Free Angels by Reba White Williams Page B

fruitcake, even if it’s named one. It’s dee-lishious! I’m going to ask Aunt Mary Louise to get me the recipe.
    I don’t know who made the scalloped potatoes, but it was Aunt Ida’s recipe. Everybody around here shares recipes, and I’d know her scalloped potatoes with ham anywhere. They are the best ever, but we don’t have ‘em in hot weather; we eat ‘em in winter, only after we’ve had a ham, so Miss Ida can use up the last ham scraps. But I could eat her scalloped potatoes every week.
Polly
    I took Coleman to the baptizing. I think she was expecting something like she saw in The Water of Life ,but this is big—maybe thirty people were baptized in the water hole downriver from where the children play. It’s a beautiful place with a sandy beach, and there’s no way to get there except a wagon track through the woods, so when you go there alone, it’s quiet and private. There are ancient cypress trees on both sides of the river, and the silence is unbroken except for the whisper of the trees, and bird calls. It feels like a holy place.
    Those being baptized wear white cotton robes, and the choir, also in white robes, stands in a group nearby and sings “Shall We Gather at the River?” Coleman was so taken with it all, I was afraid she might jump in the river in her new green dress with daisies I hand-appliquéd on it. She didn’t, but I could tell she fell deeper in love with the idea of baptism, which already attracted her.
    Being Coleman, she didn’t waste any time before doing something about it. As soon as the service was over, she ran up to Mary Louise and asked if she could be baptized in Mary Louise’s church. Coleman said she’d noticed that there weren’t any children being baptized and wondered why. Mary Louise explained that her church didn’t baptize anyone until he or she was at least a teenager.
    “We believe the commitment and obedience that baptism requires can only be made by people who’ve had more experience with life than children have had. Most children haven’t been tempted by the kind of worldly choices they’ll encounter later. But Coleman, come back and talk to me about this again whenever you want to. And when the time comes, if you still want to be baptized, I’ll arrange it,” she promised.
    I don’t believe Coleman noticed that no one being baptized was white; this is the Byrds’ church, and as far as I know, only Byrds are members. Or maybe she did notice and doesn’t care, which makes her a better Christian than most people. I’m glad Coleman has faith, but I wish she came to church with us and liked our kind of service. I’m too conservative for immersion, and revival meetings, and talk of the demon drink.
    The Lord moves in mysterious ways, and He looked after Coleman and brought her home. How she worships is between Coleman and God, and not up to me to judge. But I felt a pang when she talked about joining another church, because after her problem with the Methodist choir, I hoped she’d come home to her family’s church—ours. I know the Presbyterian Church would welcome her to their choir.
Dinah
    We start school later this month. I’ll be in the second grade and Coleman’s s’posed to be in kindergarten. But one day last week, Coleman declared she was goin’ to school in my class; she said she didn’t need to go to kindergarten.
    Aunt Polly and Miss Ida and I all looked at each other, because we know how it is when Coleman takes a notion. But school is different from church and dogs: schools have laws and the people runnin’ them are what Aunt Polly calls “bureau cats.” (I know it’s really bureaucrats, but that’s what I thought Aunt Polly said when I first heard the word. She laughed when I said it that way and said there was truth to how I said it. She said sometimes bureau drawers get stuck and you can’t pull ‘em out no matter how hard you try. And you can take a cat off the sofa, and put it somewhere else, and it goes right back to