Big Sue was already up when Breeze waked. She was fussing around, cooking dinner to take to church, fixing a basket, and China dishes to hold it. Her best clothes, and Breeze’s, were laid out on chairs to be put on. They must be ready when Uncle Bill came for them in his new buggy. He had to go ahead of time, for he had charge of the communion as well as of the Bury League which would be organized when the service was over and the dinner eaten. The head man of the Bury League had come to preach and to form a Society to Bury. Big Sue baked rising bread yesterday in the Big House kitchen stove. The brown loaves, uncovered, sat in a row on the shelf, waiting to be wrapped up. They’d turn to Jesus’ own body when the preacher prayed over them, and blessed them. Blackberry wine, in the two big demijohns in the corner of the shed-room, would turn into Jesus’ blood. Breeze couldn’t make it out in his head exactly, but Big Sue said it was so. Breeze had picked the blackberries that made the wine, and he’d bought the white flour for the bread from the store. How could they turn to Jesus? But Big Sue said prayer can do anything. Anything! When a fine preacher like the Bury League leader prays. Not everybody knows how to pray right, but he did. Yes, Lord, he did!
Before taking time to swallow down a mouthful of bread for breakfast, Breeze and Big Sue put the demijohns on the front porch, ready to go to church. They packed up all the fine dinner in one box, and the communion bread in another, so when she was dressed in her Sunday clothes, she’d have nothing to do but sit still and wait and rest.
How different she looked with her body pulled in tight with a great corset full of steel bands! Like a cotton bale pressed too small. The frills of her petticoat were lace-trimmed. Over them, hiding them carefully, was her new purple sateen dress.
She sat down on the porch with a pan of breakfast in her lap and began to eat. Breeze was back in the shed-room dressing when he heard her laugh and scramble to her feet to say in her company manners voice:
“How you do dis mawnin’, Reverend?”
Breeze peeped through the open door in time to see her draw a foot adroitly behind her in a low curtsey to a strange man who answered in a familiar voice:
“Quite well, thank you, Mrs. Good-wine. How you do this morning?”
“Not so good,” she said sweetly. “Bad luck’s been a-hangin’ round de plantation lately.”
“Bad luck ought not to pester a lady who can fix frog legs like the ones you sent us last night for supper. They were elegant.”
Breeze stood still and listened. He knew that voice, sure as the world. The Bury League preacher was his own stepfather. Hurrying into his clothes he tipped across the room to the window to see better, but Big Sue’s antics held his eyes. She was down on her knees, shaking all over in the drollest way, with laughter that took her breath. Her company manners were gone. Between gasps and shouts she gurgled, “Great Gawd! You ought o’ seen dem frogs dis mawnin’. Dat fool Breeze didn’ kill em! He cut off dey hind legs an’ turned dem loose in de back yard! I liken to a broke my foot jumpin’ when I missed an’ stepped slam on one!”