“The Old Time Religion. It’s called the Four Square Gospel. It’s the Apostolic Church, and they jump.”
“Jump!”
“The Holy Spirit comes down to you, see, and makes you jump. Sometimes it makes you roll, and sometimes you talk in tongues.”
“What is that?”
“Why, you make noises, fast, like you was talkin’ in some foreign language; and maybe it is—Pap says it’s the language of the archangels, but I don’t know. I can’t understand it, and I hate it.”
“And your father does that?”
“Any time, day or night, he’s liable to. It’s his way of foilin’ the tempter. If you say anything at meal-times, like there ain’t enough to eat in the house, or you mention how the interest on the mortgage will be due, and he hadn’t ought to give all the money for the missions, then Pap will roll up his eyes, and begin to pray out loud and let go, as he calls it; and then the Holy Spirit seizes him and he begins to jump and shake all over, and he slides down out of his chair and rolls on the floor, and begins to talk in tongues, like it says in the Bible. And then Mom starts to cry, ’cause it scares her, she knows she’s got things to do for the kids, but she dassn’t resist the Spirit, and Pap shouts, Let go, let go—real loud, in the Voice of Sinai, as he says, and then Mom’s shoulders begin to jerk, and her mouth pops down, and she begins to roll in the chair, and shout for the Pentecostal Baptism. And that turns the kids loose, they all begin to jump and to babble; and gee, it scares you, somethin’ starts to grab you, and make you jerk whether you want to or not. I rushed out of the house, and I shook my fist tip at the sky and I yelled: ‘Damn God! Damn God!’ And then I waited for the sky to fall in, and it didn’t, and I said, I don’t believe it, and I ain’t a-goin’ to make myself believe it, not if I get sent to hell for it.”
“Is that the reason you ran away?”
“That’s one of the reasons. You can’t get nowhere, livin’ like we do. We got a big ranch, but it’s mostly rocks, and we’d have a hard time anyhow; you plant things, and the rain fails, and nothin’ but weeds come up. Why, if there’s a God, and he loves his poor human creatures, why did he have to make so many weeds? That was when I first started to cussin’—I was hoin’ weeds all day, and I just couldn’t help it, I found myself sayin’, over and over: ‘Damn weeds! Damn weeds! Damn weeds!’ Pap says it wasn’t God that made ’em, it was the devil; but then, God made the devil, and God knew what the devil was goin’ to do, so ain’t God to blame?”
“It seems like it to me,” said Bunny.