"I don't want anybody sayin' I don't look after my children," she
muttered. "Mister Jem, you absolutely can't wear that tie with that
suit. It's green."
"'smatter with that?"
"Suit's blue. Can't you tell?"
"Hee hee," I howled, "Jem's color blind."
His face flushed angrily, but Calpurnia said, "Now you all quit
that. You're gonna go to First Purchase with smiles on your faces."
First Purchase African M.E. Church was in the Quarters outside the
southern town limits, across the old sawmill tracks. It was an ancient
paint-peeled frame building, the only church in Maycomb with a steeple
and bell, called First Purchase because it was paid for from the first
earnings of freed slaves. Negroes worshiped in it on Sundays and white
men gambled in it on weekdays.
The churchyard was brick-hard clay, as was the cemetery beside it.
If someone died during a dry spell, the body was covered with chunks
of ice until rain softened the earth. A few graves in the cemetery
were marked with crumbling tombstones; newer ones were outlined with
brightly colored glass and broken Coca-Cola bottles. Lightning rods
guarding some graves denoted dead who rested uneasily; stumps of
burned-out candles stood at the heads of infant graves. It was a happy
cemetery.
The warm bittersweet smell of clean Negro welcomed us as we
entered the churchyard- Hearts of Love hairdressing mingled with
asafoetida, snuff, Hoyt's Cologne, Brown's Mule, peppermint, and lilac
talcum.
When they saw Jem and me with Calpurnia, the men stepped back and
took off their hats; the women crossed their arms at their waists,
weekday gestures of respectful attention. They parted and made a small
pathway to the church door for us. Calpurnia walked between Jem and
me, responding to the greetings of her brightly clad neighbors.
"What you up to, Miss Cal?" said a voice behind us.
Calpurnia's hands went to our shoulders and we stopped and looked
around: standing in the path behind us was a tall Negro woman. Her
weight was on one leg; she rested her left elbow in the curve of her
hip, pointing at us with upturned palm. She was bullet-headed with
strange almond-shaped eyes, straight nose, and an Indian-bow mouth.
She seemed seven feet high.
I felt Calpurnia's hand dig into my shoulder. "What you want, Lula?"
she asked, in tones I had never heard her use. She spoke quietly,
contemptuously.
"I wants to know why you bringin' white chillun to nigger church."
"They's my comp'ny," said Calpurnia. Again I thought her voice
strange: she was talking like the rest of them.
"Yeah, an' I reckon you's comp'ny at the Finch house durin' the
week."
A murmur ran through the crowd. "Don't you fret," Calpurnia
whispered to me, but the roses on her hat trembled indignantly.
When Lula came up the pathway toward us Calpurnia said, "Stop
right there, nigger."
Lula stopped, but she said, "You ain't got no business bringin'
white chillun here- they got their church, we got our'n. It is our
church, ain't it, Miss Cal?"
Calpurnia said, "It's the same God, ain't it?"
Jem said, "Let's go home, Cal, they don't want us here-"
I agreed: they did not want us here. I sensed, rather than saw, that
we were being advanced upon. They seemed to be drawing closer to us,
but when I looked up at Calpurnia there was amusement in her eyes.
When I looked down the pathway again, Lula was gone. In her place
was a solid mass of colored people.
One of them stepped from the crowd. It was Zeebo, the garbage
collector. "Mister Jem," he said, "we're mighty glad to have you all
here. Don't pay no 'tention to Lula, she's contentious because
Reverend Sykes threatened to church her. She's a troublemaker from way
back, got fancy ideas an' haughty ways- we're mighty glad to have
you all."
With that, Calpurnia led us to the church door where we were greeted
by Reverend Sykes, who led us to the front pew.
First Purchase was unceiled and unpainted within. Along its walls
unlighted kerosene lamps hung on brass brackets; pine benches served
as pews. Behind the rough oak pulpit a faded pink silk banner
proclaimed God Is Love, the church's only decoration except a
rotogravure print of Hunt's The Light of the World. There was no
sign of piano, organ, hymn-books, church programs- the familiar
ecclesiastical impedimenta we saw every Sunday. It was dim inside,
with a damp coolness slowly dispelled by the gathering congregation.
At each seat was a cheap cardboard fan bearing a garish Garden of
Gethsemane, courtesy Tyndal's Hardware Co. (You-Name-It-We-Sell-It).
Calpurnia motioned Jem and me to the end of the row and placed
herself between us. She fished in her purse, drew out her
handkerchief, and untied the hard wad of change in its corner. She
gave a dime to me and a dime to Jem. "We've got ours," he whispered.
"You keep it," Calpurnia said, "you're my company." Jem's face
showed brief indecision on the ethics of withholding his own dime, but
his innate courtesy won and he shifted his dime to his pocket. I did
likewise with no qualms.
"Cal," I whispered, "where are the hymn-books?"
"We don't have any," she said.
"Well how-?"
"Sh-h," she said. Reverend Sykes was standing behind the pulpit
staring the congregation to silence. He was a short, stocky man in a
black suit, black tie, white shirt, and a gold watch-chain that
glinted in the light from the frosted windows.
He said, "Brethren and sisters, we are particularly glad to have
company with us this morning. Mister and Miss Finch. You all know
their father. Before I begin I will read some announcements."
Reverend Sykes shuffled some papers, chose one and held it at
arm's length. "The Missionary Society meets in the home of Sister
Annette Reeves next Tuesday. Bring your sewing."
He read from another paper. "You all know of Brother Tom
Robinson's trouble. He has been a faithful member of First Purchase
since he was a boy. The collection taken up today and for the next
three Sundays will go to Helen- his wife, to help her out at home."
I punched Jem. "That's the Tom Atticus's de-"
"Sh-h!"
I turned to Calpurnia but was hushed before I opened my mouth.
Subdued, I fixed my attention upon Reverend Sykes, who seemed to be
waiting for me to settle down. "Will the music superintendent lead
us in the first hymn," he said.
Zeebo rose from his pew and walked down the center aisle, stopping
in front of us and facing the congregation. He was carrying a battered
hymn-book. He opened it and said, "We'll sing number two
seventy-three."
This was too much for me. "How're we gonna sing it if there ain't
any hymn-books?"
Calpurnia smiled. "Hush baby," she whispered, "you'll see in a
minute."
Zeebo cleared his throat and read in a voice like the rumble of
distant artillery:
"There's a land beyond the river."
Miraculously on pitch, a hundred voices sang out Zeebo's words.
The last syllable, held to a husky hum, was followed by Zeebo saying,
"That we call the sweet forever."
Music again swelled around us; the last note lingered and Zeebo
met it with the next line: "And we only reach that shore by faith's
decree."
The congregation hesitated, Zeebo repeated the line carefully, and
it was sung. At the chorus Zeebo closed the book, a signal for the
congregation to proceed without his help.
On the dying notes of "Jubilee," Zeebo said, "In that far-off
sweet forever, just beyond the shining river."
Line for line, voices followed in simple harmony until the hymn
ended in a melancholy murmur.
I looked at Jem, who was looking at Zeebo from the corners of his
eyes. I didn't believe it either, but we had both heard it.
Reverend Sykes then called on the Lord to bless the sick and the
suffering, a procedure no different from our church practice, except
Reverend Sykes directed the Deity's attention to several specific
cases.
His sermon was a forthright denunciation of sin, an austere
declaration of the motto on the wall behind him: he warned his flock
against the evils of heady brews, gambling, and strange women.
Bootleggers caused enough trouble in the Quarters, but women were
worse. Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted
with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy all
clergymen.
Jem and I had heard the same sermon Sunday after Sunday, with only
one exception. Reverend Sykes used his pulpit more freely to express
his views on individual lapses from grace: Jim Hardy had been absent
from church for five Sundays and he wasn't sick; Constance Jackson had
better watch her ways- she was in grave danger for quarreling with her
neighbors; she had erected the only spite fence in the history of
the Quarters.
Reverend Sykes closed his sermon. He stood beside a table in front
of the pulpit and requested the morning offering, a proceeding that
was strange to Jem and me. One by one, the congregation came forward
and dropped nickels and dimes into a black enameled coffee can. Jem
and I followed suit, and received a soft, "Thank you, thank you," as
our dimes clinked.
To our amazement, Reverend Sykes emptied the can onto the table
and raked the coins into his hand. He straightened up and said,
"This is not enough, we must have ten dollars."
The congregation stirred. "You all know what it's for- Helen can't
leave those children to work while Tom's in jail. If everybody gives
one more dime, we'll have it-" Reverend Sykes waved his hand and
called to someone in the back of the church. "Alec, shut the doors.
Nobody leaves here till we have ten dollars."
Calpurnia scratched in her handbag and brought forth a battered
leather coin purse. "Naw Cal," Jem whispered, when she handed him a
shiny quarter, "we can put ours in. Gimme your dime, Scout."
The church was becoming stuffy, and it occurred to me that
Reverend Sykes intended to sweat the amount due out of his flock. Fans
crackled, feet shuffled, tobacco-chewers were in agony.
Reverend Sykes startled me by saying sternly, "Carlow Richardson,
I haven't seen you up this aisle yet."
A thin man in khaki pants came up the aisle and deposited a coin.
