“I ever did love boy-chillen, but dey causes a lot o’ sorrow. My mammy used to say ev’y boy-child ought to be killed soon as it’s born.”
“How’d de world go on if people done dat?” Bina asked.
“I dunno. Gawd kin do a lot o’ strange t’ings.”
This made them all stop and think again.
The kettle sang as steam rushed out of its spout. The flames made a sputtering sound. The benches creaked as the women bent over and rose with their needles. Bina sat up straight, then stretched.
“If all de mens was dead, you could stay in de chu’ch, enty, Zeda?” Bina slurred the words softly.
Zeda came back, “Don’ you fret ’bout me, gal. Jake ain’ no more to me dan a dead man.”
“Yunnuh stop right now! Dat’s no-manners talk. Jake’s a fine man, if e is my gran. I know, by I raise em. When his mammy died an’ left em, Jake an’ Bully and April was all three de same as twins in my house.” Maum Hannah spoke very gravely. Presently she got up and went into the shed-room. She came back smiling, with a folded quilt on her arm. “Le’s look at de old Bible quilt, chillen. It’ll do yunnuh good.”
She held up one corner and motioned to deaf and dumb Gussie to hold up the other so all the squares could be seen. There were twenty, every one a picture out of the Bible. The first one, next to Gussie’s hand, was Adam and Eve and the serpent. Adam’s shirt was blue, his pants brown, and his head a small patch of yellow. Eve had on a red headkerchief, a purple wide-skirted dress; and a tall black serpent stood straight up on the end of its tail.
The next square had two men, one standing up, the other fallen down—Cain and Abel. The red patch under Abel was his blood, spilled on the ground by Cain’s sin. Maum Hannah pointed out Noah and the Ark; Moses with the tables of stone; the three Hebrew children; David and Goliath; Joseph and Mary and the little baby Jesus; and last of all, Jesus standing alone by the cross. As Maum Hannah took them one by one, all twenty, she told each marvelous story.