Mr. Barlow: It beats all how many things them fellows puts in the papers. Sometimes I wonder how they find time to make up all the stuff what they put in.
Mrs. Nation: So then, after a couple weeks, she commences talking about the dream she had. And me, I don’t take stock in dreams, but one day I asked her what it was. And she said that night when she was took that way, she dreamed she been to Heaven, And still we didn’t pay no attention to it, until that night, when I happened to think about what she said, and I told Hal about it. And all of a sudden he seen the meaning of it. Or thought he did anyway.
Mr. Nation: And you thought so, too. Ain’t no reason for you to talk so big all of a sudden.
Mrs. Nation: There’s a-plenty reason. If it hadn’t been for you and your—
Mr. Barlow: Now wait a minute, wait a minute! Just what was this meaning, Hal, what you seen? Or thought you seen anyway?
Mr. Nation: Well... well... I kind of figured out... that she... that maybe she... really had been to Heaven.
Mr. Barlow: Oh! How come you to figure that out?
Mr. Nation: Well, we’ll get to that part in a minute. That ain’t all of it.
Mrs. Nation: So we kind of told a few people about it, and they let on they wanted to hear about it too. So when company come—
Mr. Nation: Yeah, when company come! Who was it all the time a-egging Eva on to tell the company about it? Who was a-saying “Get out your banjer now, Eva, and let the folks hear it?”
Mr. Barlow: Her banjer? What the hell did she want with a banjer? Did she bring that back with her from Heaven?
Mr. Nation: She can pick a banjer.
Mrs. Nation: She picks a banjer to them pieces what she speaks in school. She puts the banjer on her knees and while she picks it she talks.
Mr. Barlow: But this wasn’t no piece.
Mrs. Nation: Well, I’m a-trying to tell it.
Mr. Nation: It was something like a piece. You see, after a while she kind of learned it by heart. And then she put the banjer in. And then after a while she put in a couple of songs what she knowed. The first one come right after the part where she come to the pearly gates, and that was a piece called “The Portal Left Ajar.” And the second one come right after the Angel of the Lord tooken her by the hand and told her she had to come back to earth, ’cause all the people down here couldn’t bear to see her go. And that was a piece called “He Calleth Me.” Or something like that. And believe me, when she got through with it, it took pretty near a hour, and if there was anybody listening what wasn’t busting out crying at the end, why he wasn’t human, that was all. He just wasn’t human.
Mr. Barlow: I see. She kind of put it up fancy. Damn, I never knowed that girl could pick a banjer.
Mr. Nation: Oh, she’s smart. Ain’t nothing that girl can’t do.
Mr. Barlow: Well, what next?
Mrs. Nation: So then a preacher what was holding a revival over in Greenwood last month, he heared about her.
Mr. Nation: Reverend Day.
Mr. Barlow: Day? Sure. I know him.
Mrs. Nation: And he come around one afternoon and listened at her. And then nothing wouldn’t do him but she had to go over and tell it at his meeting. And then nothing wouldn’t do Hal but she had to go.
Mr. Nation: Aw Laura, why you tell it like that? You know yourself you was tickled to death she had the chance.
Mrs. Nation: I was tickled to death she had the chance for one night. But I didn’t know she was going over there for the whole revival. You know I didn’t. You and her, you kept that from me.
Mr. Barlow: Well, but what, then?
Mrs. Nation: So then she run off with this Day.
Mr. Barlow: How you mean, run off?
Mrs. Nation: Mean run off, that’s what I mean.
Mr. Nation: And not a thing to show that it’s so. Now listen. What happened? He moved to Easton, for to hold a revival there, and she went with him. And he went to Cambridge, and she went with him there, and that’s where she’s at now. And for what? To tell about it some more, same as she done in Greenwood. That there is a big card, that is. That there brings in the money, and it saves a whole lot of souls. And she’s getting paid for it. And how can you tell she run off with him?
Mrs. Nation: I can tell by the cut of her jib.
Mr. Nation: You ain’t got a thing to show—
Mr. Barlow: And what next?
Mr. Nation: Nothing next. That’s all. ’Cepting my life ain’t been worth living for the last month, what with Laura a-whooping and a-hollering and a-carrying on—
Mrs. Nation: Why, Hal Nation!—
Mr. Nation: And it got so bad I sent for you to come up here and see if you could straighten us out.
Mrs. Nation: Why, Hal Nation, I never heared no man talk the way you do. Some time I wonder if you got good sense. Don’t nothing mean nothing to you what all the people is a-saying? Ain’t you got no respect for your own daughter’s vircher?
Mr. Barlow: Have you had the law on him?
Mr. Nation: Can’t get no law on him. Can’t prove nothing.
Mrs. Nation: My land, Hal! My land! And all on account of you in the first place. You and your figuring out the meaning of it—
Mr. Nation: Stop! Stop right there! That’s the first thing what we got to have out. And it ain’t no use going further till we do. (He turns earnestly to Mr. Barlow, takes careful thought before he speaks, and then proceeds in a solemn voice.) Now I ask you, and if you don’t see it my way I’m a-perfectly willing to say I was wrong, but if she weren’t in Heaven in the time when she was dead, then where the hell was she?
Mr. Barlow: I swear, Hal, now you’re coming at me pretty strong. That there is kind of out of my line... What you say to that, Laura?
Mrs. Nation: I don’t say nothing.
Mr. Nation: You said a-plenty till Day come along. You couldn’t see it no other way. Funny you ain’t got nothing to say.
Mr. Barlow: Have you asked any preachers about it?
Mr. Nation: We asked five or six preachers about it, not counting Day. And they all said the same thing. Said there could be no doubt about it at all. Said it had to be so.
Mr. Barlow: Still, you can’t go by none of them preachers. I never seen one of them as what wouldn’t jump up and holler amen for anything they heared, didn’t make no difference what it was. Them bums if they had sense enough to figure anything out, why they wouldn’t be preachers... Well, now, le’s see. Maybe we can figure it out for ourself. How was it now again?
Mr. Nation: She died.
Mr. Barlow: You’re sure of that, now. ’Cause look like to me that was pretty important.
Mr. Nation: If her heart didn’t beat no more, then she died, didn’t she? You never seen nobody what was half dead, did you? Winship said it didn’t beat no more, and so did Travis. And Winship sent the death certificate in to the county clerk’s office, and a hell of a time I had getting it out so she could get on the school rolls again, and be alive legal and all like of that.
Mr. Barlow: Well then, looks like she was dead. Nobody couldn’t hardly be deader than that.
Mr. Nation: That’s right. That’s all I’m trying to say. She was dead.
Mr. Barlow: All right then, she was dead. We know that much anyway. Now le’s see. The next thing to figure out is where she could of been before she come back to life.
Mr. Nation: That’s right. Now keep right on going.