If there were two particular forms of divertissement equally cherished by every dweller of the East Green and thereabouts, perhaps the one holding second place would be the fine funeral following a nice wake. Granting this, it was easy to understand why Gussie’s obsequies seemed to offer something of more than ordinary importance. Being a white man, and an outcast among his own color; and a man without religion, and therefore counted a lost soul among his church-going colored companions; they were deeply concerned about how he would be “put away with any right kind of form and fashion.” ... Who could they get to preach his funeral if the colored elder didn’t want to come?... Maybe Aunt Fisky would get the white folks to bring the priest to say prayers and swing smoke over Gussie and sprinkle him with holy water?...
If there were two particular forms of divertissement equally cherished by every dweller of the East Green and thereabouts, perhaps the one holding second place would be the fine funeral following a nice wake. Granting this, it was easy to understand why Gussie’s obsequies seemed to offer something of more than ordinary importance. Being a white man, and an outcast among his own color; and a man without religion, and therefore counted a lost soul among his church-going colored companions; they were deeply concerned about how he would be “put away with any right kind of form and fashion.” ... Who could they get to preach his funeral if the colored elder didn’t want to come?... Maybe Aunt Fisky would get the white folks to bring the priest to say prayers and swing smoke over Gussie and sprinkle him with holy water?...
Conjectural comment was at its height when Felo arrived. And curious to know the full particulars, like all the other members present, he asked Aunt Fisky if she had done anything regarding the funeral ceremonies. She told him quietly that she didn’t want any priest or revyun of any kind to come up in her house.... She wasn’t no hypocrite.... Everybody in Gritny knew that Gussie never was no church member.... And now that Gussie was ’ceased, there wasn’t no use for any elder to stand up and preach about his sinful ways.... Itcouldn’t help Gussie none. And what good would it do anybody else?... They ain’t got to tell Gawd about it; ’cause Gawd already knowed what Gussie was. So He didn’t have to listen to a whole lot o’ random.... And besides, she didn’t believe in rakin’-up people’s wrong-doin’ after they gone. The members could sing over Gussie much as they pleased. And the man from the Peefus Lodge could say the Ow Father and read something out his book. And that’s all she cared about.... And she was goin’ to see that they did it, too.... Gussie had dragged on long enough with a whole lot o’ racket and confusion. So she made up her mind that she was goin’ to see him go ’way from this earth quiet and respectable.... She wasn’t goin’ to find no fault ’bout havin’ a brass band; ’cause she knowed Gussie always liked music and wastooproud to walk behind a purrade. So, if people cared anything at all about her and Gussie feelin’s, she cert’ny would look to see them respect her wishes in this lonesome interprise....
Felo said he would tell everyone present, and promised to see that her wishes would be obeyed. He went over to talk to Carmelite, where she was sitting in a corner, looking very dejected. She shook hands with him and listened silently as he repeated what Aunt Fisky had told him.
“An’ you sho kin count on me, Mr. Felo, to help you make dese niggers do de right thing,” Carmelite assured him feelingly.
“You goin’ set up all night?” Felo asked her.
“Sho Gawd is,” she declared with fervor. “Bad as I feel; I’m goin’ stay right hyuh, an’ fix de coffee an’ do all I kin, befo’ I go home to my house.”
“W’a’s de matter?” Felo asked wonderingly. “You ain’ sick, is you?”
No; she wasn’t ’zacly sick; Carmelite told him. She was jus’ feelin’ down-casted.... Sittin’ there an’ lookin’ at Gussie, an’ callin’ back to her mind what took place to her house last night.... Gussie eatin’ up all her duck-egg cake with nobody but himself, yonder in her kitchen.... And hyuh a whole crowd o’ people come to eat crackers and coffee over Gussie; and he layin there on the table and ain’t knowin’ a thing ’bout what was goin’ on....
“An’ lookin’ so natchal, too. Widout any puttin’-on a-tall,” came Frozine’s sympathetic comment.
“Ain’t it true,” agreed Mozella. “For a man bin cut half-in-two like he is, Gussie sho do look natchal.”
“An’ ain’ he got a nice pale color?” remarked Soongy.
“Sho is,” declared Nookie. “I ain’ never took notice till now, how pale Gussie complexion.”
“Look like Death done bleached his skin mo’ lighter,” Carmelite reflected pensively.
“An’ Gussie sho look like somebody diffunt, layin’ up there strouded in dem purrade clo’se he got on,” said Pinkey, taking a seat along-side of Carmelite.
At sight of Aunt Fisky coming in from the back room, all comment ceased for a while. She came over where the women were sitting, and gave Carmelite a pan full of orange leaves, asking her to pin them on the sheet “droped” over the table where Gussie was lying. Carmelite and several of the women got down on their knees and began pinning the orange leaves on the sheet, making a border in the form of a cross all around the bier.
At length, a low mournful humming began to tremble in the room as the women went on with their work in the dim weird light from the flickering candles, standing in bottles on the mantelpiece and on the table at Gussie’s head and feet.
Before long the old house was vibrating to the rolling sound of
“Didn’t my Lawd deliver Daniel,And why not every man...?”
“Didn’t my Lawd deliver Daniel,And why not every man...?”
“Didn’t my Lawd deliver Daniel,And why not every man...?”
“Didn’t my Lawd deliver Daniel,
And why not every man...?”
Their voices pulsating with unusual fervor and their minds thrilled with the import of the words:
“O de wind blows east, an’ de wind blows west;It blows like a Judgment Day;An’ ev’ry poor soul that never did pray’ll be glad to pray dat day.”
“O de wind blows east, an’ de wind blows west;It blows like a Judgment Day;An’ ev’ry poor soul that never did pray’ll be glad to pray dat day.”
“O de wind blows east, an’ de wind blows west;It blows like a Judgment Day;An’ ev’ry poor soul that never did pray’ll be glad to pray dat day.”
“O de wind blows east, an’ de wind blows west;
It blows like a Judgment Day;
An’ ev’ry poor soul that never did pray
’ll be glad to pray dat day.”
One by one the neighbors continued to come in, each one bringing along from home a chair to sit on; knowing that Aunt Fisky would not be able to accommodate them, and that the crowd would increase as the night went on.
Felo began looking about eagerly to see if Lethe had come. What kept her so late? He asked himself.... He would run around to her house to see what was the matter.... Now was a good time. The singing was at its height.... Nobody would miss him....