To Make My Bread by Grace Lumpkin

opened its eyes and peered around Granpap to see this boy of six or seven who had come so near. The child had a pale face splotched with red. Its hair was whiter than John’s, and its ears were larger than any John had ever seen on man or child. He went closer, edging around Granpap’s knee and saw that the women and men, too, had mottled faces and big ears.
    Granpap spoke about them as he and John got on the road to go back the way they had come. Years before, the first Tate that made money had driven the McFarlanes off the land. The McFarlanes had gone far up a mountain into a cove by Pinch-gut Creek. Later the same Tate had driven some of his own kin away and the McFarlanes had taken them in. Way up there on the creek they had married each other till the Lord only knew which was brother and which sister. And the result was before them. The Tate-McFarlanes had pop eyes and skin that would bleed if you took a straight look at it.
    The rich Tates got richer and the poor ones had come to this. It seemed that the Lord took pleasure in shearing his poor sheep and fattening the rich ones. Maybe he did it on purpose so that in heaven the sheared ones would enjoy their riches more, and in hell the rich would burn better for their fatness.
    To Preacher Warren all the people in the company were pinchfaced and uninteresting. As he tethered his horse and got his bundle of baptizing clothes from the saddle bag, he felt a load in his heart because as far as he could know he would be doing this very thing summer after summer. He longed with his whole soul to live in town, where his children might grow up in the proper manner, and he might have a congregation of live people. In the whole place only Hal Swain and his wife Sally knew how to live. Preacher Warren felt grateful to them, for if it were not for those two he would have no salary from the community. The occasional pennies and nickels dropped into a hat on Sundays hardly counted. Sometimes resentment filled his throat when he thought that at dances the collections were larger than at church. But he was ashamed of such resentment and when it occurred prayed to his Lord to cleanse his heart of the secret sin.
    His early life had been pinched, and he wanted something more . . . a church with stained glass windows, a baptizing pool under the platform and a regular Bible rest where his big Bible would stay from week to week. If he had met John in the road he would have seen just another pinch-faced child with a careless walk, who would grow up to be a careless, slovenly man, living on the lusts of the flesh—his woman or his women, his drink and his food.
    As the preacher left his horse some girls came out of the bushes at the side of the road. One of them had her dress still raised. And as she saw him and dropped it hurriedly the others giggled. As they ran down the road he heard them laugh. They were all like that—lewd, coarse. He wanted refinement and reserve. And he had not found it among his own people. He thought of those he was to baptize that day. Sally McClure, Minnie Hawkins, Eve McDonald and the Wesley girls, three boys beside Basil McClure. Of them all, boys and girls, Basil was the only one he felt he could count on.
    Sally Swain and Hal arrived soon after the preacher. Sally took up most of the buggy. She was a long time getting out, but once on the ground her feet were light and energetic. For a time she rummaged in the back of the buggy handing out certain bundles to Hal. These they carried to a place further down the road where four trees some distance from each other made an almost perfect square.
    Soon Emma, Ora, and several other women were there helping Sally put up the sheets. They were making a dressing room for the girls. In this space the girls were to put on their robes made from unbleached cloth sold at Swain’s. Sally furnished the safety pins, and along with them she gave advice. Before the girls were half dressed everyone was wishing her