading, Hurry, child, help me bring in the clothes!
I snatched the wicker clothes basket and hurriedly followed her out the back door. We beat the rain but only barely and there was no time to organize and fold neatly as she liked - this put her in a mild temper - but it was nothing compared to what would come later that afternoon when Aunt Pearl and Aunt Vi arrived with the news that the Pentecostal caravan had arrived and set up their revival camp in Ohney Elliott's back pasture.
Charlatans! she snapped, unnerving Aunt Vi so badly that she nearly dropped her tartan patterned china coffee cup, Con men and snake oil salesmen! What was Ohney thinking?
I imagine, Aunt Pearl said calmly, she was thinking about ten dollars a day for that land.
I'd give her fifteen to throw their ragged asses off'n it, Nana scowled, Ain't nothin' but a bunch of money grubbin' frauds and Ohney's a pure fool to be part of 'em.
Ohney Elliott, just in her early forties that summer, had been what the village liked to call a widow woman for going on three years. She lived alone in a modest little home on Highwater Hill, raised chickens and pigs and the occasional goat and had developed a habit of keeping to herself. She knew about hard times and hard work - more than she'd ever wanted, she'd confessed to my grandmother one early evening at the post office -
and with her savings rapidly depleting, she'd been thinking about selling off some of the pasture land. There wasn't much of a market back then but the factory people had made her a decent offer for five acres and it was weighing on her mind the day the Pentecostals arrived and offered to rent it. Thinking it might be a sort of trial period to letting it go - and in sore need of cash money - she'd decided it couldn't do much harm and said yes.
It's a ten day revival, Miz Elliott, the slick young preacher man assured her, That's a hunnerd dollars spendin' money you surely ain't got now.
When she hesitated, he took her small, roughened up hands in his and smiled.
We're doing the good Lawd's work here, Sister Ohney, he said with a smile that chipped away at the last of her reluctance but it was the crisp ten dollar bill he slipped into her apron pocket that won the day.
These are sinful days and Jesus needs all the help He can get, he told her, Your pasture could help us save a powerful number of souls.
And so the caravan rolled in and in a matter of hours, the glory tent was raised and Ohney (and anyone else within a half mile of the pasture) could hear the choir practicing "Brighten The Corner Where You Are" and "Standing On The Promises". She wasn't all that much of a church goer - had in fact never quite forgiven God for the freight-train-fast cancer that had taken her husband before he turned forty - but she did love the old hymns and hearing the music made her smile.
'Ceptin' for the music, she told Aunt Pearl, A body'd hardly know they was here. She didn't mention the young preacher's daily visits or the ten dollar bill he forgot to bring each time. Nor how much she looked forward to seeing him tramping down the footpath in his open throated white shirt and black frock coat. She especially didn't mention that some of those visits lasted a little longer than needed but Pearl was a sharp-eyed observer and nobody's fool when it came to traveling preacher men and salvation.
More'n music's bein' played over there, Alice, she told my grandmother darkly, I don't reckon I much like admittin' it but seems like you mighta been right.
Nana reached for her Kent 100's and seemed to be considering.
'Pears to me, she finally said, that we might oughta mind our own beeswax. Sometimes Ohney don't have the sense God give a grasshopper, I know, but she's still a fully grow'd woman and I reckon she's entitled to her own mistakes.
I ain't worried about her virtue none, Aunt Pearl replied, lowering her voice to just above a whisper, I reckon that's between her and whoever she's......spendin' her time with...... But I know for a fact she's countin' on that cash money and she she ain't seen a nickel since the first night.
Lay down with dogs, git up with fleas, Nana said practically and shrugged but I had an idea that wasn't exactly what she was thinking. She inhaled, exhaled, watched the smoke with a studied look. She chain smoked when she was troubled or about to make an important decision and now she stubbed out one cigarette and immediately lit another.
You know, Pearl, she remarked casually after a small silence, mebbe we ought to drop by the service tonight. I heard tell that preacher man's a regular spellbinder when he gits wound up.
Oh, ay-uh, Aunt Pearl nodded, Jesus saves.
Sitting cross legged and pretty much unnoticed on the floor with my dominoes, I'd lost the thread of this conversation some time back (beeswax?) but I could sense a sharp edge in the air. Nana went to the old black telephone in the dining room and called Elsie - her switchboard had lit up like a Christmas tree, so people said later - and by early evening the house had filled with women chattering like chickens. Just a few minutes before eight, they all packed up and left, marching to their various cars and pick up trucks with military precision and grim, determined looks.
I never did find out exactly what happened but the revivalists folded their tents, three days early, and slipped away with the fog the very next morning. From the looks of the pasture, they might never have come at all and Ohney had a fistful of ten dollar bills - twice what she'd asked for - and more than enough to see her through the summer and into the fall.
The Lord helps those who help themselves, Nana declared serenely over lunch on the day of the mass departure.
And heaven help them's that gets in the way, Aunt Pearl added.
Amen.
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