“Shoot!” cried Miss Rindy so suddenly that Beulah gave an elephantine jump.
“Law, Miss Rindy,” she cried, “yuh skeers me outen a year’s growth.”
“Maybe that would be a good thing to do, if it affected your girth,” returned Miss Rindy laughing. “Now, look here, Beulah, you know that you’re nothing but a poor worm; that hymn you were singing this morning says so, and the way you crawl anybody would know it was true. We’re willing to take you with us, worm though you be, but if you don’t want to go, just say so at once without any more shilly-shallying, but I shall have my opinion of you, and it won’t be only a worm that I shall call you to your class leader. You gave me your word that you were going, and you know what happens to those that don’t speak the truth; if you don’t know, just look in Revelation, twenty-first chapter, twenty-seventh verse.”
“Law, Miss Rindy, yuh sho does skeer me; yuh wuss’n de preacher.”
“I’m glad of it; you need some one to be.”
Beulah stood, still fingering her apron. Presently she asked, “Which a-way yuh is goin’, Miss Rindy?”
“The quickest way, I think. We can take the Hell Gate route and reach Portland early in the morning.” Miss Rindy’s lips twitched as she said this.
“Den I stays. I don’t go no such way. No, ma’am, it’s too dangersome. I don’t keer what the preacher say. I doesn’t trus’ mah body near no hell gate.”
Miss Rindy laughed. “You are a silly creature, Beulah; that’s only the name of what used to be a dangerous spot in the East River. It is perfectly safe. You’ll be on the train, and won’t know when you get there.”
However it required a deal of explanation to convince Beulah, but finally she gave in, and later in the day was inspired to sing with great earnestness, “The gospel train are comin’; I hears it close to han’.”