A swift change went over the preacher. His easy, bantering air disappeared. He bent forward an intent grave face. Always and innately dramatic, he listened in every line. “There’s nobody but--but you to preach--at his funeral. Will you--will you please do it?” Draper gazed at the boy for a long moment. “Tampa Simmons daid!” he said slowly. He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, nodding his head to emphasize the words. “Tampa Simmons _daid_!” He still seemed to be listening, but now to something inside himself. His unseeing eyes were turned inward. A change went over his face and illumined his eye. He regarded Woodie with stern dignity. The boy knew the issue had been settled, but not how. “Yer paw was er backslider an’ er Philly-stine. He turned his back on ’ligion. He fought me up an’ he fought me down, ever since de day Ah first come ter de Ole Ship er Zion, fifteen years ago. Ah wrastled wid um in de presence uv de Lawd, an’ he scandalized mah name.” It was the deep, sure barytone that had won him half his battles. He could turn it on like an organ stop whenever he needed it. It had a strangely moving quality. Woodie felt it in the flesh of his back. “But de Sperret says ter me: ‘Bury um from de Ole Ship an’ preach ter his funeral.’ Ah feel de Sperret movin’ in mah heart, an’ dat what it say: ‘Bury um from de Ole Ship an’ preach ter his funeral.’ Yer can tell yer maw Ah’ll do it.” Woodie told her two hours later, after he had bought food in the town, made arrangements for the funeral to be held the next morning at nine o’clock--the hour set by Draper--notified their friends, and jogged the three miles back home on the old white mule that had gone down the furrows ahead of his father ever since he could remember. “Praise de name er Jesus!” she said gently in her soft voice. “Glory be ter Gawd! Ah never thought he’d do it!” She turned her face to the whitewashed wall where she lay on her bed and began to cry quietly to herself, from relief. Before Woodie could leave the room she had gone to sleep, for the first time in forty-eight hours. She was a soft, plump little woman, almost the same colour as her son, full of kindness and forgivingness. She had had no part in the feud between her husband and the preacher. She had always gone to church at the Old Ship of Zion. When Draper became a part of it she had accepted him without question. He preached only hate and fear: hate of the unconverted, of the liberal-minded, of white people, and fear of, almost equally, God and the devil, but she didn’t see that. She was perplexed and frightened when her husband denounced him as unchristian and withdrew his family from the church. That had been fifteen years ago, when Woodie was a baby.