The Hearts Kingdom | Page 7

and we'll have the times of our lives. Billy Harvey says his
ankles are getting stiff, it's been so long since he has fox-trotted. Do
call Mammy or Sallie and let's look at your clothes." With which
Letitia descended from her spiritual heights into the realm of the
material and plunged with both Mammy and Sallie into a riot of
clothes.
For an hour or two I lay back in my pillows and watched the two black
women and the white one indulge in primitive decorative orgies, and
from their delight my eyes would glance out and fix themselves
wistfully on the dim line of Paradise Ridge which was cut by the square
steeple of weathered stone just where Old Harpeth humps itself up
above the rest of the Ridge; and something sore and angry and trapped
hurt under my breast.
"The earth is the Lord's--" chanted itself in my mind to the tune of
"Drink to me only," and my hand curled around the letter under my
pillow as if for comfort and--defense.
"It is just as you told me that night at the piano, Nickols dear: 'Religion
is the most potent form of intoxication known to the human race,' and
apparently all my friends have been getting the drink habit badly. I'll
rescue the poor dears and have an interesting time doing it," I said to
myself after Letitia had departed with my most choice millinery
creation fastened down upon her sleek braids because she found she
could not live without it.
And then a strange thing happened, as I lay prone between the
lavender-scented sheets spread on the four-poster bed of my
foremothers, ready to drift off into another "bone resting" nap. The
flood of tears that had risen from my heart when I had sat that night a
week ago and listened to that remarkable little baseball evangelist, the
tide of which had been rolled back when Nickols had bent his beautiful
dark head against mine in Aunt Clara's music room and whispered
above the roar of New York, "religion is the most potent form of
intoxication" to me, again welled from my heart and this time flooded

my lashes and my cheek and my pillow. What was strangest of all, they
seemed to wash away all the tears of anger and fear that I had been
pressing back into my depths from breakfast time, and left me weak
and again ready for sleep. And like a comforted little child, I slept.
It was sunset when I awoke, and I felt as strong as two women and
ready for action, the call for which was upon me by the time Sallie had
put me into her favorite creation, selected from the ones she had hung
in closets and wardrobe.
"Mister Billy Harvey and Mister Hampton Dibrell is down on the front
porch ready to gallivant you, honey-bunch, and I seen Miss Letitia and
her Mister Cliff Gray coming in one direction and Miss Jessie in
another, so I reckon Sallie had better hurry with that New York twilight
she's fixing on you," Mammy announced as she stood in my doorway
and beamed upon me. "An' I expects the parson will be stepping over
likewise fer a few words, seeing you was so sweet and showed sich
pretty manners to him this morning," she added with reverent delight.
"Sweet? Showed such pretty manners?" I gasped, as Sallie fastened the
last hook and eye and stood beside Mammy to admire me.
"'Twas no more than you oughter done to the preacher, and I was proud
of my raising of you when you helt on to him and begged him to stay to
dinner. I was sho' disappointed that he had to leave us. I'm a Colored
Methodist, I am, and if I do say it, I knows how to shake a young pullet
in the skillet fer a preacher's taste, black or white. Now go on down and
stop that buzzing fer you on the front porch. Sallie, come and carry out
the tea and cakes to the guests," with which command to both of us
Mammy rolled her two hundred and fifty pounds down the hall with
great majesty, while Sallie meekly followed in her wake.
"Sweet! Showed such pretty manners!" I quoted to myself as I slowly
descended the steps and went out on the wide porch to find my friends
assembled under the budding rose vine that wreathed the tall white
pillars of the Poplars.
The parson was not there.

"Rescued!" exclaimed Billy as he grasped one of my hands and hung
on with a very good imitation of a drowning man seizing a lifeline.
They all laughed and Hampton Dibrell held my other hand as ardently,
though not in quite such light vein. I had to