“Don’ cry, son,” she soothed him. “Come on an’ eat some dinner. You got to go wid me to de buryin’. Enty, April?”
She led him inside and made him sit in a chair beside April, while she fried links of sausage to eat with the bread and cups full of sweetened water. The sausage had a savory smell, and Breeze bit into it and chewed it a long time, but he could scarcely swallow it for the choking lump in his throat. His mother was dead. She was no longer yonder at Sandy Island with Sis and the other children. She had flown up into the sky, where Heaven was, and Jesus and all the angels. April washed his food down with great swallows of water. How dumb he was.
“Lawd!” Big Sue grunted as she came out of the shed-room with her Sunday dress on her arm. “Ain’ it awful to die in sin? It pure scares me half to death when I think on Breeze’s mammy a hoppin’ in Hell right now! Great Gawd! Wid fire a scorchin’ em!”
“How you know?” April thundered out.
“How I know? I know e was a’ awful sinner. You know so too. E got dis same Breeze right here at Blue Brook whilst a revival meetin’ was gwine on. You don’ call dat sin?”
April didn’t so much as crack his teeth, and she looked at him with narrowed eyes.
“You an’ her all two better had got religion dat summer.”
“You better keep you’ mouth shut, now, Big Sue. You’s a-talkin’ out o’ turn. Better help Breeze dress. E’s a settin’ yonder on de floor wid jaws hangin’ open! Boy, you’s gwine swallow a fly if you don’ mind.”
Breeze was trying to think. His mother, his dear, kind, good mother, was hopping in Hell. Burning in a fire nine times hotter than the fire on earth!
“April!” Big Sue called out, “you ought to buy Breeze a nice pair o’ shoes an’ stockin’s to wear to de buryin’.”