Go Tell It on the Mountain Read Online Free Page A

all the time got to listen to him.”
    “Your father,” she said, watching him, “knows best. You listen to your father, I guarantee you, you won’t end up in no jail.”
    Roy sucked his teeth in fury. “I ain’t looking to go to no
jail
. You think that’s all that’s in the world is jails and churches? You ought to know better than that, Ma.”
    “I know,” she said, “there ain’t no safety except you walk humble before the Lord. You going to find it out, too, one day. You go on, hardhead. You going to come to grief.”
    And suddenly Roy grinned. “But you be there, won’t you, Ma—when I’m in trouble?”
    “You don’t know,” she said, trying not to smile, “how long the Lord’s going to let me stay with you.”
    Roy turned and did a dance step. “That’s all right,” he said. “Iknow the Lord ain’t as hard as Daddy. Is he, boy?” he demanded of John, and struck him lightly on the forehead.
    “Boy, let me eat my breakfast,” John muttered—though his plate had long been empty, and he was pleased that Roy had turned to him.
    “That sure is a crazy boy,” ventured Sarah, soberly.
    “Just listen,” cried Roy, “to the little saint! Daddy ain’t never going to have no trouble with her—
that
one, she was born holy. I bet the first words she ever said was: ‘Thank you, Jesus.’ Ain’t that so, Ma?”
    “You stop this foolishness,” she said, laughing, “and go on about your work. Can’t nobody play the fool with you all morning.”
    “Oh, is you got work for me to do this morning? Well, I declare,” said Roy, “what you got for me to do?”
    “I got the woodwork in the dining-room for you to do. And you going to do it, too, before you set foot out of
this
house.”
    “Now, why you want to talk like that, Ma? Is I said I wouldn’t do it? You know I’m a right good worker when I got a mind. After I do it, can I go?”
    “You go ahead and do it, and we’ll see. You better do it right.”
    “I
always
do it right,” said Roy. “You won’t know your old woodwork when
I
get through.”
    “John,” said his mother, “you sweep the front room for me like a good boy, and dust the furniture. I’m going to clean up in here.”
    “Yes’m,” he said, and rose. She
had
forgotten about his birthday. He swore he would not mention it. He would not think about it any more.
    To sweep the front room meant, principally, to sweep the heavy red and green and purple Oriental-style carpet that had once been that room’s glory, but was now so faded that it was all one swimming color, and so frayed in places that it tangled with the broom. John hated sweeping this carpet, for dust rose, clogging his nose and sticking to his sweaty skin, and he felt that should he sweep it forever, theclouds of dust would not diminish, the rug would not be clean. It became in his imagination his impossible, lifelong task, his hard trial, like that of a man he had read about somewhere, whose curse it was to push a boulder up a steep hill, only to have the giant who guarded the hill roll the boulder down again—and so on, forever, throughout eternity; he was still out there, that hapless man, somewhere at the other end of the earth, pushing his boulder up the hill. He had John’s entire sympathy, for the longest and hardest part of his Saturday mornings was his voyage with the broom across this endless rug; and, coming to the French doors that ended the living-room and stopped the rug, he felt like an indescribably weary traveler who sees his home at last. Yet for each dustpan he so laboriously filled at the doorsill demons added to the rug twenty more; he saw in the expanse behind him the dust that he had raised settling again into the carpet; and he gritted his teeth, already on edge because of the dust that filled his mouth, and nearly wept to think that so much labor brought so little reward.
    Nor was this the end of John’s labor; for, having put away the broom and the dustpan, he took from the small