BERNIECE: I know how long Crawley’s been dead. You ain’t got to tell me that. I just ain’t ready to get married right now.

AVERY: What is you ready for, Berniece? You just gonna drift along from day to day. Life is more than making it from one day to another. You gonna look up one day and it’s all gonna be past you. Life’s gonna be gone out of your hands—there won’t be enough to make nothing with. I’m standing here now, Berniece—but I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna be standing here waiting on you.

BERNIECE: Avery, I told you . . . when you get your church we’ll sit down and talk about this. I got too many other things to deal with right now. Boy Willie and the piano . . . and Sutter’s ghost. I thought I might have been seeing things, but Maretha done seen Sutter’s ghost, too.

AVERY: When this happen, Berniece?

BERNIECE: Right after I came home yesterday. Me and Boy Willie was arguing about the piano and Sutter’s ghost was standing at the top of the stairs. Maretha scared to sleep up there now. Maybe if you bless the house he’ll go away.

AVERY: I don’t know, Berniece. I don’t know if I should fool around with something like that.

BERNIECE: I can’t have Maretha scared to go to sleep up there. Seem like if you bless the house he would go away.

AVERY: You might have to be a special kind of preacher to do something like that.

BERNIECE: I keep telling myself when Boy Willie leave he’ll go on and leave with him. I believe Boy Willie pushed him in the well.

AVERY: That’s been going on down there a long time. The Ghosts of the Yellow Dog been pushing people in their wells long before Boy Willie got grown.

BERNIECE: Somebody down there pushing them people in their wells. They ain’t just upped and fell. Ain’t no wind pushed nobody in their well.

AVERY: Oh, I don’t know. God works in mysterious ways.

BERNIECE: He ain’t pushed nobody in their wells.

AVERY: He caused it to happen. God is the Great Causer. He can do anything. He parted the Red Sea. He say I will smite my enemies. Reverend Thompson used to preach on the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog as the hand of God.

BERNIECE: I don’t care who preached what. Somebody down there pushing them people in their wells. Somebody like Boy Willie. I can see him doing something like that. You ain’t gonna tell me that Sutter just upped and fell in his well. I believe Boy Willie pushed him so he could get his land.

AVERY: What Doaker say about Boy Willie selling the piano?

BERNIECE: Doaker don’t want no part of that piano. He ain’t never wanted no part of it. He blames himself for not staying behind with Papa Boy Charles. He washed his hands of that piano a long time ago. He didn’t want me to bring it up here—but I wasn’t gonna leave it down there.