The Pilgrim Song (33 page)

“Chop it off close to the ground, then strip off the blades,” he said as he demonstrated. “We’ll save some of these heads for next year’s seed. The rest we can feed to the chickens.”

“Why, that’s not hard!” Kat said. “Let me try it.” She took her knife, which Clint had sharpened along with all the rest, and removed all the side leaves, then lopped off the bushy top and tossed it down. “Look, it’s easy.”

Clint grinned at her. “We’ll see how easy it is by sundown.”

As Clint had prophesied, the morning went well, but by afternoon, when the field was fairly well stripped, they were all aching from the labor. Hannah straightened up and placed her hand against her back. Arching her body, she said, “Clint, this sorghum better be good for all the work it’s taking.”

Clint glanced at her. She was wearing a simple blue dress, much faded, a pair of high-topped shoes, and a straw hat with her hair flowing out from under it.
It’s a miracle how
far she’s come from being cooped up in one room.
Aloud he said, “Everybody’s done well. Tomorrow we’ll start making sorghum.”

“Is it hard?”

“Just takes time like everything else. Why don’t you quit and go on into the house, Hannah? We can finish up.”

“No, I’ll stay with it until we’re finished.” She looked at him and smiled. He was bronzed and lean and looked very fit. His teeth, as he smiled, were very white against his darkened skin, and she remembered how he had held her in the church and how she had fled from him. Since then, he had been standoffish for a while, but she could hardly blame him for trying to protect himself from being rejected again. She almost spoke of her regret at having behaved as she did, but what could she say? She turned quickly and walked away to resume harvesting the sorghum.

I don’t know what’s in her heart,
Clint thought as he watched her go.
But it’s got to come out of there somehow or other. She’s too good a woman to waste.

****

Early the next morning, everyone gathered around the sorghum mill. It was a strange-looking affair built of heavy wooden timbers, which Clint identified as ironwood. “It lasts forever and it’s tougher than iron.” There were three rollers inside the works and one long wooden handle to which Clint had hitched Samson.

“Doesn’t require any great skill,” he said. “Giddyup, Samson.”

The mule stepped forward and began walking in an endless circle. Clint picked up a few stalks of the stripped sorghum cane and shoved them into the press. The wheels inside gripped the cane, and soon a frothy juice began issuing from the side of the mill. It ran out a pipe into a burlap-covered barrel.

“This is all there is to this part,” Clint said. “As soon as we collect all the juice, we’ll start making up a batch of syrup.”

Everyone took a turn at feeding the cane into the mill, and from time to time they stopped to empty the barrel into smaller vessels.

Several hours later Clint said, “Someone take over here, and we’ll start making up a batch.”

“I’ll do it,” Josh offered, shoving the cane into the press while Clint led the way over to the boiler. This was simply a furnace made out of stone cemented together, the crevice much in the shape of a bathtub. Clint started a fire underneath it, and as soon as it was blazing, he said, “Okay, grab the other end of that trough. Some people call it a boiler box.” Lewis grasped the end of the metal box, which was approximately eight inches deep, four feet wide, and more than six feet long. They put the box over the furnace, and as it heated, Clint said, “Have you got that cloth, Jenny?”

“Right here, Clint. What do I do with it?”

“You and Kat stretch it out over the trough and let me pour this juice in there. We’ll have to strain this several times.”

As the two held the cloth, he poured the frothy juice into the filter, and they watched as it ran down into the trough.

“What are those plates in the middle for?” Lewis asked, pointing at three dividers that separated the box into four compartments.

“Well, the juice goes into this first compartment, then it boils awhile, and the pure stuff goes into the next compartment. As it passes through the different sections, the sediment gets left and the juice gets filtered out—purified, you might say.”

They watched the bubbles rising from the bottom of the boiling juice. “When those bubbles get to be about two inches thick, it’ll be done.” Clint reached down in with a skimmer to remove the impurities.

As the molasses flowed out of a tube, they siphoned it off into jugs and bottles. They worked hard all day, until Clint
finally called a halt to the operation. “We’ll get the rest of it tomorrow,” he said. “You’ve all done a good job.”

“What do we do now?” Hannah asked.

“I’ll clean out the boiler box here and bank the fires to be ready for tomorrow.”

“What are we going to do with all this molasses?” Josh asked, looking at the odd-sized bottles and jugs.

“We’ll eat a lot of it, and we’ll try to sell the rest,” Clint said. “I thought maybe we might work out a deal with the store to buy it from us—or maybe work out a swap for groceries.”

“That would be good,” Kat said. “Then we’d make some money.”

Clint shooed them off, but it took him some time to clean the boiler box out. The residue was sticky, and he worked until dark. He went in just in time to clean up and eat supper, and after supper he walked outside and sat on the porch. He pulled out his harmonica and began playing his favorite tune, the song about the pilgrim.

The time passed quickly, and before long most of the family, exhausted from the hard work, went to bed. He sat on the porch steps playing softly and then turned as he heard footsteps. “Hello, Hannah. Come and sit by me.”

Hannah sat down beside him on the steps and said, “What a pretty full moon.”

“It sure is. Always liked full-moon times. It’s almost like a spotlight in the sky.”

Hannah was tired but restless. She sat there and listened to Clint as he went back to playing his harmonica. After listening for a while she said, “I love your playing, Clint.”

He put the harmonica in his pocket and turned to face her. “I guess we’ve got to get something straight, Hannah.”

Alarmed, Hannah turned to him. The moonlight made his features softer, but there was a look in his eyes that troubled her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ve told you how I feel, and all you’ve said is ‘I
can’t marry anyone.’ ”He took her hand and held it in both of his. “I think I deserve a better answer than that.”

Hannah dropped her head. She was very much aware of the strength and the warmth of his hand. She was always aware of Clint’s physical strength. She had tried more than once to share her heart with him, but she could not. There were too many obstacles.

“You can’t just let a man lay his heart open to you and then tell him
nothing,
Hannah. If you don’t love me, just say so. I’ll understand that. I’ve been around enough to know that love isn’t always divided out neatly into parts. Sometimes a man loves a woman and she doesn’t love him. I understand that. So just say so if that’s it.”

“Clint . . .” Hannah tried to speak, and when she turned, he saw that her face was contorted, and she seemed close to tears. “I’m sorry! I can’t tell you, Clint.”

Clint exhaled audibly and then released her hand. He stood to his feet and took a deep breath. “All right, that’s that, then.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, alarmed.

“I mean I’m leaving. I can’t stay around loving you with no hope of anything in return. A man needs a woman, and I haven’t made any secret of that. So I’ll be leaving.”

Hannah was shocked at the tone of his voice. “Clint, wait!”

But he ignored her call and walked quickly across the yard. She called out again, but he did not even turn. She stood there waiting until he had disappeared into the night, and then she sat down shakily, put her face in her hands, and began to weep.

****

Overhead the moon was high, and Clint knew that it was well past midnight, perhaps even one or two o’clock. He walked for a long while beside the river, the moonlight illuminating the water in bright tongues of silver as it flowed over the rocky shallows by the bank. He finally sat down on a log and simply watched the river flow by. From far away came the bell-shaped tones of foxhounds pursuing their prey.
Ordinarily Clint would have tried to guess what they were chasing, but tonight he paid no heed.

Finally he shuddered and looked up into the sky. The stars were bright, twinkling like tiny bits of fire, and he said angrily, “God, I don’t know what you want!”

The sound of his voice startled him as it broke the silence, but he had fallen into a deep despair. He had known hard times, and as he looked back over his life, he realized that this was the hardest time of all. He thought he had found a home with the Winslows, and he thought he had found in Hannah Winslow a woman he could love and cherish. He had always yearned for love—although he would have been shocked to hear anyone say it that way.

As he stood up beside the river staring blankly into the night sky, he said bitterly, “God, this is my last chance—and I don’t know what’s wrong. I know she’s a good woman, better than I am, but I need somebody—” He raised his voice then, “I need somebody, God, can’t you see that? I know I sing about pilgrims, and I’m not even that, but I’m asking you to tell me what’s wrong with me that I can’t ever find a home or a woman.”

The silence closed about Clint, and he stood there as if waiting for an answer. Then, to his immense surprise, he suddenly became aware of a presence. It was so real he almost looked around to see who was watching him, but he knew there was no one, at least no human eyes on him. He knew it was God’s presence.

Clint had felt God’s presence twice before in his life. Once when he was only a boy of twelve and he had gone to a camp meeting with his mother. He did not remember the sermon, but he remembered how, at some point, he’d become so aware that God was touching him that he began to cry. The moment had passed, and he had done nothing about it, but only two years ago this same feeling had come to him again. He had been walking down a road hitchhiking when unexpectedly he felt what he was feeling now—that God was there.

“What
is
it, God?” he whispered. “Please, just tell me. I need something!”

The river made a gentle shushing sound at his feet, and the stars glittered, coldly silent in the far reaches of space.

Without warning, the Scripture that Devoe Crutchfield had preached on the previous Sunday came to mind.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
He remembered that the words were those of the apostle Paul, and then the words that he had heeded so little during the service began to grow within him. Memories came to him of things he had done over the years, some of which he had managed to forget or downplay, but now they paraded before his eyes and flooded his soul. Another verse the pastor had quoted on Sunday burned into his mind:
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

How long Clint stood there he never knew, for time had ceased to be a factor. He thought of his life, and he thought of Jesus Christ dying for him, and finally, from someplace deep within, he was conscious of words.
“I loved you enough to die on a cross to save you. Won’t you love me?”

Clint fell to his knees and began to cry out, “Oh, God, I’m a sinner, and there’s no way I can ever be anything else unless you help me! I ask you, God, in the name of Jesus, to save me. That’s all I know to do.”

As soon as he prayed this prayer, Clint bowed his head to the ground and began to sob. He wept not because he was afraid, but because a strange peace and rest had come to him that he could not have described to anyone. The thought flashed through his mind,
I’ve been running all my life, but now I am a pilgrim on my way to a better place than this. . . .
And then he began to thank the Lord as joy flooded through him.

****

Missouri Ann had no official standing in Bethel Church, but she was, in some sense, the most powerful force there. The
congregation was growing, and people were being converted at almost every service. Devoe Crutchfield was somewhat surprised when Missouri came to him after a service and said, “Preacher, it’s time for another baptizin’.”

It was like her words were carved in bronze. She was not asking him, he realized, but announcing what was going to happen. He smiled and said, “All right, we’ll do it next Sunday. But it’s November—people will freeze in the river.”

“Don’t you worry about that. We’ll baptize ’em right here in the church.”

“In what, sister?”

“In a horse trough. We’ll heat up the water. They can bring a change of clothes.”

****

The following Sunday, as Devoe looked at the people lined up for baptism, his heart swelled within him. Some were very young, but two of them were over eighty. He raised his voice and said, “God has given us a fruitful increase. We thank Him for it, and now we’ll rejoice with these who have come to follow their Lord in baptism.” He stood outside of the tank, which came up as high as his waist. He gestured to Irma Jean Smith and took her hand as she mounted the steps that Clint had made for people to get into the tank. He noted that she had attached weights to the hem of her dress to keep it from floating up. He raised his hand, saying, “And now, in obedience to the command of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I baptize you, my sister, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” Supporting Irma’s head while she held her nose, he lowered her backward, and she disappeared into the water. When she came up, Missouri’s voice rang out, “Glory be to God and the Lamb forever! Alleluia! Amen!” Several others took up this praise, and each time he baptized an individual, the same rejoicing was heard. Devoe was not used to such enthusiastic baptisms. In the First Baptist Church, where Devoe had served for years, baptism
had always been a quiet, solemn affair, as if everyone were afraid to speak, but here, Missouri Ann was a catalyst that would not be still.