Go tell it on the mountain - James Baldwin [15]
Then his mother called him; and he remembered that she was in the kitchen washing clothes and probably had something for him to do. He rose sullenly and walked into the kitchen. She stood over the wash-tub, her arms wet and soapy to the elbows and sweat standing on her brow. Her apron, improvised from an old sheet, was wet where she had been leaning over the scrubbing-board. As he came in, she straightened, drying her hands on the edge of the apron.
‘You finish your work, John\?’ she asked
He said: ‘Yes’m,’ and thought how oddly she looked at him; as though she were looking at someone else’s child.
‘That’s a good boy,’ she said. She smiled a shy, strained smile. ‘You know you’re your mother’s right-hand man?’
He said nothing, and he did not smile, but watched her, wandering to what task this preamble led.
She turned away, passing one damp hand across her forehead, and went to the cupboard. Her back was to him, and he watched her while she took down a bright, figured vase, filled with flowers only on the most special occasions, and emptied the contents into her palm. He heard the chink of money, which meant that she was going to send him to the store. She put the vase back and turned to face him, her palm loosely folded before her.
‘I didn’t never ask you,’ she said, ‘what you wanted for your birthday. But you take this, son, and go out and get yourself something you think you want.’
And she opened his palm and put the money into it, warm and wet from her hand. In the moment that he felt the warm, smooth coins and her hand on his, John stared blindly at her face, so far above him. His heart broke and he wanted to put his head on her belly where the wet spot was, and cry. But he dropped his eyes and looked at his palm, at the small pile of coins.
‘It ain’t much there,’ she said.
‘That’s all right.’ Then he looked up, and she bent down and kissed him on the forehead.
‘You getting to be,’ she said, putting her hand beneath his chin and holding his face away from her, ‘a right big boy. You going to be a mighty fine man, you know what? Your mama’s counting on you.’
And he knew again that she was not saying everything she meant; in a kind of secret language she was telling him to-day something that he must remember and understand to-morrow. He watched her face, his heart swollen with love for her and with an anguish, not yet his own, but he did not understand and that frightened him.
‘Yes, Ma,’ he said, hoping that she would realize, despite his stammering tongue, the depth of his passion to please her.
‘I know,’ she said, with a smile, releasing him and rising, ‘there’s a whole lot of things you don’t understand. But don’t you fret. The Lord’ll reveal to you in His own good time everything He wants you to know. You put your faith in the Lord, Johnny, and He’ll surely bring you out. Everything works together for good for them that love the Lord.’
He had heard her say this before—it was her text, as Set thine house in order was his father’s—but he knew that to-day she was saying it to him especially; she was trying to help him because she knew he was in trouble. And this trouble was also her own, which she would never tell to John. And even though he was certain that they could not be speaking of the same things—for then, surely, she would be angry and no longer proud of him—this perception on her part and his avowal of her love for him lent to John’s bewilderment a reality that terrified and a dignity that consoled him. Dimly, he felt that he ought to console her, and he listened, astounded, at the words that now fell from his lips:
‘Yes, Mama. I’m going to try to love the Lord.’
At this there sprang into his mother’s