On Zion's Hill

by Anna J. Small Roseboro

  “That’s too much work for me. I don’t have that kind of time to waste. When I need something, I go to the store, see it, and buy it.”

  “Well. Of course! You’re a man. And you have no fashion sense.”

  “Cut it out. I look pretty good in my clothes. Angie seems to like me.”

  “That’s only because you’re a tall athlete in good shape. Anything looks good on a jock.”

  “Thanks, Sis. That’s make me feel better, for sure. So, you’re doing pretty well there. Dad’ll be glad.”

  “Well, I do earn commission on all I sell, but it’s not really helping much! With the sales and my employee discount, the bargains are too good to pass up. I’m not saving enough for books this fall. Dad’s gonna be mad.”

  Thia jabbers on about what she’ll wear Thursday night, but Ken’s mind jumps forward to the time he’ll spend with Angie.

  Wednesday

  7 - Women’s Day and Basketball

  “A SERVANT OF ALL” IS THE THEME FOR CAMP MEETING 1963. That mission message blazons across the posters hanging all around the campground. Colorful posters display photos of missionaries the church has serving on six continents.

  This year, over half the posters are of Albert and Christine Taylor, the special missionary guests for Women’s Day. Albert is a dynamic speaker who plays piano and organ with equal virtuosity. He and his wife, Christine are home on furlough from their assignment in the Virgin Islands. And, the church ladies have been all aflutter ever since the letters went out that their very own Taylors would be at the campground this year.

  In honor of Women’s Day, most of the women wear white. It’s a tradition. But for these church ladies, dressing in white does not mean wearing a utilitarian nurse’s uniform. The saintly ladies will be adorned in shades of white, from the cool Chantilly of whipped cream to the warm creams of Pet milk fresh from the can.

  AT BREAKFAST, KEN’S MOTHER WHEEDLES him into driving her and two ladies from her prayer group up to the campgrounds for the special afternoon service. She assures him he will have study time before he begins his shuttle run. In fact, she advised that on his way from the library he could swing by downtown to pick up the oldest of the three, Sister Geneva Grimsby.

  He parks as near to her house as he can and emerges from the car with his politeness suit neatly in place, ready to escort her to the car. Sister Grimby’s sitting on the porch fanning with one of those paper fans churches get from the funeral homes. She’s probably been dressed for an hour and has set herself out here to catch a breeze and say a few prayers for the services as she awaits her ride.

  “Praise the Lord, Ken,” she puffs. “Aren’t you just the gennelmen to come get me? Let me step into the house to get my handbag and Bible.”

  He nods. “How’re you doing Sister Grimsby? Mother said you’d be ready and waiting.”

  She grabs the ample arms of the maple captain’s chair she keeps on the porch, pulls herself up and grunts, “Yes, Praise the Lord, I tries my best to be ready when somebody’s thoughtful enough to come drive me some place. You can wait right here a minute.” Surreptitiously, seeing he’s looking the other way, she tugs down her girdle. To distract him, she exclaims, “Isn’t a beautiful day!”

  Rocking from side to side on her arthritic knees, she walks across the porch and reaches for the handle on the screen door, stops, out of breath from that five foot trip, then opens the door and steps inside. “I sure hope there’s gonna to be a little cooler up there on the grounds. It certainly been hot down here,” she calls back to him. He nods.

  “What a blessing to be able to be up and about this Lord’s Day. You know the Bible says, ‘This is the day that the Lord has made, Let us rejoice and be glad in it’ and I’m certainly glad to be going up to Zion’s Hill to praise the Lord with the Saints. I’m looking forward to seeing those precious Taylors. They’re just the sweetest young couple. I just love that Albert and Christine and pray for them each and ev’ry day.”

  By now, she is backing out the door, holding the screen door open with her hip and pulling the wooden door closed to lock it. She looks over her shoulder at Ken, “I shore am glad you driving us today. My grandson is just so trifling. First he promise. Then he call and say he can’t take time off to drive his grandmamma up to hear them Taylors from down in the islands. He knowed how much I wanted to go. Well, praise the Lord, you come to take me. Here, son,” she asks, holding out her purse, “would you take this handbag a minute whilst I lock this here door?”

  Ken reaches out, nearly missing the handle of the handbag heavy enough to be holding a week’s worth of groceries. He lets the bag drop down the length of the leather strap when she hands him her worn leather Bible with the curling corners. Sister Grimsby wiggles the door handle, humphs to herself, satisfied the door locks, then adjusting the angle of her flop-brim white straw hat, turns to retrieve her belongings from Ken. “Bless your heart, Ken. You really is a gennelman,” she acknowledges while pushing her purse handle up above her wrist and settling her Bible in the crook of her left arm.

  Ken offers his right elbow so she can hold on with one hand and grasp the sturdy wooden banister with the other. Clumping in her sensible white tie up shoes, leaning heavily onto Ken, they walk down the short sidewalk and over to the back passenger side of the car. When Ken opens the door, and stands chauffeur-like, she coquettishly folds and holds tight to the full skirt of her button up white dress and pulls her thick legs into the car. Within seven minutes of his arrival, they are settled in the car and on the way to pick up Sister Pearlie Mae Green who lives just around the corner.

  In contrast, Sister Grimsby, this second lady is a thin, skittery, woman. “Are you here already?” she questions when she opens her door and sees Ken standing there. “I’ll be out directly. I gotta make sure I turn off the oven. You know, we won’t be getting back here ‘til close to suppertime, and I want to be sure my supper’s ready for when Mister gets home from work,” she explains before opening the door wide enough for Ken to walk in.

  Once opened, she holds onto the knob with one hand and swings the other out towards the nearby stiff, square sofa. “Take a sit right there, Ken. I’ll be right with you.” She swirls around and scrambles down the dim corridor to the kitchen at the back of the tiny apartment. “It’s so hot out there today I’ll wager you could do with a glass of something cold to drink. I got some lemonade here in my new Kelvinator. I can get you some if you want a drink.”

  “No thank you, Sister Green. You know I got Sister Grimsby sweltering out there in the car. Do you think you’ll be long? I have to stop back home to get my mother. She’s on the program today reading the Scripture lesson. You know she hates to be late.”

  “Yessiree-bob. That shore is right. Sister Jackson always after me about holding her up and making her late. I’ll be right there.” Ken hears her opening and closing cabinet doors and rattling silverware drawers. “I’m just gonna set a place for my Mister in case we late getting back. You know how you men folks is about your food. When y’all hungry, y’all want to eat right then and there. Just gimme a moment. Be right there, directly.”

  Ken resists the temptation to yell, “Then why don’t you come on!” and stands tapping his foot and praying for patience. He hears her heels clacking down the hardwood hall but not returning to the living room. “What can she still be doing? She knows we’re running behind.”

  “Say, Ken. You see my Bible out there on the table? I’m shore I left it there this morning when I was doing my morning Bible reading. God shore know how to speak through His Word when I’m doing my devotions.” More shuffling and bumping from the back room. “I’m coming. I gotta hang up this housecoat I had on while I was cooking. Had ta to keep my dress nice.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Your Bible is right here.” He picks it up ready to hand it to her when she comes out.

  “O.K. Good.” he hears from the bathroom opposite the bedroom. “Let me just rinch off my hands and put some lotion on. You know my hands get
so dry from the soap I use washing them dishes. I’ll be right there.”

  It’s another five minutes before she hustles out the bedroom door and down the hall, adjusting her stiff-brimmed hat, pulling down the jacket to her suit, and banging her purse against the wall. She’s dressed all in white, of course.

  “Well?” she says standing at the open front door as though he’s the one who’s been keeping her waiting. “Let’s go. Don’t want Sister Grimsby to melt out there in that car.”

  “No, we can’t have that, can we?” Ken mocks. But he does remember to offer her his arm as they approach the car and settles her in back next to Sister Grimsby. He slides into the front seat and turns down his mental hearing aid, not wanting to hear their chatter or lose his last inch of patience, either.

  He drives as fast as he can without the older ladies noticing his speed. Yes, he’s an adult now, but they still see him as a teenager, and neither will hesitate to tell him to slow down. It’s only a five minute drive back across the town line and down the road to his home. He signals, turns carefully and drives slowly on the dirt driveway to the trailer. “Thank the Lord. Mother’s at the door ready to go,” he sighs.

  “Honey Chile, that suit is really you,” Sister Green gushes when Ken’s mothers stops a few feet from the car, giving the others time to admire her white outfit with its modest neckline and fancy buttoned top. The slender skirt falls midway between her knees and ankles and flares with just a flounce, drawing attention to the spectator pumps she’s chosen to ground this particular custard cream white. To top it off, she sports a cloche hat adorned with a trio of seven inch feathers fluttering in the breeze. Of course, she has cream-colored gloves, and a purse that matches the darker beige heels and toes shoes.

  “You get that one on sale?” Sister Grimsby isn’t really interested but knows Sister Jackson likes to share her shopping stories. Ken assists her into the front seat and walks back around to the driver’s side. There’s no point in turning on the radio because they’ll just tell him to turn it down so they can hear themselves talk. Though it’s only a few miles to drive, it will feel like an hour rather than fifteen minutes to make it there.

  Well, it turns out to be more like twenty minutes before he can let them out just steps from the front entrance of the tabernacle. Arriving in droves are flocks of women, aquiver with expectation, clattering along, not paying attention to cars easing up the road, drivers scanning the grounds, looking for places to park.

  Parading from all directions, the sisters walk, one at a time, in pairs, in triads, adorned in dresses, skirts and blouses and in suits all in shades of white, cream, and ivory. Most wear hats, many wear gloves. The elderly twin sisters, wearing matching short waist white boucle suits and Jacqueline Kennedy pill box hats, will be ushered to seats in the center of the sanctuary. All the ladies glide regally into the tabernacle to celebrate the servants of the Lord – a prince and princess – a royal pair of their own.

  ALBERT AND CHRISTINE MET HERE ON ZION’S HILL when they were in their early teens. Most of the ladies who’ve been coming for years watched the relationship bud, blossom, and grow. They observed the two youngsters timidly meeting, cautiously dating, then enthusiastically courting, and all were delighted when the pair announced their engagement right here on the campgrounds just ten years ago. Albert and Christine now have joined the number of the Sweethearts of Zion’s Hill who met on the campgrounds and later married. The missionary ladies vicariously experienced the joy of their college graduations and glow with pride whenever Albert blesses their hearts with his music.

  Naturally, when five years ago, the couple announced the call to serve the Lord as missionaries to African brothers and sisters on the Virgin Island of St. Thomas, the missionary societies from around the country lined up to support them. It is not often that colored preachers go across the waters as missionaries. And to have a couple the ladies all know and love to represent them in this way. Why, the saintly ladies had to pray to be delivered from pride.

  Today is the first time the Taylors have been back in the States during camp meeting week and the first time many of the sisters have seen them in all that time. So, they’re dressed extra special today, not just in the traditional white for Women’s Day, but their best white, in thanksgiving for God’s protection for these, their own missionaries come home.

  LISTENING TO THE SISTERS CHATTER as Ken inches the car up to the drop off place, Ken feels the need to pray for deliverance from jealousy. The Taylors are great servants in God’s kingdom, but aren’t they doing what they all’ve been taught to do? Serve the Lord where He plants you. So what if they’ve been planted in the mission field? How is that so different from spending two weeks with high octane teens in the throes of hormonal adolescence? That’s a mission, too.

  Ken’s mother keeps checking her watch and looking over at him. She intended to arrive early enough to join in prayer with the rest of the ladies who’ll be seated on the rostrum this afternoon. She loves God’s Word and counts it a privilege to read it so in this extraordinary service. “We’re nearly there, Mother. I’m trying to get you as close as possible so you won’t get your shoes all messed up walking across the gravel or grass.”

  “Thanks, Ken, I appreciate that. What about here? Turn here and drive around to the side door. That’ll get me closer to the room where we’re meeting.”

  “Sure. If that’s what you want.” Ken concedes as he pushes down the turn signal just a little too hard. He turns up one of the side roads that skirts around behind the dormitory and passes by the little cottages with the scrappy green yards. He takes a chance and pulls into the parking area set aside for the campground officers, and stops.

  “Hold on, ladies. I’ll open the doors for you.” He shifts into park and hops out in chauffeur mode, scurries around to the other front door and assists his mother first. She heads right into the tabernacle, hurrying to the prayer room.

  Sisters Grimsby and Green are in no such a rush, but are pleased as punch to be arriving early. It’ll be a luxury to get a good seat near the front. They each exit the car grandly and accept the elbows Ken offers them. Both lift their chins, straighten their aging shoulders, adjust their handbags and smooth down their skirts before walking up to the door of the tabernacle. The usher on duty there signals that he will see them to their seats so Ken can move the car before the campground security sees him. Thank the Lord! Ken leaves. Released. Relieved.

  He drives around the road that takes him between the food concession stands perched on the low ridge at the left and the ice cream stand on the right. He slows down in hopes of catching a glimpse of Angie, but there is a line of cars behind him and the one closest is near enough to tap his bumper. Ken accelerates to increase the distance between them knowing if anything happens to his Dad’s car, he’ll have no transportation the remainder of the week. He does want to see Angie again…today. It’ll have to be Thursday, though.

  Maybe not. Ken sees an open spot right near the gate in the parking lot and decides to take it. Maybe Stella will give Angie a short break while the Women’s Day service is going on. He could pass the time with her until time to drive his mom and her friends back home.

  WHAT AM I GONNA WEAR TONIGHT? Angie worries and watches the clock, eager for the signal from Stella that she can leave for a couple hours. She’s running out of outfits she really wants to wear. This is not supposed to be an issue this year. A small scholarship hasn’t been enough to pay her college expenses. Tuition, books, and lab fees eat up the money that other working women have to spend on clothes. Angie’s only bought two new outfits this year and she’d already worn one of them, that yellow outfit Sunday, the night she met Ken. She certainly hadn’t planned on spending this much time with one special guy or worrying about clothes.

  She scrunches her stomach muscles, leaning over the edge of the cooler to scrape one last scoop of chocolate from the container in the back. They only carry eight flavors; the maricopa is already gone, and she’s got just e
nough chocolate for one more scoop. Good thing they’re closing up the stand in a couple of minutes. Angie carefully rounds the ice cream into a smooth ball and presses it firmly on the flat bottom waffle cone for the little boy wiggling next to his older brother. Their family is staying in that big cottage right up the road.

  It‘s one of the more attractive ones on the grounds. Stella told her the siblings and their spouses pooled their resources and finished off their cottage with amenities as nice as one would find in a first class hotel. It now has a wraparound porch with six green lawn chairs that match the green shutters and the trim around the large fancy door on their white sprawling ranch style house. The stained glass in the door has their family initials.

  Most of the cottages on the campgrounds sit on cinder blocks and have no porch at all and just have cement slab or a couple more of the cinder blocks sitting in the dirt outside the door. Few of the places have been painted in recent years and some having withstood buffeting winters for decades look too flimsy to stand up in another puff of wind. Those unkempt cottages, though, are further up the hill and less visible from the ice cream stand.

  Those nearer to the tabernacle are better kept. On one little side lane parallel to the back side of the tabernacle, the owners have planted tiny lawns, put in a few shrubs, and one even set out pots of bright geraniums

  Even though the small boy lives close enough to change if he spills ice cream, Angie still is careful to set the scoop of chocolate squarely on the cone. Handing the boy an extra napkin, just in case, she looks up and sees Lily walking across the grounds. She must have finished her stint in the dining room.

  “Hey, Ange! Looks like I’m your last customer for a while. Got a moment?

  “Yeah, sure, Lil. Let me finish and I’ll be right with you.” She dries her arms and hands on the damp cloth used to wipe the freezer edges.