Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/145

 The firelight beamed on the women's Sunday hats and dresses, on the men's close-clipped heads, but the yellow lamplight stayed on the table, for its work was to show Brer Dee, the leader, how to read the fine print in the Testament, and to help him line out the hymns for the people to sing, two lines at a time.

Brer Dee stood with his back to the fire, and found a place in the Testament by holding it right up to the lamp's dim eye, then, laying that book down, with its open face on the table, he took up the hymn-book and searched its leaves until he came to what he wanted.

He straightened up, looked the crowd over, scratched his bony head, stroked his beard and began in a rumbling voice:

"Yunnuh listen, chillen, whilst I line out de hymn for all o we to sing to de praise o God."

A deep silence fell. Even the tiny babies in their mothers' arms, and the little children holding to grown people's knees, gazed at him with round eyes while he rolled out the musical words:

Brer Dee himself raised the tune, and all the people joined in singing to God, asking help of