This happened two years before the war and Alfred had watched and waited the day of his revenge to dawn. Many a night he had prowled around her cottage spying and listening at the keyhole for her cry of help. He had heard at last that Isaac was beating her unmercifully and he chuckled with grim satisfaction. Every opportunity he got he hung around the cottage and listened for the long expected cry. As he approached the gates this morning in a peculiarly romantic frame of mind, remembering the mission he was on, he heard Uncle Isaac’s voice in sharp accents within, hectoring it over his former spouse.
He crept to the door and listened breathlessly.
“Dar now, I’se jes’ in time ter sabe my lady love!”
He peeped cautiously through the keyhole and saw Aunt Julie Ann’s huge form busy at the ironing board, while Isaac sat majestically in a rocker delivering to her an eloquent discourse on Sanctification in general and his own sinless perfection in particular. Isaac had changed his name several times after the war, following the example of many Negroes who were afraid the use of their old master’s name might some day serve as the badge of slavery. He had lately become a Northern Methodist exhorter of great fame and went from church to church holding revivals, particularly among the sisters of the church, calling them to the life of stainless purity of those who had not merely “salvation,” as the ordinary Methodist or Baptist understood it, but “sanctification” as only those of the inner circle of the Lord knew it.
Isaac had long ago been “sanctified,” and had declared not only his sinless nature but had boldy proclaimed himself a prophet of the new dispensation and had finally fixed his name as “Isaac the Apostle,” which had been simplified by busy clerks in written form to Isaac A. Postle.
Aunt Julie Ann had heard of his wonderful success in his sanctification meetings with misgivings, as the large majority of his converts were invariably among the sisters. She had finally dared to question the authenticity of his apostolic call. Her scepticism had aroused Isaac to a frenzy of religious enthusiasm. That the wife of his bosom should be the only voice to question his divine mission was proof positive that she had in some mysterious way become possessed of the devil—perhaps seven devils.
He determined to cast them out—by moral suasion if possible—if not, by the main strength of his good right arm. He must set his own house in order lest the very source of his inspiration be poisoned by lack of faith. He was devoting this morning to the task when Alfred arrived.
He had just finished a long and fervid explanation of the mystery of Sanctification.
“Fur de las’ time I axes ye, ’oman, what sez ye ter de word er de Lawd?”
Aunt Julie Ann banged the board with the iron and merely grunted: