Fannie Flagg - Standing in the Rainbow

Betty Raye had been somewhat startled by this odd behavior but everyone else at the table just kept eating. The only thing Dorothy said, as she buttered a piece of toast, was "If he would spend as much time with his schoolwork as he does listening to his radio shows he'd be a genius."

Betty Raye glanced out the window and saw a woman in sunglasses holding on to a clothesline coming across the backyard and up the back steps as a frazzled woman in pin curls wearing a hairnet ran in the front door to the kitchen and asked, "Have you seen Momma?"

Dorothy looked alarmed. "No, she hasn't been here. Is she missing again?"

"Yes… I turned my back for five seconds and off she goes. If you see her, grab her."

After the woman left Mother Smith said, "Poor Tot, that's the second time this week."

Dorothy shook her head. "Poor Tot."

Mother Smith turned to speak to Betty Raye, but she had disappeared, leaving most of her breakfast uneaten. A second later they heard the lock on her door click shut. The two women looked at each other in surprise.

"Well," said Mother Smith.

"Well," said Dorothy. "I don't know what to think, do you?"

"No."

Anna Lee came in for breakfast. "Is she up yet?"

"Yes, been here and gone. You missed her."

Betty Raye never came back out of her room until it was time to go to the revival and then she slipped out the front door without anyone hearing her and stood on the sidewalk and waited to be picked up by the family. Later, when Dorothy knocked on her door and there was no answer, she went into the room to see if Betty Raye was all right but she was gone. She didn't mean to pry but she could not help but notice that the dress Betty Raye had arrived in was on the bed and the open suitcase on the floor was empty. Dear God, she thought, that little girl only has two dresses to her name.

Her first impulse was to run downtown and buy her an entire new wardrobe. That night she talked it over with Doc. Throughout the years they had both quietly supplied people with clothes and food or sent them money anonymously when they needed it. But Betty Raye was a different situation. She was a guest in their home. How could they do it without seeming to regard her as a charity case and maybe take a chance on hurting her feelings?

It was a dilemma that tugged on Dorothy's heart every time she saw her in the same threadbare dress, day after day.

Ever since the Oatmans had come to town and appeared on The Neighbor Dorothy Show, Anna Lee, Norma, and Patsy Marie were just dying with curiosity about the revival and having a fit to get out there and see it. All three girls had been raised in town and had never really wanted to go to one, until now. Dorothy, however, was immediately suspicious about their sudden interest in tent revivals.

"Now, Anna Lee, I don't want you girls going out there and making fun of those people… do you hear me?"

"Mother!" said Anna Lee, shocked at the idea. "Why would you think something like that?"

"Because I know how silly the three of you can act."

Finally, Anna Lee was able to convince her mother to let her go but Ida, Norma's mother, was adamantly against it. "I will not have you going out there to that thing. There's no telling what sort of people will come crawling out of the backwoods and start babbling in tongues… Besides, we're Presbyterians we don't believe in that sort of primitive carrying on." But Norma told her mother that she was spending the night with Patsy Marie and went anyway.

On the second night of the revival Norma got her boyfriend, Macky, to drive them out to the country. They started around six but before they left town Norma made Macky go into the Trolley Car Diner and get them all hamburgers to go. She pointed to the flyer with the map that advertised TENT REVIVAL AND DINNER ON THE GROUND. "I'm not eating anything off the ground; if I got sick my mother would know exactly where I'd been." As they turned ofF Highway 78 and onto a dirt road they saw crude signs pointing the way that said THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH, ARE YOU SAVED? PREPARE TO MEET YOUR MAKER, and GOD TAKES ALL CALLS PERSONALLY HE HAS NO SECETARY. Patsy Marie observed, "They misspelled secretary." About forty-five minutes later, when they got close to the spot called Brown's Pasture, behind the Highway 78 Church of Christ, they could see a large round tan tent with red and white triangle banners hanging from the ropes, way off in the distance. The sides of the road were lined with cars and trucks and tractors already and they had to park about a half mile away. The place was teeming with people, all carrying plates and baskets. When they finally got closer to the tent, they saw long tables and benches set up everywhere, laden with food the families had brought to share. Norma was surprised to see that "dinner on the ground" did not literally mean on the ground but dinner on tables covered with tablecloths made out of newspapers. When the others saw the piles of fried chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese, plates full of fresh corn on the cob and watermelon, they were sorry they had listened to Norma and had only hamburgers to eat. Norma defended herself as they walked, saying, "Well, how was I to know it didn't say dinner on the table!"

By the time they got inside the big tent, most of the wooden folding chairs were already taken and they had to sit toward the back, which is where Norma wanted to sit anyway. The ground was covered with sawdust and it smelled like the circus, with almost a circus excitement as well. Instead of acting serious like they were in church, children were allowed to run up and down the aisles and make all the noise they wanted. It was a festive atmosphere with a feeling of anticipation.

Anticipation of what, the Elmwood Springs girls did not know yet. The place was packed with people they had never seen before: Pentecostal; Church of Christers; hard-shell, foot-washing Primitive Baptists; you name it, all come together for a good time.

The men were in clean overalls and the women all had on the same kind of homemade dresses that Minnie and Betty Raye wore. It was a hot night and the ladies, most with their hair done up in buns at the back of the neck, sat there fanning themselves with cardboard fans, a picture of the Last Supper on them, which the church had provided, and chatted happily with one another. The round stage in the middle of the tent was bare except for a piano and sound system and one artificial fern in a stand-up basket. While they waited for things to start Anna Lee, Patsy Marie, and Norma sat around punching one another and giggling as Macky pointed out an old lady dipping snuff and spitting it back out in a tin can she had brought with her. Just then a large, big-boned, sweet looking lady and a small man in overalls walked past.

Norma looked up and immediately dropped to the floor and hid under a chair. Macky looked at her. "What are you doing, Goofy?" Norma whispered, "It's my Aunt Elner! If she sees me she'll tell Mother."

Norma, who at the time was wearing dark sunglasses and a scarf, was to spend the entire evening bobbing and weaving behind the people in front of her, terrified that her aunt might somehow turn around and pick her out of a crowd of seven hundred. But Norma's chance of her Aunt Elner seeing her that night was to be the least of her worries.

At exactly 7:00 P.M. the Highway 78 Church of Christ preacher came out. In a few moments, after a lengthy prayer, he introduced the Oatman Family Gospel Singers and they filed onstage to thunderous applause.

Patsy Marie nudged Anna Lee. "Which one is Betty Raye?"

"The skinny one."

Patsy Marie noticed that she was also the only one of the Oatmans that did not have thick coal-black hair and commented, "She doesn't look a thing like the rest of them, does she?"