Scarlet Sister Mary quotes

The earth’s richness and the sun’s warmth make living an easy thing.

Years go by without leaving a mark or footprint.

Sometimes black years come in determined to break the tranquil monotony.

New chimneys are quickly built and houses mended; trees thrust up young branches to fill empty spaces; new crops and weeds thrive under gentle rains and hot sunshine.

Life fills and enfolds everything here, never overlooking in the press of work to be done the smallest or most insignificant creature, and silently, with weariless patience and diligence, strange miracles are wrought as youth rises out of decay and death becomes only another beginning.

Whenever July came to see her at night while Budda Ben and Maum Hannah were both at meeting it made the old woman suspicious and unhappy. She’d sigh and say, “

Company in de dark don’ do, gal.

Company in de dark don’ do. When de kerosene is out and de moon don’ shine and it’s too hot for bright fire—just de dark and company—company in de dark don’ do, gal.”

Why couldn’ you wait for de preacher to read out de Book over you an’ make you July’s lawful wife? Lawd, gal, I’m dat sorry, I could pure cry like a baby. I could, fo-true.

Some sin is black, an’ some ain’ so black, but dis sin you had is pure scarlet.

”

“Auntie, you wouldn’ tell nobody on me, would you?” she whispered, and Maum Hannah shook her head. She would not tell. People would find out soon enough. A sin like Mary’s tells on itself.

A scarlet sin is a blab-mouth thing.

“Will dey turn me out de church, Auntie?” The thought of such deep disgrace made her shiver. Maum Hannah nodded sadly that they would. The deacons have to keep clean righteous people on the church roll. Not sinners.

“Come lay down on de bed. Le me put a wet rag on you head, July. Dat’ll make you feel more better. When de rain stops I’ll get a collard leaf an’ tie on em. Dat’ll make you well.”

Men are like children when things go wrong.

July was as helpless as Unex now. Mary pushed the rough-dried clothes aside and made him lie down on the bed, and soon he was sound asleep, in spite of the storm outside.

He thought she was crippled, and he could not bear for anybody to know he had done it. Once he wept with grief and shame, but Mary had learned her lesson too.

A strong man’s hand can fall heavy, and the best way to deal with strength is to be weak and helpless.

She was not able to fight with July. It was better to knuckle to him any day.

When she married July everybody said she was the prettiest bride that ever stepped in the Quarters. Now she was withered and ugly with no way to stop being so.

Trouble had caught her as a cat catches a mouse and she could not get loose.

She would as soon be dead as not, except for baby Unex, who could not be left alone in the world for July would never bother with him;

Keep you belly full o’ victuals, make you mouth smile, laugh an’ be merry if you can. Don’ never let people see you downhearted, or a-hangin you head, an’ lookin sorrowful. Dat ain’ de way. No. Mens don’ crave a sorrowful, sad-lookin ’oman.

Don’ never let a man feel sorry for you if you want ’em to stick to you.

”

You ain’ got much sense, but you’ll learn better. Sho. I got good hopes o’ you. Good hopes. Some o’ dese days you’ll learn better.” Daddy Cudjoe laughed, then wiped the tears out of his eyes. “

You can’ nebber blongst to nobody, honey, an’ nobody can’ blongst to you.

But Ki! Dat ain’ reason fo cry! You breath come an’ go mighty sweet when ’e free, but you strive fo hold em. Den ’e bitter!”

Budda’s eyes snapped, his words crackled, but Mary made no answer. When Budda had spoken gently to her last night, it made her cry.

She could bear scolding better than pity and tenderness.

Budda lighted his pipe and hobbled away, promising to come back tonight after supper.

“

Dey is two diffunt kinds o’ love, Si May-e. Two; eye-love an’ heart-love.

Eye-love is tricky. ’E will fool you. ’E done fool plenty o’ people. Two people’ll meet an’ tink dey have love. It seem so. De ’oman look good to de man; de man look good to de ’oman.

“Heart-love is diffunt. Diffunt from eye-love as day is from night. Sometimes joy walk long wid em, but ’e go much wid sorrow.

Heart-love and sorrow is one mudder’s chillen.

When you meets wid heart-love, peace’ll leave you. But heart-love is brave. ’E kin pure smile in de face o’ deat’, honey. ’E pure shames deat’.”

“You hold up you head, gal, an’ quit a-draggin you feet. Fo Gawd’s sake wash you face an’ wrap you hair nice an’ put on a clean dress an’ apron.

Yesterday’s sun is set, Si May-e. Last year’s rain is dry.

It’s better to let old sorrows sleep an’ tink on what’s a-comin tomorrow. Plenty o’ tomorrows is ahead o’ you. Plenty o’ good tomorrows too, if you’ll listen at what I’m a-tellin you.”

“You hold up you head, gal, an’ quit a-draggin you feet. Fo Gawd’s sake wash you face an’ wrap you hair nice an’ put on a clean dress an’ apron. Yesterday’s sun is set, Si May-e. Last year’s rain is dry.

It’s better to let old sorrows sleep an’ tink on what’s a-comin tomorrow.

Plenty o’ tomorrows is ahead o’ you. Plenty o’ good tomorrows too, if you’ll listen at what I’m a-tellin you.”

Spoken words are safer. If Keepsie would keep his ears open he could hear plenty of good wise talk.

Spoken words can cut and sting and beat down almost any enemy.

They can bring tears or make people split their sides with laughter. Instead of reading all the time out of books and papers covered with printed words, he would do better to learn how to read other things:

“You is a sweet-talkin sinner, Si May-e, but I know how much you promises mean.

Promisin talk don’ cook rice.

”

He lashed out against their pretenses. Sometimes they were right, but not always. Nobody is always right.

Nobody always knows what right is.

The wisest people in the world are ignorant about many things. The most freehanded have to be stingy sometimes and the kindest, mean. If he could only hold out to live his own life without flinching, that would be enough to ask of himself.

Their faces were lined and their hair streaked with white, and fear of Mary’s charm made their tongues bitter. They had more pleasure in her misery than in her happiness.

Her sorrow pleased them more than her joy.

So Mary valued Budda Ben’s smiles and dreaded his frown. Nobody could say before her that he was only a cripple who walked half squatting with a stick; nobody could hint at his debasement.

Turkeys have strange ways, but perhaps no stranger than people.

Men are the queerest of all God’s creatures.

Poor fools, not one of them worth a headache, or a teardrop, and yet, worthless as they are, by means of them her own life had become full and her heart had grown warm and glad again.

In many ways he looked better now than he had ever looked in his whole life. The years had added flesh to his long, lanky frame, his great strong double joints were less gaunt and with worry-ation softening his bright eyes, they became almost gentle.

Trouble does most people good. If they are too weak to bear it, they get crushed but if they can stand up against it, it makes them better, in the end.

Strange how Andrew stuck to that stupid fat Doll when there were so many better-looking, willing women in the world. Of course, he was a deacon, and he had always been so severe with sinners that he had to walk straight himself.

Not one, although she had always picked the best.

Men are too much alike, with ways too much the same. None is worth keeping, none worth a tear; and still each one is a little different from the rest; just different enough to make him worth finding out.

Everybody has a selfness that makes the root of his life and being.

“

It don’ pay to love mens too much, gal.

When a man finds out fo-true a ’oman is crazy bout em, he don’ crave dat ’oman no mo. Dat’s de very time ’e gwine crave some new ’oman altogedder. Gawd made mens so. It don’ pay to love no one man too much.

“Do, fo Gawd’s sake, Unex. Emma’ll know when ’e belly gits full.

Gawd made chillen wid more sense’n people.

If Emma misses and drinks too much, ’e belly will know, and throw ’em straight back up, and be shet of em.”

On the train everybody was kind, from the engineer to the conductor. They gave him two seats and asked if the baby’s milk was hot and sweet. They washed the milk bottle and did everything they could to help him.

People are kind all over the world.

When the train reached town, there seemed no way to get home up the river before morning, for the old river boat had its engine broken.

She looked up at the sky where her precious child’s soul was wandering about seeking its way to Heaven and God. The battered horn of an old red moon hung low above the dawn.

The stars were pale and dim, poor lamps to light a lonely soul climbing that steep road trying to find its long way home.

The earth lay still and black. The high sky might have the dead boy’s clean soul, but the greedy old ground would get his body, his poor, thin, fever-wasted body, and turn it back into dust.