The House of Dies Drear (11 page)

“I don’t believe I heard it after that,” Thomas said.

“That’s it then,” said Mr. Small. “When Pluto heard you, he thought you were one of the town boys who like to fool with him. He climbed up out of that opening to scare the wits out of anyone out there, and he sure did.”

“I see,” Thomas said sheepishly. “But I still don’t understand how that sound could’ve been in the trees and in the tunnel under the house too.”

“That’s not hard,” said Mr. Small. “Air currents caused it. This whole place is crisscrossed with tunnels and caves. Sound might travel a long way on a current of air. Mr. Pluto’s bellows is a huge thing that can produce a mighty draft of air and the sound to go with it.”

“Just an old bellows,” Thomas said glumly. They were hurrying back across the lawn toward the house. Mrs. Small was standing in the doorway waving to them to come even faster.

“We’re going to be late if we sit down to breakfast,” Mr. Small said.

“But I saw hoecakes, Papa, a mess of them!”

“So did I, Thomas,” said Mr. Small. “So did I!” He began to run. Thomas sprinted along with him, letting out a whoop loud enough to be heard for a month of Sundays.

Chapter 10

“IT’S THE SAME,”
Thomas said. “I knew it would be. I knew it had to be the same.” Standing in the vestibule, he felt so glad it hadn’t changed.

He recalled a time not too long ago when he and his father had spent a quiet, talking week together, camping in the hills and pines back home. He could remember details of the nights and days of that week, how the woods had seemed smoky and close because there had been so little rain. When they were not hunting for their food, he and his father lay low under the pines, where the air was almost pure. Close to the ground, where the earth smelled so sweet, Thomas never wanted to let go of the fallen pine needles. His father had talked and talked. Later, when Thomas tried to recall what his father had said, he couldn’t. But now it came to him in snatches.

“ … may I talk to you about it, son? Our African church? The Negro church!… I can yield to its separateness when I realize that without it segregated, there would be no story of the Underground Railroad. There could be no sure refuge for the exhausted, runaway slave.”

“That’s the past,” Thomas had told him. “That’s no reason for the way it is now.”

“… through part of history, behind time or ahead of its time, it always reveals men strong enough to lead us out of the trap of any time. ‘Go Down, Moses’ … the singing of that was once forbidden. Think of it! Then it was sung by a whole nation!”

“Who sings it today?” Thomas had said. “Nobody listens. Great-grandmother stopped going to church even before the last minister left us. It’s all over, Papa.”

“You can argue, Thomas, I don’t blame you. You young get stifled by its lecture and runagate Jesus. I won’t deny its narrowness … but do you remember the Sunday school?”

“I don’t remember any of it.”

“The boys and girls?”

“Oh, yes, I remember how we would laugh, how we would cut up when we got tired of the lecture. And, yes, I remember the ladies.”

“Those ladies in white, who would always volunteer to teach you,” his father had said. “They could talk so about Jesus, until he never
was
a man.”

“… and the moonlight picnics. I remember them, Papa. And the hayrides. Why did they have to stop? Where did they go to?”

“Yes, you remember, Thomas. That’s all I mean. The church is our treasure, son, our own true chance. And we are all the luck it has.”

Maybe so, thought Thomas. The far-off voice faded out of his mind. Maybe not. He stood calmly, waiting to enter the small and stifling church. “It sure does feel good to be here though. It sure feels like home.”

Mac Darrow was seated at the piano, playing quiet chords as the church members entered. Thomas wasn’t surprised at all on seeing him there at the piano. Maybe it was true what his father had said about remembering the church, for slowly he recalled there had been a boy about the manner and size of Mac Darrow a long time ago.

He came when the last preacher came, Thomas thought. Yes, he was the preacher’s own boy. He had a big, new piano and he didn’t like us little kids touching it. But we would sneak into the church and touch it, we loved it so. I remember, I did that. He caught me and he told Papa and he never spoke to me after that.

Why is it bad boys bigger than me always play the piano so well, Thomas wondered. Why can’t they sit back and be content with being bad? And big?

Like Thomas, Mac Darrow wore a dark suit. It wasn’t a new suit, Thomas could tell, but it was a good suit and quite all right for Sunday.

Darrow wore a black tie. He had on black shoes that had a hard, high gloss.

He doesn’t look like the same boy, Thomas thought. No, not at all like that boy hanging onto the black’s tail.

As though sensing some stir in the congregation, Mac Darrow turned away from the piano toward the vestibule. He didn’t look at Mr. and Mrs. Small nor at the twins. He looked at Thomas, and his hands never stopped moving over the piano keys. There was a playful flicker in his eyes as he recognized Thomas. Next he looked almost afraid of something, but then, that, too, was gone.

That’s all right, Thomas thought.

He accepted the fact that there were certain things you didn’t do in church. Even the most comic boy wouldn’t laugh or make fun of it. Even the worst boy would not set flame to it, as some white boys had done at home, when the last preacher and his son began holding night meetings. To his mind, making fun and setting flame were degrees of the same evil.

Mac Darrow’s hands were soft and sure over the keys. He looked at Thomas and through Thomas all at the same moment. He saw Thomas, but denied him.

I’m like that, thought Thomas. When I’m carving something from wood, I’m all by myself too. Mac Darrow could be my friend if he wanted to be, even if he is big.

The congregation had turned around to see. Thomas had known they would do that. The church was more than two-thirds full, and folks had turned around to look at Thomas and his family standing in the vestibule. Mr. Small searched out a pew empty enough to hold them all and far enough away from the pulpit so as not to take seats from the regular members.

Thomas waited to see if all those looks would be not unkind. He wanted to find out if the boys sitting like a rook of hawks close to the exit would lift their faces with some comment.

Their eyes flicked innocently over at Mac Darrow, but Darrow kept his mind on the hymns at his fingertips. He would not tell them how to behave, his bowed head seemed to say.

So they know about me, Thomas thought. They know about the house and that M. C. Darrow was fooling with me. But do they know we had a visitor last night?

The boys couldn’t keep their curiosity hidden. They looked at Thomas with half-concealed excitement; Thomas was pleased by it. He tried standing straighter. He made himself look at them coolly, keeping his mind as empty of emotion as he could.

The women of the congregation—those ladies in white who would forever keep faith with picnics and Sunday schools—smiled fondly on the twins. Thomas had known they would. It wouldn’t be anytime before they were asking to hold the boys or to sit with them on a Saturday. But it was those folks between age and youth that worried Thomas most.

They’ll want to know what Papa has to offer them and what he intends to take away. They’ll wonder what he’s doing coming to their small church, because they won’t know that the Black church, large or small, is all the same to him.

And they’ll want to know if Mama is going to be just as regular as everyday or whether she will pretend she is too good for them. Mama is so pretty besides. She always will have the trouble.

The mothers and fathers of those boys sitting hawk-eyed and shrewd in the far corner stared at Mr. and Mrs. Small. Mr. Small nodded to them while going down the aisle. He had spied seats about halfway to the pulpit, but at an angle from it, near one of the squat, stained-glass windows. His nod was a polite greeting and a gentle probe to see if they would allow strangers among them.

Some folks nodded slightly. Others looked long and hard. Thomas and his family passed one pew where four big men were sitting. Something about them made Thomas check them in his mind. They looked alike, that was it, and they did not wear suit jackets. They were somewhat light of skin, with the burnt look on their necks and cheekbones that spoke of country and sun.

Farmers, Thomas thought. Maybe barn builders. Why are they here today, without their jackets?

They didn’t look at Mr. and Mrs. Small nor at Thomas or the twins. Their faces feigned disinterest.

Thomas gave a silent whistle through his teeth. By the time he sat down in the pew Mr. Small had found for them, his hands were sweating.

Thomas sat next to his papa. The twins sat between Thomas and his mother. Save for Mac Darrow playing the piano, there had been almost a hush until Thomas and his family sat down. Now people were again talking in the church; women were fanning themselves, for it was very warm. Thomas whispered nervously to his father.

“Did you see them, Papa? Did you see the four men?”

“Yes, I saw them,” said Mr. Small. And understanding Thomas so well, he added, “Don’t make too much of it. Don’t let your imagination play with your sense.”

“They wouldn’t even look at us,” said Thomas. “They were pretending we weren’t even here!”

Mr. Small looked around. Folks were still staring at them while talking quietly. “That boy at the piano,” Mr. Small said to Thomas, “he must be of the same family as the four men.”

Thomas couldn’t believe he had heard right.

“He’s got the same head and the same build,” continued Mr. Small. “Yes, they are of a family, five of them. One of the four is the father.”

“But that’s Mac Darrow at the piano,” Thomas whispered. “That’s the boy with Pesty and the horse yesterday!”

Mr. Small had been taking in and gauging the feelings of the people around him. He had expected people to be standoffish at first. You could assume that of country people in the North, he told himself. He knew about their clannish history, which gave little room to strangers. But he hadn’t expected folks to be as cold as they appeared to be today in church. When Thomas told him the boy at the piano was Mac Darrow, he at once sensed a hostility in the crowd. A moment before, he had dismissed it as a product of his own frayed nerves.

Now the minister entered and walked to the pulpit. After him came the young people’s choir, taking their position behind and to his right.

He was a short man, the minister. He was thin and not unpleasant-looking, Thomas thought. The choir looked nice in blue robes. They saw Thomas and his family right away and they stared with simple curiosity.

The church grew still. There was the sound of horses’ hooves in the distance. A lazy breeze filtered through the open window to the Smalls’ pew. It hardly touched Thomas before it died. The horses’ hooves were closer, pounding forward.

Something buzzed in Thomas’ head; he was watching the minister and the choir. The minister seemed to be waiting. Looking down at his Bible, he seemed to be listening.

The horses came to a halt at the side of the church.

A horse? Thomas thought. Horses? Here?

Not more than half a minute passed, while all remained still in the church. The elderly women in the front row seemed to fan themselves harder. People looked down at their hands or their hymnals, but no one spoke.

What’s he waiting for? Thomas wondered, staring at the minister. Why doesn’t the choir begin?

There were noises in the vestibule. Thomas turned around, but no one else did, and he was embarrassed. The twins smiled up at him. They were settled and happy to be where they were, between Thomas and Mrs. Small. They were lulled into a pleasant frame of mind by the heat and stillness of this new place.

Down the aisle, past the Smalls in their pew, came Pesty in her outrageous pink-and-white costume and Mr. Pluto in his black cape and high hat. They made their way to the very first pew. Even though Thomas had known they were coming, he couldn’t believe he was really seeing them.

Pluto seemed tired. Pesty led him along; his hand rested heavily on her shoulder.

There was a murmur, which ran from the back of the church forward. Folks around the Smalls’ pew grunted to themselves angrily. The minister looked hard at them, and they quieted. He followed the progress of Mr. Pluto easing himself slowly into that first pew—the old ladies there had moved far over to make room for him and to avoid him at the same time.

They don’t like him, but the minister says it’s all right, Thomas thought. The minister is going to preach to the devil, and the folks don’t like it one bit!

Pesty did not sit down. She went around the pulpit, all daintiness, gathered a robe folded on a chair and slipped the robe on. Then she took her place in the very front of the choir in the middle.

Why do they let her be in the choir—she’s too small, Thomas thought.

“Two hundred eighty-five,” the minister said. His voice was a startling, deep bass.

People stood up with opened hymnals. Thomas grabbed a hymnal from the basket attached to the seat back in front of him. He gave it to his father. Mrs. Small had taken another one for herself. They stood. The whole congregation was standing, except for the twins and old Mr. Pluto. Pluto was bent over in his seat. From the rear, he looked as though he might be sleeping. He appeared tired out, not at all the man of the night before or even this morning.

Mac Darrow played beautifully. Thomas recognized the hymn at once and smiled. He didn’t have to look at the words. Neither did Mr. Small. They closed the hymnal, and then they knew why Pesty was in the choir.

It seemed to Thomas that Pesty’s voice slid down from the ceiling, down the hot walls and into Mac Darrow’s hands. It seemed to him that Mac Darrow’s hands were inside the sound of the choir, holding on to Pesty’s voice and then letting go of it when it became too strong for them. Her voice was like no other Thomas could remember hearing. It was pure and strong, not like a child’s, and it was sweet and good, like a girl’s.