Mercy Me by Margaret A. Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

that?
    Thelma, for one, hung up on me.
    Before I could get down to Elijah’s and see about Maude, she died. I decided not to put Elijah on the prayer chain, but somebody did, and they all came to me, asking what the W.W.s should do. I told them I was making some stew beef and rice and that they were welcome to come along with me to take it to poor Elijah.
    Oh, but I knew what they were thinking. I knew good and well what they were thinking—that Maude dying proved it was wrong to pray for animals. That would come out sooner or later; when it did, I’d be ready for them.
    Clara insisted on driving, and we all piled in her car with my stew beef and biscuits and cobbler somebody else had made. Elijah lives down on the branch that runsunder the old Southern tracks. Clara took a wrong turn on a dirt road, and we wound up above his place alongside the tracks. An old yeller boxcar was on a siding, and there was three little children sitting on a pile of railroad ties. We told them to go on home, but they just looked at us like they weren’t going anyplace. Thelma said they didn’t speak English. Well, I couldn’t agree. Since they spoke not a word, how did she know? But what I did know was that they were too little to be by themselves. Some grown-up was nearby, probably relieving themself, I said.
    We had a mischief of a time scrambling down the embankment to get to Elijah’s place. We dared not hold on to each other for fear we’d all wind up in a heap at the bottom. Elijah was sitting under the chinaberry tree with his head in his hands. We took the food inside, and when I came out to see about him, he looked up. He was so pitiful, crying just the way he did when Bud died. When I saw them trails of tears on his old dusky cheeks, I put my arms around him and hugged him good. Then I asked him to come inside, since the ladies wanted to visit with him.
    As you might suspect, when I was warming up the stew beef and rice, Clara sided up to me and took me to task about how it was not proper for a white woman to hug a colored man. I apologized and said sweetly that I never noticed he was colored. That jerked a knot in her! Someday I’m going to tell her how many a time Elijah has sat at my dinner table. That will give her a dying duck fit.
    Yes, Elijah has sat at my table, and I would not have it any other way. After the way he looked after Bud, whatkind of a Christian would I be if I did not count him as a family friend? Why, he never left the room before he got down on his knees and prayed for Bud and me. And since Bud died, Elijah has helped me all he can. He taught me how to plant by the signs and how to tell the weather, all of which my own dear papa never took the time to teach me.
    Well, Elijah was so tore up and shaking so bad, I knew there was more than Maude’s dying troubling him. I had to do something, so I asked him why he was shaking. He said the city was coming to take Maude and that he was afraid they would sell her to the meat-packing plant to cut her up in little pieces for dog food. I told him not to worry, that I would take care of everything.
    And I did.
    I passed the word to all the W.W.s that we were to stay put until that truck came. We were all standing outside Elijah’s place when the truck rolled up with a white driver and four black men workers with shovels. I marched right up to the cab of that truck and introduced myself and the W.W.s He said he was Horace. Well, I didn’t need no introduction. I knew who he was; he was the sheriff’s son.
    I began my speech by telling him I was a personal friend of the city manager, Roger Elmwood, who also was an elder in our church. “Furthermore,” I said, “his wife would be standing here with us, but she declined our invitation due to health reasons. These W.W. ladies and me are here to see to it that Maude—she’s the mule—is not sold to the dog-food plant.”
    He grinned. “Well,