Ma’s face tightened and her eyes grew sharp. “She’s tar’d, that’s all,” Ma said. “She’s wore out with the road an’ the heat. She’s jus’ wore out. Get a little res’, an’ she’ll be well.”
The woman leaned down over Granma’s face, and she seemed almost to sniff. Then she turned to Ma and nodded quickly, and her lips jiggled and her jowls quivered. “A dear soul gonna join her Jesus,” she said.
Ma cried, “That ain’t so!”
The woman nodded, slowly, this time, and put a puffy hand on Granma’s forehead. Ma reached to snatch the hand away, and quickly restrained herself. “Yes, it’s so, sister,” the woman said. “We got six in Holiness in our tent. I’ll go git ’em, an’ we’ll hol’ a meetin’—a prayer an’ grace. Jehovites, all. Six, countin’ me. I’ll go git ’em out.”
Ma stiffened. “No—no,” she said. “No, Granma’s tar’d. She couldn’t stan’ a meetin’.”
The woman said, “Couldn’t stan’ grace? Couldn’ stan’ the sweet breath of Jesus? What you talkin’ about, sister?”
Ma said, “No, not here. She’s too tar’d.”
The woman looked reproachfully at Ma. “Ain’t you believers, ma’am?”
“We always been Holiness.” Ma said, “but Granma’s tar’d, an’ we been a-goin’ all night. We won’t trouble you.”
“It ain’t no trouble, an’ if it was, we’d want ta do it for a soul a-soarin’ to the Lamb.”