How Sweet the Sound

by Vanessa Miller

  He hadn’t noticed Shar in church on his first Sunday as pastor. But he sure noticed her at the Negro Day celebration. Landon had been mesmerized by her. She had the voice of an angel, even if it was a bit bluesy. What he saw and heard that day caused him to want to know so much more about this woman with a voice that even the angels must envy.

  And now, as she was cutting up, strutting around his church like the Holy Ghost done took her over, Landon considered himself blessed among men. For this was the day that he would be asking her daddy for her hand in marriage. Landon had been walking Shar home from church at least twice a month, since her eighteenth birthday. Her daddy even allowed him to keep company with Shar a few times a month. But Landon needed more . . . so much more where Shar was concerned. He loved her, and although he’d put off declaring his love, he couldn’t wait another day.

  Shar’s mama had seen right through him, though. All these months that he and Shar had been keeping company, Mrs. Marlene had been plotting on ways to get him to fess up and admit his true feelings. He couldn’t count the number of times that Mrs. Marlene sent cakes and pies to him by way of Shar, or the number of times Mrs. Marlene informed him that Shar was going to make some lucky man a good and responsible wife. But he hadn’t needed Mrs. Marlene’s nudging. He found out on his own what a wonderful woman Shar Gracey was.

  He’d made it his business to seek Mr. Johnny Gracey, Shar’s daddy, out last week and asked if he could come by on Saturday. Mr. Johnny told him that the women would be far too busy with the washing and ironing on Saturday, so he told him to come by on Sunday after church. That day had finally arrived.

  The choir sat down, and it was time for him to get up and preach. Landon almost wanted to deliver the “Jesus wept” sermon, so he could be quick about it. He would then eat his anniversary dinner and go to Shar’s house and speak with her daddy. But he couldn’t do that, not when his belly was so full with the joy of the Lord. He had to get up and testify of the goodness of God.

  And that’s exactly what he did. Many of Landon’s parishioners had migrated from the South, as he had. They left miserable conditions hoping to find better days in the North. However, they were met with hatred and mistrust, and were put in some of the same conditions that they’d left behind. His parishioners needed a revival of hope, and that’s what he tried to give them every Sunday when he stood behind his pulpit. During the week, he worked with as many organizations as possible to find jobs and homes for his parishioners. Things were bound to get better. He didn’t know if he would live to see those better days, but he preached about them and set his congregation on fire with hope.

  “Whew! Pastor Landon, you put your foot in that message today,” Nettie Johnson said as she rushed over to Landon once service had ended.

  Landon was busy shaking the hands of visitors as they left the church. He turned to Nettie and said, “Why, thank you, Sister Nettie, I’m glad you enjoyed the sermon.”

  “Sure did. But I enjoy everything you preach.”

  Landon shook a few more hands. “Are you staying for the dinner today?”

  “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss celebrating your second-year anniversary for the world. I even made a peach cobbler.”

  Betty, the woman who gave the announcements every Sunday, walked up on them and said, “Nettie, you need to stop all that lying. Yo’ mama made that cobbler and you know it.”

  Nettie turned cold eyes on Betty. “Well, of course she did, but I helped. So, it’s the same as making it myself.”

  “Mmph,” Betty said as she grabbed Pastor Landon’s arm and guided him toward the basement. “Come on, Pastor, dinner is ready and the people are hungry enough to eat it all up and you’ll be left with nothing but the crumbs.”

  Nettie followed behind them as they went downstairs to the eating area. But Landon hadn’t even realized that Nettie was following him as he scanned the room for Shar. When he caught sight of her, he was immediately struck by a sadness in her eyes. She was sitting at a corner table in the back of the room all by herself.

  Landon walked over to where Shar was sitting and asked, “Would you like some company?”

  She looked up and smiled. “Of course. Have a seat, Pastor.”

  He sat down, and then Nettie pulled out a chair to sit also, but Landon stopped her. “Ah, Nettie, would you mind getting me a slice of that peach cobbler you told me about?”

  “Sure thing, Pastor. I’ll be back in a jiff.” Nettie then rolled her eyes at Shar as she left the table.

  “So why are you sitting over here by yourself looking so sad?” Landon asked Shar after Nettie strutted off.

  Shar shifted in her seat a bit and then asked, “Do you really believe all that stuff you preach, about us going into better days?”

  “Of course I do. Don’t you?”

  “I try to believe it. But sometimes I think that things will never change. Colored folks will keep living in shacks and toting ice or being elevator boys and washing and ironing white folks’ clothes, but nothing else is ever going to come to us.”

  That’s the other thing he loved about Shar Gracey. She didn’t put on airs and act like she believed something that she didn’t just to impress folks. She saw the world the way it was and then responded to it. However, it was his job to help increase her faith. “But we as a people are so much more than that even now, Shar Gracey. Look at how much Booker T. Washington accomplished in his lifetime. He was an educated man who educated others. Mr. W. E. B. Du Bois graduated from Harvard and the man helped start the NAACP. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, God rest her soul, believed that things could change, not just for colored men, but for women also.”

  “I guess you’re right about those people doing great things, despite being colored, but I don’t know them and it’s hard to keep my mind full of hope when all I see every day is poor-going-nowhere-special colored folks.”

  Landon was bothered by Shar’s assessment of the people around her because he was one of them. “I’m sorry if that’s the way you see us.”

  Shar sat up straighter and put her hand on Landon’s arm. “I didn’t mean you, Landon. You’re an educated man, and you do a lot of good for this community. But most of the people I know don’t have no education, including me. I stopped going to school to help bring some money into the house. Now I’m stuck over at that beauty parlor, shampooing heads and sweeping the floor. But what I really want to do is find a way to earn some real money to get my family to some of them better days you preach about.”

  “Wow, Shar, I’m surprised at how down in the mouth you are. Especially since Thomas Dorsey showed up at the church today. I would think you’d be on cloud nine.”

  A bit of merriment danced in her eyes. “I was when I first saw him. I sang my heart out, I was so excited. But he didn’t even ask my name or nothing after service. He just got up and walked out the door.”

  “Don’t you know how beautifully you sing? Why do you need Thomas Dorsey telling you something that everybody in this church has already said a hundred or more times?”

  Shar shrugged.

  Nettie came back over to the table and handed Landon a nice helping of peach cobbler, and then she said, “You’d best go on to the head table before folks get to wondering why you’re sitting back here with Sister Shar.”

  Landon stood up. He wanted to take Shar to the head table with him, but since he hadn’t yet asked for her hand in marriage, he decided not to do such a bold thing as that. The last thing he wanted was to cause Shar’s name to be run through the mud. She was a good Christian girl, and he wouldn’t have anyone think differently. “I’ll talk to you later, Sister Shar. I have been summoned to the head table.”

  “Don’t forget to take a bite of my cobbler,” Nettie reminded Landon.

  Landon took a bite of his cobbler. He felt like humming as the cobbler juice and bread floated down his throat. “Mmph, mmph, mmph, this is some good cobbler.”

  “I’m glad you like it, Pastor. I can bring you your very own batch
next Sunday. And you can take it home with you and not have to share with anybody,” Nettie said.

  “Don’t put yourself to all that trouble. What I have now is enough to comfort me for a month of Sundays.” Shar giggled, and Landon’s heart leaped. He loved the sound of Shar’s laughter almost as much as he loved to hear her sing. He handed Nettie the cobbler and said, “Would you mind taking this to my table?”

  Nettie took the plate from him and walked away without saying another word.

  Landon leaned down and asked Shar, “Are you okay? Because I can’t rightly enjoy myself if you’re over here looking all sad face.”

  She smiled at him. “Your talk did me some good. I feel better already.” Shar nodded toward the head table. “You go on. I’ll be all right.”

  Landon kept his eyes on her for longer than was proper, but he didn’t want to turn away. One day soon he wouldn’t have to, and Landon thanked God for that. It made it a little easier to walk away. “I’ll see you at your house this evening.”

  Betty set a plate of collard greens, yams, cornbread, and fried chicken in front of Landon as he sat down. Landon ate as much as he could. He laughed and joked with his parishioners and generally enjoyed himself, but his eyes kept drifting back to Shar. Although she tried to put on a brave face, he could tell that something was weighing heavy on her mind. Landon wanted to spend the rest of his life putting a smile on Shar’s face and easing her mind from worry. All he had to do now was get Shar’s father to allow him to ask Shar for her hand in marriage. Landon said a silent prayer as he wiped his mouth and put the napkin on his plate.

  After dinner Landon grabbed the rest of the flowers he’d picked for Shar and left the church in the hands of the women so they could clean up. Shar stayed behind to help clean the dishes and sweep up. Shar was always so helpful. She wasn’t like most young girls, willing to work as long as someone was there to see and be impressed by their labor. No, Shar would have helped the women with kitchen duty even if Landon hadn’t been there to hear her offer; that was just the way she was. They would make a good team.

  As Landon walked down the street toward Shar’s house, he kept reminding himself that he had made the right decision and that it was well past time for him to settle down. He wasn’t getting any younger. At twenty-seven, he was ready to start a family.

  His stomach fluttered as he approached Shar’s house. But men didn’t get nervous stomachs over things like this, so Landon chocked the fluttering in his stomach up to indigestion. Those collards must have been cooked with too much fatback. He knocked on the door and waited.

  The door opened, and Marlene Gracey greeted him. “Pastor Landon, it is so nice to see you. Johnny told me that you was finally coming to speak with us.”

  He caught the “finally” and smiled. “Yes, I thought it was high time that I talked to you and your husband.”

  “Well, come on in.” She opened the door wider and stepped back to let him walk through.

  Landon took off his straw hat and entered the Gracey’s small but neat home. The furniture in the parlor room was dated and had been duct-taped in certain spots where it was ripped. But Mrs. Marlene kept the house in such a clean and organized manner that one barely noticed the duct tape. What Landon did notice was that Thomas Dorsey was seated on that sofa.

  Johnny stood up as Landon entered the room and said, “Well, Reverend, looks like you’re a day late and a dollar short.”

  What was this man talking about? Surely he hadn’t given Shar’s hand in marriage to Thomas Dorsey. Thomas had lost his wife and newborn baby after a rough childbirth back in 1931. Landon hadn’t heard if the man had remarried, so he was a little nervous as he asked, “I don’t believe I know what you’re referring to, Mr. Gracey.”

  “This man wants to take Shar on the road. He says she’ll be a big star in gospel music someday, and he wants to give her a leg up.”

  Could it really be true? Had he really lost his love because he was a day late in coming to visit? He closed his eyes and prayed that Shar would want to stay there with him.

  5

  Mother Barnett, why on earth are you still here? I would have thought you’d be home resting your legs by now,” Shar said as she grabbed her purse and prepared to leave the church.

  “Chile, didn’t I tell you that these old knees wasn’t bothering me today?”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot.”

  “I stayed to help these young girls put the sanctuary back to right while you was downstairs cleaning the kitchen. But I’m headed home now.” Mother Barnett held a smile that was as wide as the ocean.

  Shar knew why she was smiling like that. Mother Barnett still believed that something good was going to happen that day. As Shar thought about that, she’d come to the conclusion that Mother Barnett had good reason to think like that. The old woman had only had two other no-pain days in the entire time that Shar had known her. On the first no-pain day, Pastor Landon had delivered his first sermon as the new pastor of United Worship Center. On the other no-pain day, Brother Wilson had stood up and testified that he and his family were about to be thrown out on the street because he didn’t have the money to pay his rent. But he’d found a crisp one hundred dollar bill lying on the street as if the Lord Himself had left it there just for him. The whole church rejoiced because Brother Wilson and his family wouldn’t be on the streets.

  As they walked out of the church together, Mother Barnett told Shar, “I’m going home to put the light in the window for Herbert.”

  Pastor Landon’s encouraging words had helped Shar to cheer up a bit after Thomas Dorsey left the church without so much as a wave good-bye. But, in truth, walking with Mother Barnett had helped her more. Because if she could still be putting a light in her window in hopes that old no-account Herbert Barnett would come back home after being gone so long, then who was she to be down in the mouth just because Thomas Dorsey didn’t take notice of her?

  She was happiest when she sang praises to God. So if God intended for her to stay an apprentice at that beauty shop, shampooing heads and sweeping the floor during the week and then helping mama with the washing and ironing on the weekend, she would do it with a smile on her face, as long as she could open her mouth and sing God’s praises every Sunday morning. She didn’t need to be like Mahalia Jackson or Rosetta Tharpe, singing to hundreds and even thousands of people at a time. And anyway, she wasn’t special like that. All Shar really wanted right then was to earn enough money to get her mother to a doctor. Her mother refused to take money out of the household for frivolous things like having a doctor take a look at her. “I’d rather use my home remedies and keep my money to pay the rent,” Marlene had told Shar. But her mother’s made-up concoctions didn’t seem to be working for that cough.

  “Hey, Shar, you looking mighty pretty today,” Rodney Oldham hollered out as she passed him on the street.

  Shar just rolled her eyes. Rodney was a pretty boy who hung out on the streets with his good-for-nothing friends, doing nothing but gambling and getting into trouble. If she married him, Shar had no doubt that she’d be putting a light in her window just like Mother Barnett. So she ignored him and tried her best to stay out of his way, while she prayed that Landon would soon make up his mind about him and her. Shar’s Daddy had only courted her mama for three months before he knew that she was the one.

  “I know you heard me, Shar Gracey. One day you gon’ take that nose of yours out the air and realize that you ain’t no better than nobody else,” Rodney said as he followed behind her.

  “Never said I was any better’n you. I just don’t like you, and I wish you’d leave me be.”

  “Oh, well excuse me for breathing.” Rodney waved his hand toward the street and moved out of her way. “Don’t let me stop you from gettin’ somewhere in life. But while you’re going, just remember that you just as poor as the rest of us.”

  Rodney hadn’t told her nothing new. As far as Shar was concerned, she was born poor, and she would stay that way until the
day she died. Her father had big dreams about going north. He promised them that things would be better, that she would be able to sing in Chicago and wouldn’t be restricted by nothing and nobody. Her mama told Shar that she was sure to find a husband with a good-paying job and then move on up in the world. But the only moving they had done was when they put their raggedy old furniture in their raggedy old house that sat right smack-dab in the middle of the Black Belt. And the only singing Shar had done was at church. Shar was tired of being mad about their plight in life. She kicked at a few rocks on the street . . . time to just accept things as they were and find happiness the best way she could.

  At least that’s what she told herself as she opened the front door to her house and walked in. But when she saw her mom and dad sitting with Thomas Dorsey and Landon, Shar’s heart took a leap in the direction of hope again. “Wh—what’s going on?” she stammered.

  Her father stood up and pointed at Thomas Dorsey. “He wants you to join his choir. Didn’t I tell you, gal? Didn’t I tell you that your day was a-coming?”

  Her mama stood up and pointed at Landon. “Pastor Landon wants to marry you, chile. Don’t go running off, following no pipe dreams, when you got a man here that wants to make a life with you.”

  Her mother had never had patience for all the music talk Shar and her daddy shared. Marlene couldn’t carry a tune, so she didn’t understand the dreams that Shar and her daddy had about making something of themselves in the music business. Marlene just wanted to make sure that Shar found a good and honorable man to marry, and she wasn’t about to let Johnny Gracey’s pipe dreams spoil that.

  But Shar had been dreaming about singing and about marrying Pastor Landon for so long now, that she couldn’t hardly believe either dream was about to come true, let alone both. In the entire year that she had been courting him, Landon had never so much as hinted that he was thinking about marriage. He didn’t act like Rodney, making all his catcalls at her as she passed him by, or any of the other men who’d been interested in her. Landon had always treated her with kindness . . . like a lady. And now he was at her house, holding onto those flowers he’d promised her. She opened her mouth and timidly asked, “You want to marry me?”