Miss Mary Weather

It was not a really sturdy store. My mother actually thought that if a strong wind blew from the North-it would collapse. Also there was a tree a little ways from the road that never grew a leaf. At the bottom of the tree where roots tried to reach the sky, there was a bible torn and beat up. While my mother was on her way tot the store, she saw the bible and walked over to it, and bent down on one knee to open the book of God. When she opened it, on the inside front cover was the name Rev. C.R. Cration in blood. As she looked further down there was a message.

"No child will I bare, so to whom that bares a child, that child will be consumed by me." "There was so much fear in my mother,"my grandmother explained. She froze in position with tears pouring out of her eyes like a broken faucet, until the place where her knee lay was as wet as a spring rain. She was able to move after awhile from that position. As she elevated her head to look to the sky in which grandma said comes your help. There he was the long lost soul, Rev. Cration stretched out among the branches "DEAD" as the profits of old. It is all so strange that no one ever saw the Rev-in that tree with no leaves all this time.

"Am I seeing things?"

"Am I crazy?"

"Or has evil come ah calling, my mother thought." As she stared at the Rev. On his forehead there was the sign of the devil "666", and on his chest read:

My mother streamed so loud that the neighborhood cam ah running. Mr. Papa from Mr. Papas store was the first to answer the scram. The money mama had that grandma gave her to buy some flour and milk, was tuck in the palm of her hand. She never got to the store that day. "What's wrong my child?" Mr. Papa asked bending down to her.

Mr. Papa was an old man just as old as my grandma who walked with a cane and talked to himself ever chance he got. Mr. Papa was one of the few black men that actually survived the Klu Klux Klan after they beat him, down in bessemer for just looking in the eyes of a white store owner. So everyone knew why Mr. Papa behaved that way, so they paid him no attention. My grandmother said all my mom could do is look-up and point to where Rev. Cration was hanging. Mr. Papa maneuvered slow so it took him a while to look up at the top of the tree.

"See Mr. Mr. Papa its Rev. Cration," my mamma said.

"Where my child? There's nothing up there." My mamma replied and said, "I see him clearly." By that time Mrs. Wreck, an old women who dwelled across the ways a bit from the house cam ah running.

"Mr. Papa are you scaring little children again with those creepy eyes of yours," Mrs. Wreck said. Big Wreck, that's what Mr. Papa and other who didn't like her, called her. She was as fat as a truck just in an accident. The other kids and I would talk about her in private, due to the respect you granted the old folks. In those days you were born to respect all of your elders even if they were not a family member.

"Mrs.