A big tear rolled down her face, and dropped into the tub. "Thank you, ma'am," she said.
She made a pretense of turning towards the light of the one small window to see if the shirt was quite clean; then she began to wring it out, wrapping the twist of wet linen about her wrist. When she spoke again, her voice was steady.
"Elder Dean 'lows I oughtn't to be sorry; he says I'd ought to be resigned to God's justice. He says good folks ought to be glad when sinners go to the bad place, even if they're belonging to them. He 'lows I'd oughtn't to be sorry."
"I am sure you have a right to be sorry Tom is dead," Helen said,—the woman's composure made her calm, too,—"but I do not believe he is in any place now that need make you sorry. I do not believe what Elder Dean said about—hell."
Mrs. Davis looked at her, a faint surprise dawning in her tired eyes, and shook her head. "Oh, I'm not sayin' that he ain't right. I'm not sayin' Tom ain't in the bad place, ner that it ain't justice. I'm a Christian woman. I was convicted and converted when I wasn't but twelve years old, and I know my religion. Tom—he wasn't no Christian, he didn't ever experience a change of heart: it was always like as if he was just going to be converted, when he wasn't in drink; fer he was good in his heart, Tom was. But he wasn't no Christian, an' I'm not sayin' he isn't lost. I'm only sayin',"—this with a sudden passion, and knotting her tremulous hands hard together,—"I'm only sayin' I can't love God no more! Him havin' all the power—and then look at Tom an' me"—
Helen tried to speak, but Mrs. Davis would not listen. "No," she cried, "yer the preacher's wife, but I must say it. He never give Tom a chance, an' how am I goin' to love Him now? Tom,"—she pointed a shaking finger at the coffin in the next room,—"born, as you might say, drinkin'. His father died in a drunken fit, and his mother give it to her baby with her milk. Then, what schoolin' did he get? Nothin', 'less it was his mother lickin' him. Tom's often told me that. He hadn't no trade learned, neither,—just rafted with men as bad as him. Is it any wonder he wasn't converted?"
"I know all that," Helen began to say gently, but Mrs. Davis could not check the torrent of her despairing grief.
"He didn't have no chance; an' he didn't ask to be born, neither. God put him here, an' look at the way He made him live; look at this house; see the floor, how the water runs down into that corner: it is all sagged an' leanin'—the whole thing is rotten look at that one window, up against the wall; not a ray of sunshine ever struck it. An' here's where God's made us live. Six of us, now the baby's come. Children was the only thing we was rich in, and we didn't have food enough to put in their mouths, or decent clothes to cover 'em. Look at the people 'round us here—livin' in this here row of tenements—drinkin', lying' swearin'. What chance had Tom? God never give him any, but He could of, if He'd had a mind to. So I can't love Him, Mrs. Ward,—I can't love Him; Him havin' all the power, and yet lettin' Tom's soul go down to hell; fer Tom couldn't help it, and him livin' so. I ain't denyin' religion, ner anything like that—I'm a Christian woman, an' a member—but I can't love Him, so there's no use talkin'—I can't love Him."
She turned away and shook the shirt out, hanging it over the back of a chair in front of the stove, to dry. Helen had followed her, and put her arm across the thin, bent shoulders, her eyes full of tears, though the widow's were hard and bright.
"Oh, Mrs. Davis," she cried, "of course you could not love a God who would never give Tom a chance and then punish him; of course you could not love Him! But he is not punished by being sent to hell; indeed, indeed, he is not. If God is good, He could not be so cruel as to give a soul no chance, and then send it to hell. Don't ever think that Tom, brave fellow, is there! Oh, believe what I say to you!"