Geoff Ryman - Was

"You look tired," Etta said. "Tired and scared. I find Emma Gulch scary, sometimes." Etta crouched down and tried to peer up into Dorothy's face. "They're never grateful, Dorothy. You can never do enough in someone else's house. They always think it's their due. You're always the poor relation."

What is the point, Dorothy thought, of talking to me like this? This is talk for adults. What am I to do? Leave? Where could I go? Fight? How can I fight Aunty Em?

"I want to go back," said Dorothy.

Etta sighed and said, "All right. But promise me, Dorothy. Promise me if things get too bad, you won't pray to God to change you. You'll pray to God to change them?"

What did that mean? Dorothy began to walk on ahead, back up the gentle slope. It was some kind of truth and Dorothy didn't understand it or need it. There was nothing the truth could do for her except give her pain. The truth was harsh and for adults. It frightened her. Dorothy needed lies.

"Did you have a nice talk?" Aunty Em asked as they approached.

"Yes, Ma'am," said Dorothy, head down.

Etta said goodbye. Dorothy did not look up. She heard her boots through the grass. Swish, swish, swish, with a cripple's gait.

"What can she be thinking of?" asked the pink lady in a low voice. "Don't she know about women's troubles? Poor little thing is only the size of a child herself."

"I reckon the Goodnows were surprised," chuckled one of the men. "I reckon they thought the Parkerson girls would be marrying some nice young men from the college."

"They're moving to Wild Cat. Out of harm's way, I guess."

Dorothy realized that she might not see Etta ever again. Her eyes seemed to swell from something like sorrow, something like anger.

"She thinks," said Dorothy, pink-cheeked, looking down, with a child's voice, "that she's going to be happy." That ended the conversation.

"Which seems a good enough reason to marry," said Aunty Em. "Shall we go to Meeting, brethren?" She took Dorothy's hand, and gathered up her skirts to march. The others followed.

It was hot inside the tent. Sunlight glowed on the white canvas. There were benches set on grass. It was as if there could be buildings with grass floors, grass floors with flowers growing in them, as if people could sit down to breakfast amid flowers.

They were sitting down to prayer. They passed the prayer books among them. Their voices seemed louder in the tent, men reaching across to shake hands, women calling out across the tent and waving. Aunty Em walked down the center aisle holding up her best black skirt, and she looked leaner, taller, back straighter than ever. When she turned to sit down, her dress whisked smartly around, and she nodded to the people near her and gathered up the dress and sat down slowly. It was as if she were someone else.

There was a banner across one side of the tent. Dorothy couldn't read it. "What's that say? Aunty Em? What's that say?"

" 'Gather ye unto the Lord,' " said Aunty Em. "And that little part underneath says 'Revival and reform.' That means to drive out sin and evil." Aunty Em's eyes still gleamed. She was still hungry.

A young man in black walked quickly across the front of the tent and hopped up onto a wagon. The Meeting quietened at once. Children's attention was drawn with a pat or a slap; a baby was howling, there was a hissing into silence.

The young man had wavy blond hair and a blond beard. "Good morning," he said simply.

"Mornin'," came back a mumbling reply.

Aunty Em drew back and cast a critical eye. Dorothy turned and watched her. So far it was like an ordinary Sunday. There would be prayers and song, and Dorothy would get bored and have to sit still. Maybe the best part had been outside when they were all talking and being nice.

"Seems to me we got a lot of fine folk moving into Kansas."

No response. People weren't sure they agreed with him.

"They come from all over, North, South. Fine people with some money to spend, or no money to spend, and not all of them see much of a future in working the land. Some of them move out to Abilene, or out to Wichita. I hear Dodge is going to be next, following the quarantine line wherever the money is cheapest and nastiest."

The silence was the silence of approval. The people understood now.

"And in these fine new cities of the new Kansas, where the business is brightest and fastest, these thriving cowtowns that seem so proud, with their money and their banks, there are sights the like of which could strike a righteous man blind, and from which all righteous women would shrink like flowers from a flame."

Murmur of agreement. They would shrink away, the poor women of the land.

"And I have to ask myself: Do these fine people know what Kansas means, and what Kansas stands for? Do they know that this is the tree state, the place to which the righteous flocked, to say 'No more!'?"

Hally hoo hah, said the Meeting.

"No more to sin and greed. No more to exploitation. No more to the cross of slavery. Or the cross of the Eastern banks and Eastern factories!"

Hally hoo hah.

"But lo, brethren, sisters, behold what comes slinking silently in. After the war, after the locusts, after the storms, and the broken hearts, what comes following in, after the people of Kansas have broken open the land, but people whose only god is the almighty dollar, whose only joy is in alcohol or bad women. Pray for them, brethren. But pray for yourselves too."

No cries as yet. Too indirect. He wasn't working them.

He changed tack. These people were not the farmers near Wichita. Politics did not move them.

"It could be that I don't know much. I have seen no blinding light from Heaven, I have seen no angels in the sky. I call the gospel because I love it. I can bear witness, and I will bear witness long as I can, loud as I can, that there is more to God's children than flesh alone or blood alone… or land alone or money alone, either."

That was more like it. Meeting made more noise. It wanted to touch the Lord, to feel Him brush past them, as if His robe swept their souls.

"I don't see no light of Heaven, it's not given to me to see it. That is given to prophets to see, and I ain't no prophet. But I'll tell you. I see the light of Heaven, just a glint of it, in the eyes of each and every one of you here today. That glimmer there? That's God shining out through you. And you can damn the bankers! You can damn all the fine folk."

There was some sound here of disapproval. He overrode it.

"They damn themselves!" A roar of agreement. "This is where the word of God shines!"

There were cries now, shouts. A man stood up, lean, lean under thick clothing, and shouted. Dorothy thought he was angry. She flinched and drew closer to Aunty Em. Were people mad? Why were they shouting? Dorothy thought perhaps she liked church better.

Aunty Em kept staring ahead, a thin smile on her face. But her eyes were full of yearning. A hand crept up to her breast.

"So let it shine, brothers, sisters. Let the Word shine in you! Let the Lord Jesus come to you in the Spirit. Open up the gates! Don't shut Him out. He sings in the wind. He whispers in the breath of every innocent young babe. He is all around us, to heal, to salve, to bring comfort, to warm the heart and bring peace to the mind."

Hally hoo hah. Hay men. Oh, he was good, this Preacher, who started out so slow.

Aunty Em seemed to melt. She listed sideways like a candle, hand still over her heart. The young Preacher prowled about his wagon. He'd started out so slow, and now he was waving his hands, commanding.

"Why are you so silent? Are you afraid of the Lord? Are you afraid of your speaking sins? Don't you know the Lord Jesus knows your sins, knows your pain, don't you know He loves you, and forgives you, leaves you as innocent as the child, the little children, whom He suffered to come unto Him? Go to Him as a child, be a child again in His presence!"