A Matter of Pride

by Jane Gill

  Lu stepped from the truck and the Florida humidity hit her like a sauna. Beads of perspiration immediately covered her upper lip. Thank God, he didn’t die in August, she thought. Then she saw a white hearse pulled off to the side of the church. A wave of saliva caught in her throat. When Miss Pearl spotted Lu a smile lit her face and she hurried toward her. She wore a dark navy dress, with low-heeled navy shoes. Her hair, now completely white, was drawn into a neat bun at the back of her neck. Miss Pearl’s dark eyes glistened with moisture as she enveloped Lu in a smothering hug. Lu wrapped her arms around her. She was soft as biscuit dough, but despite the humidity her skin was as dry and smooth as talc.

  Long-forgotten Sunday mornings again flashed in Lu’s mind. Here, at this church she had been a child, twirling gaily in the new white dress her mother had made. She had run through this very grass holding her little brother’s tiny hand, shadowed by loving stories of the Bible and protective friends and neighbors. The sweet memories swept over her.

  Miss Pearl let her go but continued to clasp Lu’s hands in hers as she crooned, “Oh, it’s so good to see you! I’m so sorry about your daddy. He was such a good man.” Lu hugged Miss Pearl again, bargaining with a wave of guilt for having neglected her for so many years. She quickly introduced Zach, Susan, and William as they approached the church steps. Miss Pearl nodded to each as she quietly urged the family into the modest chapel. The interior was exactly as it was when Lu was a child. The wide plank floors, the walls and ceiling of narrow bead board painted a shiny operating-room white led to a small raised altar dwarfed by a massive wooden cross, its wood stained dark as pitch. Two ceiling fans twirled lazily overhead, barely stirring the air. The golden heart-of-pine benches, that had been worn smooth during many a sermon, were crowded with men in suits and ties and over-dressed women, teenagers, and children, each fanning at the air with little cardboard hand fans. Up front, off to the side, a choir of five women in blood-red robes with wide, white collars, stood near an old upright piano where a smaller, younger woman sat at the ready.

  As they stopped briefly at the entrance, Susan leaned toward her mother. “The way everyone is dressed up, are you sure these people are here for a funeral? It looks more like a wedding,” she whispered. Lu gave her a look of disdain to shush her. It was true. All the boys sat rigid, dressed in crisp white shirts and trousers with creases so stiff you could cut your finger on them. The women were adorned in bright, colorful, flowery dresses and showy hats. Little boys looked like their faces had been scrubbed until they glowed, while the little girls sat primly in starched dresses, tiny braids in their hair.

  Lu took in a ragged breath as Zach took her hand and escorted his family to the front. She tried looking straight ahead, but she could see heads turn toward her as small whispers went down the rows. They took their place across the aisle from Martin and his family. He nodded a silent greeting. Miss Pearl took her seat behind Martin.

  Lu stared at her father’s coffin, a step up on the altar just a few feet in front of her. She was pleased to see the funeral director followed her instructions for a closed casket. She had not seen her father in years—she didn’t want to see him now. A large spray of yellow roses and baby’s breath was at the center of several flower arrangements on the floor in front of the altar. She had ordered the roses from Martin and herself. There were additional arrangements of fresh-cut spring blooms in a variety of vases. Lu was certain they were fresh from home gardens. Every sweep of the ceiling fans brought the scent of jasmine.

  “When I think I’m going under, part the waters, Lord.” The refrain from the piano caught her off guard. Oh, my God, not that. Please God, not that hymn, she thought. Out of the past, with the scent of jasmine, the sweet refrain of the old hymn, she could hear her mother’s voice. She could actually see her in her mind’s eye, opening the oven door, dish towel in hand, and carefully lifting the iron skillet of golden, buttery cornbread, its crust sharp and dark around the edges. Suddenly it was not her father’s coffin before her, but her mother’s.

  “Touch my life, still the raging storm in me,” sang the choir. Lu shuddered involuntarily, rocked by the storm in her own life. The words of the old hymn brought tears that overflowed her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

  Oh, Momma, Lu thought, Oh, I need you. She didn’t remember much of her mother’s funeral, but the storm and the night of her death were burned into her mind.

  The choir began a second hymn. Lu fumbled in her purse for a tissue, aware many in the congregation would think she was overcome with remorse at her father’s passing. But these tears were not for her father. That rift was too wide. The salt of these tears was ancient. These were the tears she muffled in her pillow long after her father forbade her to cry anymore in his presence. These were tears of hopelessness and despair of a motherless 13-year-old. Yet, too, here were the tears she never let herself cry for Grammy Mayetta who helped raise her and Martin, tears of regret that she had not come home when Grammy died, but let her father’s stubbornness keep her away. So she sat, wadding her tissue in her hand, and willing every vertebra to hold her upright. Zach slipped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him, absorbing his strength.

  The music faded, and from behind the casket an ancient Reverend Josiah Parker rose up to his full height and walked to the wooden lectern. Her breath caught in her throat. She inhaled audibly wondering if he’d been sitting there all along. Yet, there he was, older and, if anything, more like a daddy-long-leg spider than ever before. Where once had been the towering preacher with the stiff mannerisms of a scavenging grackle, there was now merely a lanky, wrinkled, bald old man. The afro he sported in his youth was now only a memory. In his dark suit and tie and starched shirt, he was still an intimidating figure.

  Chapter Eleven

  The old preacher stood at the lectern and silently surveyed the crowd of mourners. He quietly laid down a worn, heavy, leather-bound Bible and raised his dark eyes toward the congregation. “Good mornin’,” he began softly, his voice surprisingly clear and resonant for a man of his obvious age. “It does an old preacher good to see so many sisters and brothers after such a long time in retirement. And so many children and grandchildren here today!” he said, his eye twinkling. He nodded first to Martin. “Good to see you this mornin’, son,” he said. Then he looked at Lu. “And good to see you again, Luella Sue.” Lu returned a polite smile. She leaned slightly forward and glared at Martin, who’d obviously known at dinner last night that the preacher was alive and well. He leaned forward in his seat and made eye contact with her, then sat up straighter and turned his full attention to the preacher. “Well, now, here we all are this mornin’ to celebrate the home goin’ of our brother, Sebastian Stovall.” He leaned forward, both hands on the lectern. “Make no mistake here, I said Home Goin’!”

  “Umm hmm,” someone responded.

  “Look here, see this purty casket?” He pointed a long, shaky finger. “It’s goin’ in the ground out yonder pretty quick, and we won’t see it no more today.” He hesitated momentarily. “And, Brother Sebastian? He’s a-goin’ with it!”

  “Amen, that’s right, that’s right,” a voice from the assembly confirmed.

  “Someday, ALL our caskets gonna go in the ground!”

  “Yas.” An obese woman in a huge black hat, sitting next to Miss Pearl, responded as she fanned herself rapidly.

  “But,” he paused. “It don’t matter if this casket goin’ into the ground. It don’t matter if brother Sebastian’s body is goin’ in the ground with it. It don’t matter to Sebastian. NO, not no more!” The preacher’s voice grew stronger. “Because Sebastian, he ain’t here no more!”

  “Not no mo’,” came a quiet echo from the rear.

  Lu felt herself slipping back in time as she listened to Reverend Parker artfully use the inflections in his voice to encourage comments from the congregation. It was this kind of thing she hoped wouldn’t happen. She tried to explain that to Martin and here she was not only having t
o endure it, but having to subject her children to it. Good Lord! she thought. Her tears stopped.

  “I said: Sebastian, he ain’t here with us no more!” Reverend Parker leaned back, dark hands laced with ropey veins gripping the lectern. “But we all are still here, and it’s our job this mornin’ to remember Sebastian, to give a TEStimony of this brave brother of ours.”

  Of course, he had to say ‘testimony’ with the emphasis on the first syllable, Lu thought sourly.

  “So, who was Sebastian Stovall?” He stared toward the back of the little church. “All you young uns’ in the back, all you grandchildren and great-grandchildren, you listen up now. Old Preacher Parker is gonna give you a history lesson here today,” he directed. “I know you all thinkin’ that this is now the twenty-first century, like that was some kinda big deal. And you thinkin’ that what happened in the last century, and even the century before that, it don’t matter to you. And you wrong!” he scolded.

  “Sebastian Stovall was born in the last century, but his daddy, Nathanial, and his granddaddy, Elijah, they was born in the century before that. Sebastian Stovall’s granddaddy was a slave in this here country.” The Reverend rose up on his toes. “In this great state of Disney!” He dropped back down on his heels. “Long, long before you and I was born, his Granddaddy Elijah Stovall fought in the Great War!” The old preacher paused. “He was freed in 1863 by the Eeeemancipation Proclamation, and he fought for General Sherman of the Union Army. He fought with the First South Carolina Volunteers. He fought against oppression. He fought against slavery. He fought because he believed that if he fought, we wouldn’t have to fight! Oh, yes, Sebastian Stovall came down a long, long line of men of greatness. Men of honor. Men of principle. It may not matter to you, but it matters to me!” he bellowed, nodding his head violently.

  Lu glanced at Susan and William who were entranced by the old preacher.

  He came around the side of the lectern. “I said today you would learn some history—our history.” He stared stonily at the back of the little church. “Some of you young folks are thinkin’ you come here in your fancy cars, wearin’ your shiny shoes and your gold chains and you think that all that come easy-like and that you earned it,” he said. “Well, it was folks like Sebastian Stovall and Nathaniel Stovall and Elijah Stovall what earned it for you.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Lu saw William sit up straighter and tug on the stiff white cuff of his shirt sleeve, pulling it snugly over his watch.

  Reverend Parker reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, drew out his handkerchief and blotted perspiration from his forehead.

  Oh, no, he’s only getting warmed up. Lu cringed.

  He leaned against the lectern. His stance was casual, his voice conversational. “So, just who was this man? Well, first of all, he was a man of conscience. He was a good man. He was a simple man. Yes, he was the kind of man the Lord loves. He was a simple man of poor, poor means who lived in complicated and troubled times.”

  “Ummm hummm,” came the response.

  “I knew him well. He was my friend,” he continued. “So, I can tell you, Sebastian may have been a simple man and he may have lived in troubled times, but he was a man of conVICtion. He was a man who knew love.” His gaze fell on Lu again. “And he most certainly knew loss.” She dug her fingernails into her palms.

  “So let me tell you how I remember my good friend, Sebastian. I remember seein’ him take off early in the mornin’ walkin’down the road to the county seat over in Bunnell. It was 19 and 65. Sebastian didn’t have no car. Sebastian had to walk. He had to walk in the hot sun, down a long, dusty road, mile after mile, all the way to Bunnell. Some here maybe remember that day.” He stared at the fellowship.

  “Yassir,” Lu heard Miss Pearl affirm.

  He turned toward Miss Pearl as if they were having their own conversation, and cocked his bald head ever so slightly. “Remember that? Remember how we watched him and worried on him, on that road that day? I do! Yes, I do!” He spread his hands outward before the congregation. “In those days,” the old preacher hesitated. “In those days, the dead bodies of colored folks was in the ditches on the side of the roads in this here country—like they was some kinda trash!” The old man swiped away a tear. “Oh, we had plenty of reason to worry on Sebastian that day. Believe you me.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Lu saw Miss Pearl dab the tears from her eyes with a small white handkerchief.

  “That’s right!” a voice spoke out.

  The preacher stepped back behind the lectern. “And remember when he came back? It was almost dark when he came back, and we was all gettin’ mighty worried that maybe he wouldn’t come back.”

  “Um hmmmm,” a murmur rose from the congregation.

  “So we watched in the heat, and we waited, wipin’ the sweat and the worry from our brows. And,” the old preacher rose up on his toes again. “And the sun was ‘gwan down before we seen Sebastian comin’ back down that road. Hallelujah!” He picked up his pace, “Yes, Sir. He was a comin’ down that old dirt road. That road that comes by this here church.” He pointed, shooting his long arm out like a rifle. Suddenly he grew calm. “That road, it was dirt then, not all paved like it is today. It was just like the road his Granddaddy Elijah walked down here from the war on! And we seen Sebastian a-comin’. He was all dusty from his long journey. But, oh, he was walking TALL!”

  “Praise the Lord!” someone shouted. Lu knew without turning that behind her, hands and faces were raised heavenward.

  “Uh huh, I remember that. I remember when Sebastian came to me and told me that he took it upon hisself to learn to read and write his name. All growed up, he was, but how he studied on those books. Now, he was a proud man, so you know he was ‘shamed, but he didn’t let his shame hold him back. No, Sir! And Sebastian, he practiced his letters until he could write his name real good.

  “‘I’m gonna do this right,’ he told me. And when he had learnt to write, he knew then he could go over to the county seat, and he could vote!”

  “Yassir!” several called out with jubilation.

  Susan leaned forward and glared at her mother, her eyes full of question.

  Daddy had never signed Lu’s report cards, even though she earned straight A’s. She handed it to him, and he furrowed his brow as he looked it over, then he passed it to her mother who would read off the grades while Luella beamed with pride at the dinner table. Then Daddy hugged her, and Momma signed the card and slipped it back into its envelope so Luella could take it back to her teacher in the morning.

  Lu remembered it well, but it galled her that the Reverend would tell it in front of everyone, especially her children. Go ahead, Reverend, tell the whole world that Daddy couldn’t read, she thought angrily.

  Sweat glistened on the Reverend’s head. “Sebastian Stovall was the first one in his entire family who went down and voted! Oh, you all think it ain’t no big deal today.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “But let me tell you, his daddy couldn’t never vote because his daddy couldn’t never get enough scratch together to pay the poll tax! Now the poll tax was maybe a dollar or somethin’ back then, and you say ‘shoot, a dollar?’ Well, when you is a poor dirt farmer in the south and all’s you makin’ after the crops is in, in a good year, is maybe a hundred dollars. Well, you figure it out. That would be one penny of every dollar you made, and it would have to be taken out before you could clothe your children! So, Sebastian’s daddy, he could never vote. And his granddaddy was a slave. He couldn’t own no property—he was property!”

  “Oh, Lawd Jesus,” the woman in the black hat shook her head mournfully.

  Reverend Parker lowered his gaze to the floor briefly, then raised it quickly as he went on. “But you know what old granddaddy Elijah did? He left his family and his little shanty on the plantation, and he walked down a dusty dirt road. He walked that road all the way from slavery to freedom!” he bellowed with a voice that belied his years.

  “Hallelujah!”
/>   “Tell it, Reverend.”

  “And he joined the Federals so he could fight for what was right. He fought on foot. He fought in the heat, in the rain—and in the cold. Yes, he did! And he walked miles and miles on them old dirt roads, and on the battlefield, stepping over the bodies of his brothers that was lyin’ face-down in the dirt, in the mud. And he never gave up!” he shouted, and the entire front row was suddenly at attention.

  “Never give up!” echoed a voice in the rear of the little church.

  “He fought! And do you want to know why old Elijah Stovall fought so hard? Now, listen up here, this here is history and you had better know it,” he scolded. “Old General Sherman, he made a promise to all the coloreds who fought in the Great War. Oh, yes, he did. He said if they would come with him and fight for the Union of this great country he would give them forty acres and a mule!” Here, the Reverend lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “Forty acres and a mule!” he said incredulously. “My, my, my. Now that was a big deal. It would still be a big deal today! Wouldn’t it?”

  “Oh, yas, oh, yas,” came the eager response.

  His voice still a near whisper, he wiped his head and continued, “So old Elijah fought until there was no more fightin’—and then he walked to Florida. I say he walked! And he wanted to claim his forty acres. But, oh, no. No, no.” The old preacher shook his head sadly. “That never happened. See, the new president, who was runnin’ things at that time, after Abraham Lincoln was shot, he broke General Sherman’s word. He threw General Sherman’s word down in the dirt. He refused to honor the promise. There was no forty acres and a mule. Not for nobody. Least of all for old, colored Elijah Stovall!”