“No, sir!” the woman exploded. “Not actors, not them already damn’ people.
Our own kinda folks.
Our own people.
An’ they was little children didn’ know no better, in it, an’ they was pertendin’ to be stuff they wasn’t.
I didn’ go near.
But I hearn ’em talkin’ what they was a-doin’.
The devil was jus’ a-struttin’ through this here camp.”
Rose of Sharon listened, her eyes and mouth open.
“Oncet in school we give a Chris’ chile play—Christmus.”
“Well—I ain’ sayin’ tha’s bad or good.
They’s good folks thinks a Chris’ chile is awright.
But—well, I wouldn’ care to come right out flat an’ say so. But this here wasn’ no Chris’ chile.
This here was sin an’ delusion an’ devil stuff.
Struttin’ an’ paradin’ an’ speakin’ like they’re somebody they ain’t.
An’ dancin’ an’ clutchin’ an’ a-huggin’.”
Rose of Sharon sighed.
“An’ not jus’ a few, neither,” the brown woman went on. “Gettin’ so’s you can almos’ count the deep-down lamb-blood folks on your toes.
An’ don’ you think them sinners is puttin’ nothin’ over on God, neither.
No, sir, He’s a-chalkin’ ’em up sin by sin, an’ He’s drawin’ His line an’ addin’ ’em up sin by sin.
God’s a-watchin’, an’ I’m a-watchin’.
He’s awready smoked two of ’em out.”
Rose of Sharon panted,
“Has?”
The brown woman’s voice was rising in intensity.
“I seen it.
Girl a-carryin’ a little one, jes’ like you.
An’ she play-acted, an’ she hug-danced.
And”—the voice grew bleak and ominous—“she thinned out and she skinnied out, an’—she dropped that baby, dead.”
“Oh, my!” The girl was pale.
“Dead and bloody. ’Course nobody wouldn’ speak to her no more.
She had a go away.
Can’t tech sin ’thout catchin’ it. No, sir.
An’ they was another, done the same thing.
An’ she skinnied out, an’—know what?
One night she was gone.
An’ two days, she’s back.
Says she was visitin’.
But—she ain’t got no baby.
Know what I think?
I think the manager, he took her away to drop her baby.
He don’ believe in sin.
Tol’ me hisself.
Says the sin is bein’ hungry. Says the sin is bein’ cold. Says—I tell ya, he tol’ me hisself—can’t see God in them things.
Says them girls skinnied out ’cause they didn’ git ’nough food.
Well, I fixed him up.” She rose to her feet and stepped back.
Her eyes were sharp.
She pointed a rigid fore-finger in Rose of Sharon’s face. “I says,
‘Git back!’ I says.
I says,
‘I knowed the devil was rampagin’ in this here camp.