Maum Hannah jerked up her head and listened. Her hands wavered apart, then reached out toward the preacher. She got to her feet and waved her arms, “You got em wrong, son! Wrong! Great Lawd, don’ say em dat way!”
Nobody paid her any attention but Uncle Bill, and he pulled her by the arm and made her sit down, “Wait, Auntie! It ain’ time to shout yet. Set down till after de sermon.” Then he joined in with the others, whose words lost in feeling, surged back and forth, throbbing, thundering, until the old church trembled and shook.
“Thou shalt bear false witness against thy neighbor!”
The preacher’s flashing eyes blazed with fire, as they gazed at the people, his shortened breath panted his words, and the congregation burst into prayer, “Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!”
From his seat in the Amen corner Breeze could see every face. Standing out by itself, April’s bold daring countenance was lit with a cool sneering smile.
The Ten Commandments were all said, but the preacher knew others.
“Thou shalt be a father to the fatherless!”
“Do, Lawd, help us to keep dis law!” The holy spirit filled the close-packed swaying crowd.
“Thou shalt be a husband to the widow!”
The ever-rising tide of prayer rolled into a flood that swallowed every soul but April. He sat upright. Unmoved. Passionless. When the preacher’s ranting halted to give out a hymn, April got up and walked down the aisle, and on out of the door. A no-mannered brazen thing for anybody to do. Every eye gazed at him, the preacher stared, but Uncle Bill hurriedly raised the hymn.