The children, disoriented by their father’s altered manner, had gradually grown more unruly, testing the new limits, and Sarah had feared for them. Only little Paul, whose turn was last, had remained wanly mute, apparently too young to perceive the shift. Once Nathan had whispered something in the boy’s ear, and he had begun to cry softly. That Nathan! She could have beat him herself! Abner had turned then to Paul, and whimpering, the boy had repeated what Amanda had revealed just before him. And then the doorbell had rung, bringing Sister Clara Collins and her tagtail daughter into the awry room, and Sarah had commenced to weep.
Abner invited Sister Clara to join them in prayer, but she impatiently thrust her note into his hands, saying, “I need your guidance, Abner! It’s from Ely!” Sarah wished to see it, but feared Abner’s rebuke if she asked; Sister Clara determined the matter by snapping it out of Abner’s hand the moment he glanced up and planting it in Sarah’s. In tortured script, it read:
DEAR CLARA AND ALL:
I dissobayed and I know I must Die. Listen allways to the Holy Spirit in your Harts Abide in Grace. We will stand Together befor Our Lord the 8th of
Even before Sarah finished it, Sister Clara was demanding: “But what can it mean? What do you take it to mean?” Sarah was too confused even to hook the words of it together sensibly. She waited anxiously, staring hard at the note, for Abner to remove the burden of that response from her, and at last he did: “I think it means that it’s better, if the will of God should so will, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing.” The words touched Sarah familiarly: she had awakened to them. They were to have been a part of Abner’s sermon this morning.
“Maybe, Abner, but it ain’t all of it, it cain’t be. I know, God was tellin’ him to leave the mine and go preach, and Ely he didn’t do it, and so in a way he done wrong. Maybe. But what is troublin’ me so, Abner, is what does he mean about listenin’ to the Holy Spirit and standin’ together—”
Abner, interrupting, growing nervous, explained that the Holy Spirit was the inspired word of the Holy Gospel; we must study it in our hearts and abide in Christ Jesus, so that our consciences will be clear when we must stand before Him “that is ready to judge the living and the dead—” The children were growing restless and noisy, but fell silent instantly before Abner’s sudden buffeting glare. “The living and the dead,” he repeated, then added, though his mind seemed to be on the children: “For the end of all things is at hand—”
“That’s it, Abner!” Clara cried and Abner’s white face spun toward her, pinched inward in consternation. “The end of all things is at hand! Don’t you see—?”
“Now, Sister Clara—”
But the woman was in a frenzy and wouldn’t be hushed, though Sarah saw that Abner’s temper would not long be contained. “We will stand together before the Lord the eighth of — the eighth of when? Of when, Abner? That’s the point of it, don’t you see? Ely was tryin’ to tell us that God’s final judgment is near upon us!”
A tremor of dread convulsed Sarah’s heavy body, iced her spine: the end! “Oh, Abner!” she cried, and reached for him. He shrugged her off sternly. The children had stood, stirred, and tears floated now in Franny’s eyes.
Abner calmed them. He reminded Sister Clara that the accident had happened on the eighth of the month, that Ely had probably only meant to date his note to her.
“Maybe,” Sister Clara said, clearly not convinced. “But ifn he died today, why did he put the eighth? And they ain’t a period there before. God’s signs to Ely seem terrible urgent to me, and I — Well, anyhow, I wanted both you folks to read it and meditate on it. Me and Elaine, we been showin’ it around tonight to all the friends. I mean to bring it with me to Evenin’ Circle next Sunday night, so’s we can all talk it over together. I hope I kin count on you two bein’ there.”
Sarah nodded, of course, she always went, but glimpsed Abner’s sudden reprehensive glower — and understood then what it was he had been demanding of her all day — and why he must hate her, knowing she wasn’t able. “Yes,” he said, for them both.
Sarah thought, as Sister Clara and her daughter departed, that the family worship would be considered ended for that night, but Abner shoved shut the door and spun enflamed on little Paul. “A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass,” he recited thunderingly into the now-recognizable terror-riven room, “and a rod for the back of fools!” His freckled white hand, pinked with fine red hairs, grasped the razor strop and cracked it across his thigh.
“No, Abner!” whispered Sarah. “Please!”
With frightened fingers, Paul dutifully unbuttoned his pants. Abner, twitching with impatience, reached to tear them from him just as, in terror, the boy made water. It sprayed out in frantic spurts on Abner’s hands and knees — reflexively, Abner’s right hand whipped and the razor strop cracked like a rifle shot into the child’s wee fork. Paul screamed. Sarah cried, “No! Abner!”
Abner, implacable, gripped the boy’s frail shoulder. “If thou beat a child with the rod,” he blustered, “he will not die!”
But Franny, sobbing, covered Paul’s body with her own like a mother hen. “Beat me!” she cried.
Abner was in a froth. Paul shrieked insanely under Franny’s shield. Sarah saw a horrible smile flirt at the corner of Junior’s mouth. She stood. Though terrified, she would not allow it again!
But then Abner did a wonderful thing: he ordered them all out of the room but for Franny. Sarah wouldn’t even let them hear the flogging, she sent them straight to bed. Paul’s peewee was strangely flushed, but he had quieted at least, and she could hear him talking with Nathan in their room. Alone, outside the door, Sarah listened to the blows fall.
When Abner came to bed, his anger had abated. She was fearfully disturbed, but he was disinterested in her explications. She lay awake hopelessly, not knowing what it would all come to. In spite of Abner, Sarah had been cruelly penetrated by the prophetic vision in Brother Ely’s deathnote, and only one sinister mystery still vexed her: Why had the Lord chosen to take Brother Ely just the second before he would have completed the terrible message?