Free Letters to Missy Violet by Barbara Hathaway Page B

doing fine. Mama said we would go back and visit them in a few weeks if you were not home by then. She says to give your brother our regards and to tell you all the family is well.
From your best helper girl,
Viney

Mister Som Grit and the Rausy Brothers
November 23, 1929
Dear Missy Violet,
There was a lot of excitement at the church a few Sundays ago. Maybe you already heard about it because everybody is talking about it, saying it was a sign, on account of what happened a few days after. Those crazy Rausy Brothers showed up at church service! All the older folk said never since there was an African Methodist Episcopal Church in Richmond County had a Rausy stepped foot in a church! But there they were—both of them, looking like two train wrecks.
Some folks think they ran out of food back there in the woods and came down to the church to find something to eat. But Reverend Mims believes the Lord sent them to get saved because Pax, the one with the funny-shaped head, went to the Moanin’ Bench and got religion. Bledsoe didn’t go up, but he did clap his hands and pat his foot when Savior Brown sang “Oh, Happy Day.” But later, he started that herky-jerky laugh of his and kept it up right through Reverend Mims’s sermon. After that, he had to be escorted out of the church for picking at some of the sisters.
Next thing you know, Mister Som Grit jumps up and starts testifying. Everybody was surprised because he’s a “Baptist born, Baptist bred, and when I die, I’ll be a Baptist dead” Baptist. Some of the folks think he came over to the Methodist to find a wife. They say he can’t get a wife over at the Baptist church because the women there know him too well.
Arma Jean said she heard the preacher’s wife tell one of the ladies on the Usher Board that she didn’t understand why Mister Som Grit come over to the Methodists. She said “the pickin’s are slim” at the Methodist church because “most of the women Mister Grit’s age are settled widow ladies who don’t want to be bothered with no husbands no more” and the rest are “old maids who are afraid of men.”
Arma Jean had an idea. She thinks Miss Petty should get with Mister Som Grit. She thinks Miss Petty secretly wants to be a married lady, and she thinks she knows how to get Mister Som Grit and Miss Petty together. That girl is a genius!
But something happened a few days later that made us forget about Mister Som Grit and Miss Petty. One of the Rausy Brothers passed away. The one named Pax, with the funny-shaped head, just up and died. His brother, Bledsoe, stayed in the house with him for three days before he told anybody he was dead. He finally went to Reverend Mims and Reverend Mims sent Mister Brownlee out there to get the body.
It was real nice the way everybody pitched in to help. Mama said it was the Christian thing to do. Mama and Miss Petty put together a dark suit for Pax Rausy, and the undertaker donated a pine box. The Goodwill Workers cooked food, and the Usher Board brought flowers. On the day of the funeral the church was packed. Mama said some of those folks just came there “to see.”
Some of the menfolk got Bledsoe all cleaned and shaved and gussied up for his brother’s funeral, and he didn’t look half bad, except when he opened his mouth and showed those fangs he got for teeth.
Pax Rausy was buried in the church graveyard thanks to Reverend Mims. He says there will be a place for Bledsoe, too, because the brothers were feeble-minded and had no kin.
I have to close now. Tomorrow is a school day.
Yours truly,
Viney

Papa’s Dilemma
    Papa is worried about his job at Liggett and Meyers Tobacco Company, where he makes and cuts cigarettes. They laid off about half of their workers a few weeks ago, most of them colored. Papa expects to be laid off any day now. “Guess I’ll be turnin’ in my blue uniform soon,” he keeps mumbling as he