Free Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin Page B

great service tonight.” She turned to John. “Ain’t your daddy coming out tonight?”
    “Yes’m,” John replied, “he said he was coming.”
    “There!” said Sister McCandless. “And your mama—is she coming out, too?”
    “I don’t know,” John said. “She mighty tired.”
    “She ain’t so tired she can’t come out and pray a
little
while,” said Sister McCandless.
    For a moment John hated her, and he stared at her fat, black profile in anger. Sister Price said:
    “But I declare, it’s a wonder how that woman works like she does, and keeps those children looking so neat and clean and all, and gets out to the house of God almost every night. Can’t be nothing but the Lord that bears her up.”
    “I reckon we might have a little song,” said Sister McCandless, “just to warm things up. I sure hate to walk in a church where folks is just sitting and talking. Look like it takes all my spirit away.”
    “Amen,” said Sister Price.
    Elisha began a song: “This may be my last time,” and they began to sing:
    “This may be the last time I pray with you
,
    This may be my last time, I don’t know.”
    As they sang, they clapped their hands, and John saw that Sister McCandless looked about her for a tambourine. He rose and mounted the pulpit steps, and took from the small opening at the bottom of the pulpit three tambourines. He gave one to Sister McCandless, who nodded and smiled, not breaking her rhythm, and he put the rest on a chair near Sister Price.
    “This may be the last time I sing with you
    This may be my last time, I don’t know.”
    He watched them, singing with them—because otherwise they would force him to sing—and trying not to hear the words that he forced outward from his throat. And he thought to clap his hands,but he could not; they remained tightly folded in his lap. If he did not sing they would be upon him, but his heart told him that he had no right to sing or to rejoice.
    “Oh, this
    May be my last time
    This
    May be my last time
    Oh, this
    May be my last time
 …”
    And he watched Elisha, who was a young man in the Lord; who, a priest after the order of Melchizedek, had been given power over death and Hell. The Lord had lifted him up, and turned him around, and set his feet on the shining way. What were the thoughts of Elisha when night came, and he was alone where no eye could see, and no tongue bear witness, save only the trumpetlike tongue of God? Were his thoughts, his bed, his body foul? What were his dreams?
    “This may be my last time
,
    I don’t know.”
    Behind him the door opened and the wintry air rushed in. He turned to see, entering the door, his father, his mother, and his aunt. It was only the presence of his aunt that shocked him, for she had never entered this church before: she seemed to have been summoned to witness a bloody act. It was in all her aspect, quiet with a dreadful quietness, as she moved down the aisle behind his mother and knelt for a moment beside his mother and father to pray. John knew that it was the hand of the Lord that had led her to this place, and his heart grew cold. The Lord was riding on the wind tonight. What might that wind have spoken before the morning came?

PART TWO
The Prayers of the Saints
    And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

ONE
Florence’s Prayer
    Light and life to all He brings ,
    Risen with healing in His wings!
    F LORENCE RAISED HER voice in the only song she could remember that her mother used to sing:
    “It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, oh, Lord
.
    Standing in the need of prayer.”
    Gabriel turned to stare at her, in astonished triumph that his sister should at last be humbled. She did not look at him. Her thoughts were all on God. After a moment, the congregation and the piano joined her:
    “Not my father, not my mother
,
    But it’s me, oh, Lord.”
    She knew that Gabriel rejoiced, not that