“But I thought you knew all the time he was all right.”
“Well now, so I did, so fur as I knew anything, but they was times when I doubted, an’ those times pulled me back right smart. Why, honey, I used ter pray the Almighty if he lacked a soul ter jes’ tak me. I is a no ’count ole nigger on the outside but mebbe my soul is some good yit. If I could give up my life fur one er Miss Milly’s chillun, I’d be proud ter do it!”
“Oh, Aunt Mary, you have been so good to us always!”
“Lawsamussy, chile! What I here fur but ter be good ter my white folks? They’s been good ter me—as good as gole. I ain’t never wanted fur nothin’ an’ I ain’t never had a hard word from Carmichael or Brown, savin’, of cose, Miss Sary. She is spoke some hard words in her day, but she didn’ never mean nothin’ by them words. I don’t bear no grudge against po’ Miss Sary. The good Lord done made her a leetle awry an’ ’tain’t fur me ter be the one ter try to straighten her out. Sometimes whin I lies here a thinkin’ it seems ter me mebbe some folks is made lak Miss Sary jes’ so they kin be angels on earth like yo’ maw. Miss Sary done sanctified yo’ maw. She done tried her an’ rubbed aginst her, burnt her in de fire of renunciation and drinched her in the waters of reproachment until yo maw is come out refimed gold.”
“Maybe you are right, Aunt Mary. I am trying to be nicer about the way I feel about Aunt Clay myself. I think if I feel differently, maybe Aunt Clay would feel differently toward me. She does not like me, and why should she, since I don’t really like her?”
“I don’t want ter take no Christian thoughts from yo’ min’ an’ heart, honey chile, but the good you’ll git from thinkin’ kin’ things ’bout Miss Sary will be all yo’ own good. Miss Sary ain’t gonter be no diffrent. She done got too sot in her ways. The leper ain’t gonter change his spots now no mo’n it did in the time er Noah, certainly no ole tough leper lak Miss Sary.”
It was hard to tell the old woman good-by. Every time Molly left Chatsworth she feared it would be the last farewell to poor old Aunt Mary. She had been bedridden now for many months, but she hung on to life with a tenacity that was astonishing.
“Cose, I is ready ter go whin the Marster calls,” she would say, “but I ain’t a hurryin’ of him. A creakin’ do’ hangs long on its hinges an’ the white folks done iled up my hinges so, what with good victuals with plenty er suption in ’em an’ a little dram now an’ then ’cordin’ ter the doctor’s subscription, that sometimes I don’t creak at all. I may git up out’n this here baid ’fo long an’ be as spry as the nex’. I wouldn’t min’ goin’ so much if I jes’ had mo’ idee what Heaven is lak. I’m so feard it will be strange ter me. I don’t want ter walk on no goldin’ streets. Gold ain’t no better ter walk on than bricks. Miss Milly done read me the Psalm what say: ‘He maketh me to lay down in the green pastures.’ Now that there piece sounds mighty pretty—jes’ lak singin’, but I ain’t never been no han’ to set on the damp groun’ an’ Heaven or no Heaven, I low it would give me a misery ter be a doin’ it now; an’ as fer layin’ on it, no’m! I wants a good rockin’ cheer, an’ I wants it in the house, an’ when I wants ter res’ myse’f, a baid is good enough fer me.”
The old woman’s theology was a knotty problem for all of the Brown family. They would read to her from the Bible and reason with her, but her preconceived notion of Heaven was too much for them. She believed firmly in the pearly gates and the golden streets, and freely announced she would rather have her own cabin duplicated on the other side than all the many mansions, and her own whitewashed gate with hinges made from the soles of old shoes than the pearly gates.
“What I want with a mansion? The cabin whar I been a livin’ all my life is plenty good enough for this old nigger. An’ what’s mo, blue grass a growin’ on each side of a shady lane is better’n golden streets. I ain’t a goin’ ter be hard-headed bout Heaven, but I hope the Marster will let me settle in some cottage an’ let it be in the country where I kin raise a few chickens an’ mebbe keep a houndog.”