The whistle wailed, the engine and cars shuddered forward toward Hewintown. The first attack was over. "Well," Dawson led the way back to the low gray car hidden in the shadows. "Hell's loose this time!" III THE COLES XV The youth who lay dead on the track was Babe Cole, the youngest of Tom Cole's four sons. Three years before Paul Judson left Jackson, in answer to that wordless message of the mountain that he interpreted as promising all success to him, Tom Cole had received a call to Shiloh African Baptist Church, the tall white church at the corner of Pine and Gammon streets, at one end of Atlanta's sprawling negro section. He had not succeeded in making farming in Fulton County pay. "Nigguh caint make money grow nohow," he would complain to neighbors who had come to the crossroads church to hear his sermon, and stayed for the inevitable discussion of crops and stock and any other topic wandering minds might bring up. "Ah kin make cawn grow, an' peas grow, an' string-beans grow, wid de good Lawd's blessin'; Ah kin make pigs grow, an' chickens grow----" "You eats 'em anyhow, Brudder Cole; ain't sayin' whar you gits 'em," chuckled Peter Bibb, the oldest elder. The pastor joined in the laugh against himself. "Sounds lak you'se tryin' to establish an allerbi, Uncle Peter. Mebbe you ain't never heard dat our hens, de Plymouth Rocks Aunt Stella tends herse'f, is de fattes' in fo'teen miles." He grinned easily, bringing out the mesh of bronzed wrinkles beneath the knotty kinks of wire-black hair, powdered with uneven gray around the edges. "But Ah gotter go, breddren. Caint make no money here nohow; Ah's done preached de gospel six years now in dis chu'ch, an Ah reckons Ah done 'zausted mah message." The urban congregation was proud of "Brudder Tom" from the start. "Ah wuz bawn in slavery," was his favorite beginning, "in bodily slavery; de good Lawd done riz me to freedom. Ah wuz bawn in slavery, in spir'chual slavery; de good Lawd done riz me to freedom. De Lawd sont me to bring grace erboundin' an' everlastin' to you sinnuhs; come unto de fol', oh brudders, let de Lawd's baptizin' wash you free f'um sin an' de ol' Debble's tracks on yo' soul----" They rose to his eloquent appeal; his open air "baptizin's" up Peachtree Creek were scenes of pervasive religious ecstasy. Preaching was pleasant, but not profitable. Tom gradually secured a number of customers who called him in for day work, keeping lawns in order, hedge-clipping, and some regular gardening. The house he got at two dollars a week, from a white land-owner interested in the church; and there was a succession of invitations to dinner from the members of his congregation, whether well-to-do or not; "feeding the minister" was an acknowledged duty of all good African Baptists. But there were Stella Cole and the five hungry little Coles to be considered; these were not included in the invitation.