Moving slowly to a chorus of amens and unintelligible mumblings of piety, the Brother was some distance up the aisle when Sister Letts started to meet him. Halfway between the back door and the pulpit they stopped, facing each other. And then a new difficulty arose. They had by now thoroughly given themselves to God and were suffused with a wonderful glow of self-appreciation at this proof of their humility, but each wanted to prove it first. Each appeared to feel that the one who first washed a foot would receive the greater amount of kudos from the Lord.
So they began to argue, and the heat of the discussion spread all over the congregation, and here and there Brothers and Sisters became so upset by the spirit that they jumped to their feet and began shouting loudly, bouncing up and down and flinging their arms about. My sister, a small child, was practically overcome by curiosity, and added to the excitement by leaning too far from her seat and falling into the aisle, so eager was she to see the ceremony. She was promptly spanked and put back in place by my Aunt Ophelia, and several devout persons near her intimated strongly that she was a sinful, blasphemous little wretch.
It seemed for a time that there would be a deadlock, as neither Sister Letts nor the Brother was willing to give in. So the congregation sang a hymn while they stood staring at each other, and then the Preacher prayed to the Lord to make a decision as to who should wash whose feet first. And apparently God said Eeney Meeney Miney Mo and picked Sister Letts to be It, for the Brother suddenly surrendered and sat in a chair which had been pushed into the aisle for him. He bared his foot, and Sister Letts dropped to her knees and poked it into the basin of water. I do not know if the Brother wriggled his toes. Having laved him, Sister Letts plied her towel vigorously to a groaning chorus of “Amen!” that arose from all parts of the church, and then she sat in the chair and removed her shoe and stocking and the Brother performed the ceremony. The congregation, everyone filled to the bursting point with emotion, then stood and sang quaveringly “How Firm a Foundation.” Sister Letts and the Brother returned to their seats. It was generally agreed that by washing each other’s feet they had practically assured themselves choice seats in Heaven.
5
I was fallow ground for all these seeds of piety, for I was a highly emotional and excitable boy. I wept when I heard slow music, I shivered with fear over the ghost stories and the frightful tales of Hell that were told to me with such regularity, and it was usually I who saw the spooks when we played or hunted for bumblebees among the tombs of the Masonic cemetery. There is no telling what I might have seen had I ever been able to summon sufficient courage to enter the Catholic cemetery at night. I did go as far as just inside the gate once, and immediately there arose in front of me an apparition that to my mind could be nothing less than the Devil himself. And this was not surprising, for I well knew that the Catholics were worshipers of a false God, and it was quite likely that their graveyard was the abode of evil spirits.
Because of my temperament, which impelled me to believe everything I was told, and because from time to time I had shown indications of being a bad boy if restraint were not exercised, I received more religious instruction than my sister or my brothers. Again, there was the matter of ancestry. Our family connections, especially my father’s people, were very proud of our relationship to the Bishop and our direct descent from the Rev. Daniel Asbury, and they settled on me to carry on the family tradition. There was much talk of sending me to a theological school, and I appeared to be destined for the Church, so that I was always waiting for the call to preach, though conscious of a vague hope that it would be delayed.
But I had no idea that I should escape such a fate, for I accepted as a basic fact of life that in every generation at least one Asbury should be a Methodist preacher. Wherever I went I encountered the assumption that I was to succeed the Bishop and the Presiding Elder, and become a Methodist Messiah howling in the wilderness of sin and shoving souls into the heavenly hoppers with both hands. Everyone seemed to take it for granted, and when I talked to a stranger he invariably said:
“Well, well! So your name is Asbury?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Kin to the Bishop?”