<TITLE>11. Par 30-30</TITLE>L-30 It'd just come a storm, you know, that night, and the--and the planes was grounded. So, oh, that morning... It was early spring, and the dew, you know, and so forth, on the roses that sweet smell of--of the rose, and the--the honeysuckle and things had--just had the air in aroma, so I was just enjoying going along there. Had my hand over my heart (not my Bible, didn't have It with me), My hand over my heart singing, "I'm so glad that I can say I'm one of them." Just singing that little pentecostal song, that I just learned from the pentecostal people over there, 'cause I hadn't been acquainted with them but just a little while then. And I kept going on; there's a little colored house there, little bitty hut like. And hanging over the gate was a typical old Aunt Jemima, big woman, colored, fat. She had a man's shirt tied around here head like a handkerchief, hanging down her back, and she was looking like this as I come down the street. I was practically the distance of this when I noticed her, and I--I just quit humming. I was singing to myself. I just started to pass by, and I seen the tears running down her cheeks like this. And I passed by, and she said, "Good morning, parson."
I said, "Good morning, Auntie."
And I thought, "Parson. How'd she know I was a preacher." So I turned around, I said, "Auntie, pardon me, but how'd you know I was a parson?"
And she said, "Did you ever read in the Bible about the Shunammite woman, that--that wanted children and couldn't have any, and the prophet Elijah blessed her, and she had a baby?"
I said, "Yes, ma'am."
She said, "I's is one of them kind of women." She said, "And the Lord blessed me and give me a boy." And she said, "I raised him the best of my knowledge to serve the Lord." And she said, "To my sorrow, she--he got out among some bad company, and he taken a horrible disease, a social disease." And said, "And the doctors, it was too far gone, they could do nothing for him. They give him the penicillin, and everything, and the shots, and it didn't do any good." And said, "He's been unconscious now two days, laying in there, a dying, a backslider." And said, "I's prayed to the Lord." Said, "Parson, I washed over the board. I done everything to raise that boy to love the Lord, and it'd just break my heart to see if he has to die a sinner." And she said, "Last night, I prayed, and I said, 'Lord, won't You please send Your servant by here, or somebody that will help me to pray for this boy?' Said, 'Your doctor man says that he ain't going to wake up any more.'" And said, "I went to sleep on my knees." Said, "I dreamed that I saw a man wearing a light lead colored hat, with a light suit on, just you, exactly, coming down the street. And the Lord said, 'Here he comes.' And said--and said, "I woke up about three o'clock." And said, "I come on out here, and stood at the gate since three o'clock." And her back was still wet. She said, "I've been waiting here since three o'clock this morning for you to come along. And I seen you coming; the--the Spirit of the Lord told me, said,'Here he is.'"
I thought, "Well, bless the Lord."
She opened up the gate; she knew I was coming in. She opened up the gate, said, "Won't you come in?"
I said, "Thank you, Auntie." I took off my hat.


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