"Rev'un Shegog gwine preach today," Frony said.
"Is?" Dilsey said. "Who him?"
"He fum Saint Looey," Frony said. "Dat big preacher."
"Huh," Dilsey said. "Whut dey needs is a man kin put de fear of God into dese here triflin young niggers."
"Rev'un Shegog kin do dat," Frony said. "So dey tells."
They went on along the street.
Along its quiet length white people in bright clumps moved churchward, under the windy bells, walking now and then in the random and tentative sun.
The wind was gusty, out of the southeast, chill and raw after the warm days.
"I wish you wouldn't keep on bringin him to church, mammy," Frony said. "Folks talkin."
"Whut folks?" Dilsey said.
"I hears em," Frony said.
"And I knows whut kind of folks," Dilsey said. "Trash white folks.
Dat's who it is. Thinks he aint good enough fer white church, but nigger church aint good enough fer him."
"Dey talks, jes de same," Frony said.
"Den you send um to me," Dilsey said. "Tell um de good Lawd dont keer whether he bright er not.
Dont nobody but white trash keer dat."
A street turned off at right angles, descending, and became a dirt road.
On either hand the land dropped more sharply; a broad flat dotted with small cabins whose weathered roofs were on a level with the crown of the road.
They were set in small grassless plots littered with broken things, bricks, planks, crockery, things of a once utilitarian value.
What growth there was consisted of rank weeds and the trees were mulberries and locusts and sycamores--trees that partook also of the foul desiccation which surrounded the houses; trees whose very burgeoning seemed to be the sad and stubborn remnant of September, as if even spring had passed them by, leaving them to feed upon the rich and unmistakable smell of negroes in which they grew.
From the doors negroes spoke to them as they passed, to Dilsey usually:
"Sis' Gibson!
How you dis mawnin?"
"I'm well.
Is you well?"
"I'm right well, I thank you."
They emerged from the cabins and struggled up the sharing levee to the road--men in staid, hard brown or black, with gold watch chains and now and then a stick; young men in cheap violent blues or stripes and swaggering hats; women a little stiffly sibilant, and children in garments bought second hand of white people, who looked at Ben with the covertness of nocturnal animals:
"I bet you wont go up en tech him."
"How come I wont?"
"I bet you wont.
I bet you skeered to."
"He wont hurt folks.
He des a looney."
"How come a looney wont hurt folks?" "sat un wont.
I teched him."
"I bet you wont now."
"Case Miss Dilsey lookin."
"You wont no ways."
"He dont hurt folks.
He des a looney."
And steadily the older people speaking to Dilsey, though, unless they were quite old, Dilsey permitted Frony to respond.
"Mammy aint feelin well dis mawnin."
"Dat's too bad.
But Rev'un Shegog'll kyo dat.
He'll give her de comfort en de unburdenin."
The road rose again, to a scene like a painted backdrop.
Notched into a cut of red clay crowned with oaks the road appeared to stop short off, like a cut ribbon.
Beside it a weathered church lifted its crazy steeple like a painted church, and the whole scene was as flat and without perspective as a painted cardboard set upon the ultimate edge of the flat earth, against the windy sunlight of space and April and a midmorning filled with bells.
Toward the church they thronged with slow sabbath deliberation, the women and children went on in, the men stopped outside and talked in quiet groups until the bell ceased ringing.
Then they too entered.