Tambourines to Glory by Langston Hughes Read Free Book Online

to revive them that passes out from shouting. The kitchen we will use for making coffee, tea, cocoa for our church socials. But there will be no beds nowhere.”
    “I was thinking of moving one in myself,” said Laura, “and saving rent by using that bedroom. There’s got to be some kind of caretaker here.”
    “The Lord is the caretaker of this church,” said Essie. “Besides, there’s a janitor lives downstairs. No need of you living in here all by yourself.”
    “Just an idea,” said Laura. “But where we living now is not fit for servants of the Lord. We’ve both got to move. Since we got our church—which you just
had
to have first—to find a nice apartment for ourselves is the next step.”
    “If we prosper here,” said Essie, “which I know we will.”
    “And I do not want no private house,” said Laura. “I want a place with an elevator, janitor service, plenty of light, maybe even a doorman like they have on Riverside, everything for comfort.”
    “You expects to live high on the hog,” said Essie.
    “We both have chose the higher things of life now,” said Laura, “and it’s about time. You ain’t no spring chicken, you know.”
    “Don’t but a midget span separate you from me, Laura. You just happen to be well preserved, that’s all.”
    “In wine, too,” said Laura. “But you know, Essie, I’m developing a taste for Scotch.”
    “Wine is a mocker and strong drink is a tempter,” said Essie.
    “Even hard cider’s got a kick to it,” declared Laura. “When that serpent handed Eve that apple, he probably knew Eve could make hard cider out of it. Aw, look at that beautiful apple that artist-boy’s painted for our altar! Pretty enough to eat!”
    “Eve do look a lot like Sarah Vaughan,” said Essie.
    “Ethiopia’s Garden of Eden,” said Laura. “Listen, I got an idea. For our Sunday school, we gonna have some pretty brownskin cards printed too—Adam, Eve, the Lord God Jesus, Mary and Mary Magdalene all colored, black, brown, sepia, and meriney—with brownskin cherubs that our children can say, ‘That’s me!’ This is gonna be a race church.”
    “We’re colored ourselves,” said Essie.
    “When we add a man minister to our staff, he’s gonna be the biggest blackest coloredest minister I can find,” said Laura. “Black to the glory of God, amen!”
    “I do not vision no man minister soon,” said Essie.
    “Then God will have to lift the veil from your eyes,” stated Laura, “because male and female created He them—including ministers. So it would do no harm to have a man around now that we got our church.”
    “Thank God it ain’t no little old storefront church neither,” said Essie.
    “We’re eight steps up from the street,” said Laura.
    “We’s rising,” said Essie.
    Laura sat down in her big red chair at the right of the rostrum in front of the Garden of Eden. She threw one shapely leg over the chair arm and turned to stare up at the bright new picture of the Garden on the wall behind her.
    “Aw, just look at Joe Louis—Adam—naked as a kangaroo behind that bush—and he’s peering out at Eve! Look at Joe!”
    “Adam:
man
—that’s what Adam means,” said Essie,
“man.”
    “Joe sure God is a man!” said Laura.

12
DYED-IN-THE-WOOL
    T he first convert in the new church was a man, a
real sinner
, too, not just a backslider returning to the fold. He was an old sinner who had been sinning for a long, long time. His name was Crow-For-Day—Chicken Crow-For-Day. He stood against the Garden of Eden and declared his determination.
    It was a warm October evening and the front windows with the dusky lambs painted on them were open, so people in the street could hear him as he cried his new-found strength; and voices even outside the windows said “Amen!”
    It was their first Sunday night in the new church. Laura was proud, Essie was happy, and their joy and happiness radiated to all the people. It was the first service they had ever held