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wouldn’t insult the man by lying. “He thought I should know.”
    He nodded, not only in confirmation of what he suspected but also in what seemed to be approval of her straightforwardness. “I’d thank you not to tell the others. Knowing makes people uncomfortable, they start watching what they say. In any case, I don’t want a fuss made over it. I don’t want to be treated differently from anyone else.”
    “I won’t say anything to anyone.”
    “Thank you.”
    “There’s no need to thank me, Mr. Rainwater.”
    “See what I mean?” he said, grinning. “You’re already making concessions for me.”
    She had the grace to look abashed.
    His grin held for several moments, then he turned serious again. “Does he talk?”
    “What?”
    “Your son.”
    He motioned with his head. She turned. Behind her, Solly was still at the table. His lunch remained untouched. He was winding the yo-yo string around his finger, unwinding it, winding it again as he rocked forward and back to a beat that only he could hear.
    She came around to Mr. Rainwater again and shook her head. “No. He doesn’t talk.”
    “Well,” he said pleasantly, “I find that most people who do often have nothing worthwhile to say.”
    His easy dismissal of Solly’s limitations was almost more difficult to withstand than the rude, curious stares of strangers, and she reacted with a totally unexpected rush of tears. Perhaps he saw them and wanted to spare her embarrassment, because he said no more, only touched the brim of his hat again, turned, and walked away.
     
     
     

FOUR
    Brother Calvin Taylor turned out to be a godsend, and not just to the AME church.
    The preacher was a tall and robust man in his late twenties, with an engaging manner and a wide smile, made even more brilliant by a gold front tooth. Ella wondered if members of his congregation were distracted by his tooth while he was preaching, if it would be like a swinging pocket watch with a hypnotic effect.
    But once she heard his speaking voice, she decided that little could distract his flock from his divinely inspired words. It was the voice of a prophet, the bass tones rolling like thunder off a hillside. She imagined it reverberating inside the church house, waking the dozing, frightening sinners into repentance, and filling the faithful with renewed devotion.
    He had indeed made a favorable impact on the congregation. When Margaret formally introduced Brother Calvin to Ella, she boasted that the church’s attendance had increased threefold since he’d taken over the pulpit.
    “Any given Sunday, there ain’t an empty pew.”
    The young preacher reacted to her praise with appropriate humility, crediting God with his success. “The Lord is blessing us in tremendous ways.”
    Ella liked him immediately, and put him straight to work, even though the Dunne sisters might very well swoon when they saw a colored man inside the house. Ella didn’t share their prejudices. She recalled the occasion when she first realized that the privileges accorded the races were terribly inequitable.
    Her father had taken her to the picture show in Waco, and she’d wanted to sit in the balcony. He’d explained that the balcony was restricted to colored people. She’d protested, saying that wasn’t fair. She was objecting to the injustice to herself for not being allowed to sit where she chose. But her father, misinterpreting, placed his arm across her shoulders and smiled down at her. “No, it isn’t, Ella. Not fair at all. And I’m proud you feel that way.”
    She hadn’t been taught to have prejudices, so she didn’t. But as she got older, she came to understand that her viewpoint on racial matters wasn’t shared by most.
    The preacher soon proved he wasn’t all talk. By the end of the day he had scrubbed and polished the floor of the vacant room. “May as well do the hallway, while I’m at it,” he’d said. It, too, was hand-buffed to a shine.
    At suppertime, Ella gave him a plate