The quilters listened with rapt attention. Breeze almost held his breath for fear of missing a word. Sometimes his blood ran hot with wonder, then cold with fear. Many eyes in the room glistened with tears.
The names of God and Jesus were known to Breeze, but he had never understood before that they were real people who could walk and talk. Maum Hannah told about God’s strength and power and wisdom, how He knew right then what she was doing and saying. He could see each stitch that was taken in the quilts, whether it was small and deep and honest, or shallow and careless. He wrote everything down in a great book where He kept account of good and evil. Breeze had never dreamed that such things went on around him all the time.
Yet the quilt was made out of pictures of the very things Maum Hannah told. Nobody could doubt that all she said was the truth. In the charmed silence, her words fell clear and earnest. The present was shut out. Breeze’s mind went a-roaming with her, back into the days when the world was new and God walked and talked with the children He had so lately made. As she spoke Breeze shivered over those days that were to come when everybody here would be either in Hell or Heaven. It had to be one or the other. There was no place to stop or to hide when death came and knocked at your door. She pointed to Breeze. That same little boy, there in the chimney corner, with his foot tied up, would have to account for all he did! As well as Breeze could understand, Heaven was in the blue sky straight up above the plantation. God sat there on His throne among the stars, while angels, with harps of gold in their hands, sang His praises all day long. Hell was straight down. Underneath. Deep under the earth. Satan lived there with his great fires for ever and ever a-burning on the bodies of sinners piled high up so they could never crumble.
Maum Hannah herself became so moved by the thought of the sufferings of the poor pitiful sinners in Hell, that her voice broke and tears dimmed her eyes, and she plead with them all:
“Pray! Chillen! Pray!
“Do try fo’ ’scape Hell if you kin!
“Hell is a heat!
“One awful heat!
“We fire ain’ got no time wid em!
“Pray! Chillen! Pray! For Gawd’s sake, pray!