Lila: A Novel
walked off into the woods like men who don’t forget an insult just because they might have to wait a while to settle up. Then they walked around to the back of the crowd, Arthur with blood down the front of his shirt and Deke with a bloody nose, but other than that as respectable as anybody. None of them wanted to leave, but they knew Doane would want to. They kept moving around because he wouldn’t go to the trouble of finding them all. He’d probably ask Mellie to find them, so she was careful to stay out of his sight. Doll and Marcelle had gotten a fire together and were making a supper of their own, which could only be the pone and fatback they’d been eating their whole lives, it seemed like, maybe a little more of it than usual, since those woods smelled like every good thing and people like to have a part in whatever is going on. Mellie had found herself another baby, and its mother brought them sweet bread with blueberry jam in the middle of it and icing on it. People were roasting ears of corn and handing them out to anybody who passed by, even if they passed by more than once. There was hot fry bread with sugar on it.
    Evening was coming, a mild, clear evening. Men were hanging lamps in the trees, along the big old oak branches that reached out over the stage, and lighting them, and the banjos and fiddles that had come along in the crowd began to agree on a song, and the people began to sing it— Yes, we’ll gather at the river, The beautiful, the beautiful river. And then some preachers came up onto the stage and sat down on the chairs, except for one, who came to the front of it and raised up his hands. Everybody got quiet. He shouted, “We are gathered here to praise the Lord, the God of our salvation!” And they shouted back, “Amen!”
    For a minute there was just the sound of the crickets and the river and the wind creaking the ropes those lamps were hanging from.
    Then, “We are gathered here to confess our sins unto the Lord, who knows the thoughts of our hearts!”
    “Amen!”
    Quiet again. And then, “We are gathered here to rejoice in the Lord, for His mercy endureth forever!”
    “Amen!”
    Then all the preachers stood up and began singing the song about the river, and the whole crowd sang with them. Deke found Mellie and said, “He’s looking for you,” then stepped into the crowd again. Mellie handed back the baby and told Lila, “You don’t know where I am,” and slipped away. Somewhere she had come up with a kerchief to tie over her hair because it was so white that it would make her easy to see, even when the sun was almost down. So Lila just stayed there watching the lanterns sway and the light and the shadows move and move through the trees, huge shadows and strange light under a blue evening sky. The preachers went on and the crowd shouted their Amens and they all sang. Bringing in the Sheaves. She’d heard the song a number of times since then and she didn’t yet know what sheaves were. She had some ideas about salvation, and mercy, but the old man never once mentioned sheaves.
    “The great gift of baptism which makes us clean and acceptable—” “Amen!”
    Doll put her arm around her and said, “You come on now. Doane says so.” They were gathering up their things, to get away from the noise, so they could get some sleep and nobody would be tramping around, stepping over them. If Arthur and the boys didn’t show up just then, they’d find their camp soon enough. But nobody knew where Mellie was. So the rest of them had to go off down the road while Doane stayed there watching for her. Lila thought those lamps in the trees were the most beautiful things she had ever seen, and that fiddle was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard, and it didn’t seem right that Doane, who said he hated it all, should send them away while he stayed behind. But in those days they still minded him, and there was comfort in it.
    Mellie turned up finally when the preaching was over.

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