“I say, ‘You know how when you got two people, and you got to carry something heavy for a ways? Like a big chest of drawers? There’s different ways you can pick up on it. You can pick up on it straight and level, with your legs and your back, and take your share of the weight”—Reverend Nightingale pauses, letting the image sink in—“or you can kind of fudge it. Pick up with just your arms, or pick up a little high, puttin’ most of the weight on the other person.”

Soft laughter, guilty recognition. But Reverend Nightingale’s face is set in stone.

“That was not Sister Flowers,” he thunders.

No, Jesus, comes the chorus. I know that’s right.

“Sister Flowers picked up square and straight,” he declares. “She picked up whenever she was asked to. And more than that, she picked up when she wasn’t asked to.”

Praise Jesus.

“Sister Flowers was not a rich woman,” the reverend says in a conversational tone. “But she gave unstintingly of the money she made. She had a generous heart. She bought flour and sugar and butter, and she baked cakes deep into the night to sell to raise money for the poor.” Nightingale raises his right hand, forefinger extended toward Heaven. “During the Depression? Sister Flowers visited white families, collecting old coats and sweaters, hats, shoes, and mittens for the wintertime, bringing them out here to kids who didn’t have nothing between them and the cold.” The finger descends, admonitory now. “You children today smirk and turn up your nose when I say old coats and old shoes. But what you don’t know—and you better thank God you don’t know—is that when you’re cold, you’ll take whatever coat you can get, and praise Jesus for it.”

Lord, yes! Praise Jesus!

Reverend Nightingale turns to the Deacons’ Bench and remarks on what fine children Ruby raised. My parents always felt Ruby’s children didn’t do enough for her after they were grown, considering the sacrifices she’d made for them. But they did what Ruby most desired that they do, went North and found good jobs, raised families. Part of the price of their success may have been embarrassment at their mother’s humble position, or confusion at her unwillingness to leave Mississippi, a place they regarded as backward and evil.

“Sister Flowers was not seriously ill or afflicted,” Reverend Nightingale says soberly. “She was taken before her time, by the hand of a stranger. The police don’t know who set that terrible fire. But I know who it was.”

A gasp of shock from the pews.

“It was a man cut off from the Lord. That man is suffering right now. Today. And I hope he’ll soon see the only way to wash his soul is to come forward, confess his sins, and pay the price of justice.”