Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/273

 the picture was ready to show. Solemn black faces dripping with sweat were wiped with sleeves to keep from soiling the white gloves that covered the awkward unaccustomed hands.

A dark cloud looming in the west, hiding the sky, was cleft at frequent intervals by sharp zigzag lightning.

"Lawd, it's gwine to storm," Mary murmured nervously, and Budda whispered that he ever had heard when a Christian was buried, rain always fell in the grave. Maybe all this marching and singing by the Bury-league was stirring up the clouds and making them think somebody was dead. "No, Budda, no," Mary replied scornfully, "I seen rain fall plenty o time in a sinner grave when nobody wasn' makin a sound, Clouds can' see an' hear like people."

Budda did not argue the question.

"Le's hitch de mule, Budda," she said. "Le's hitch em to dis saplin. De lightnin's too close to hitch em to a big tree. Le's get out."

"Mind, 'oman! Don' trip. I don't want nothin to happen here dis night. Great Gawd! what you would do!"

Both of them laughed behind their hands at the thought of Mary's tripping as they joined a crowd near a window. "How you all dis evenin?" they asked.