Pastor stood still at the front of the sanctuary. He held a Bible at his side with one finger holding his place. With his free hand, he hiked up his trousers.
I noticed that both the knees of his slacks had been patched. His shirt was worn and faded. Even the tie around his neck looked tired.
More people had come to church that day than normal. Daddy and Millard had both put a tie on and warmed pews as a Christmas gift to Meemaw. Mama had told me that folks felt like hearing about God around holidays.
Even Pastor’s wife, Mad Mabel, sat in the congregation. I wondered if she planned on behaving herself.
It seemed the only two people in town that weren’t in church that day were Winnie and Eddie. That was just fine by me.
“Jesus didn’t come to earth as a babe raised in a castle,” Pastor said. “He come to a humble family.”
When he used the word humble, I knew what he meant was poor. Poor like Ray and Mrs. Jones and the folks living a couple days at a time in the Hooverville. Poor like the people moving along with no place to go.
“Jesus understands hungry. And He knows being without a roof overhead, and He knows what it’s like to wander.” Pastor pulled a hanky from his worn-out slacks and wiped at his eyes. Eyes that were a little less wild than usual. “Church, we’ve got a lot wrong. We’ve been getting it wrong for a long while, I expect. How long did we bow down before the idol of wheat? Cattle? A good many years.”
Somebody cleared their throat. It sounded like they about choked.
“I know, it ain’t a popular thing to say. But I’m gonna say it. You don’t like it, go on over to the whorehouse and get your fill of something else. I’m preaching here.”
Daddy sighed, and Mama cleared her throat.
“Go on,” a woman called from the back.
“I remember the mountains of wheat we’d have come harvest. I know you remember it, too.” Pastor shifted his weight. “That wheat gold bought y’all cars and new suits and good shoes for the kids. Y’all remember?”
A few people “uh-huhed” him.
“We’d grown that wheat. It was of our doing. Our sweat and tears and blood and guts.” He thumped himself on the chest. “It was of us. And we was proud of it.”
Daddy moved in his seat. Beanie yawned so the whole church could hear.
“I’m boring y’all, ain’t I?” Pastor said with a smile. When he smiled, he looked nearly handsome. I could see the circus ringmaster in his eyes. I sure wished he would smile more. “I ain’t got the Spirit moving me this morning. It’s just I’m plum wore out.”
“You ain’t boring no one,” Meemaw hollered. “Go on.”
“Thank you, sister.” Pastor smiled again. Then he turned to the rest of the congregation. “Anybody here still got any of that wheat money? Even a penny of it?”
No one said a word or made a sound or so much as moved a finger.
“It’s all gone, ain’t it?” He sighed. “It’s all spent. Gone. Ain’t it?”
“That’s right,” Millard said.
“And to that,” Pastor said, “I say, amen. Praise God. And hallelujah.”
He got that old wild look in his eye. But that morning it wasn’t angry. It was something altogether different. It was more akin to mischief than anything. It was the look I imagined him wearing under his circus tent back in the old days.
“Jesus comes to the poor,” he said. “He comes when we got nothing left to bow down to. Far as I know, none of us is fixing to worship our fields of dust.”
“You got that right,” someone said.
Pastor laughed and looked down.
“Thank you, brother.” He kept the smile on his face. “Church, Jesus Himself said it, ‘Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.’”
Mama crossed her ankles and smoothed her skirt.
Pastor went on about the promises God made to the poor, but I was only halfway listening. My eyes were on Mama’s mending-scarred hose. And I was thinking that if I had all the money in the world, I would get Mama a whole dresser drawer full of fresh hose. So many that, if one got a tear, she could throw it out and go get herself another pair. If I had the money, Mama would never have to mend another thing for the rest of her life.
I worried, though that if Mama had all those hose, she’d miss out on being blessed for being poor like Jesus’s mother was. I still hadn’t worked out how having nothing made a body blessed, but the Mary in the Bible was blessed, and so was Mama.
I imagined that Jesus chose to come to the poor because He knew they’d be the ones to take the best care of Him. Poor little Virgin Mary would hold Him close to herself. She wouldn’t have the money to hire a nanny to raise Him. And Joseph, not even being His real daddy, would love Him like his own. Mama held me and Beanie tight to her, and Daddy sure loved us. If that was the blessing of being poor, it seemed worth the bother to me.
The way I figured it, Jesus had the poor close to His heart because they were the ones who had nothing else to hold onto.
Right when we got home from church, Meemaw went to her bed.
“I’m feeling a bit off,” she said. “I think all I need is a little rest.”
She slept until supper but didn’t feel like eating. Mama sent me up to Meemaw’s room with a mug of bouillon and a slice of bread.
“Thank you, darlin’,” Meemaw said. “Just put them on the bedside table, would you?”
I did as she asked.
“Will you read to me a little bit?” she asked. “My Bible’s on my dresser.”
I sat on the edge of her bed, reading out loud from her heavy Bible. I could barely hold it, even when it rested on my lap. A few of the words stumbled out of my mouth, but Meemaw didn’t mind. She watched my face as I read, nodding her head when I tried a word that was bigger than any I had learned at school.
“Keep on,” she encouraged me. “You’re doing just fine, darlin’.”
After I got to the end of a chapter in Deuteronomy she told me it was okay to stop reading. I closed the Bible and made to get up, but she ringed my wrist with her fingers.
“Pearlie, I want to talk to you.” She swallowed. “I got something I need to tell you. Then I’ll want to rest awhile.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“I don’t like that hobo that’s been coming around.” She shook her head, rubbing it against her pillow. “Not at all.”
“Eddie?” I whispered.
“That’s the one.” She let go of my arm and patted my leg. “I know he found Beanie and all, but I don’t trust him. There’s something wicked in his eyes.”
Relief swelled through me. I wasn’t alone.
“I told your mama and daddy. I just don’t think they can see it,” she said. “I want you to steer clear of him. Hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I pushed a loose piece of hair behind my ear. “He confuses me.”
“How’s that?”
“He says things that I don’t understand. About me not being who I think I am and that I don’t belong here,” I answered. “He makes me feel upside-down.”
“All I can tell you is this,” she said, blinking real slow. “Someday you might learn that life isn’t what you always thought it was. You’ll learn how hard truth can hurt.”
She paused and breathed deeply.
“But,” she said. “But you’ve got to promise me you’ll remember how this family loves you. Everything we’ve done is because we love you deep down.”
I forced a smile. “I know it, Meemaw.”
“There might come a day when it’ll be hard to know it, darlin’.” She squeezed my hand. “Life has a way of taking what we know and tangling it all in knots. It ain’t gonna be easy on you to know. The truth never is. But you’re a brave girl. And you’re strong in the Lord.”
She closed her eyes and opened her mouth in a big yawn.
“I better get some more rest,” she said. “Can you please pull this blanket up?”
I covered her shoulders with the sheet and quilt.
“Now give me a kiss, honey, before you go.” She smiled.
I leaned down and kissed her cheek.
“Every storm has a beginning and every storm’s got an end. They never last forever,” she whispered. “God is the one who saves. Don’t forget it.”
Her door creaked closed behind me, and her snores started as soon as I reached the steps.