by Julie Kibler
Inclusions for upcoming issue of The Purity Journal
1. Halftones of workers and places at our rescue home, including Sister Maggie Mae Upchurch and Miss Gertrude Chase ministering in the Dallas slums.
2. Halftones of our “Christmas Gems”—babies and children in the Home, with this note: Sister Maggie Mae purchased a doll for Docie Bates, having learned she’d never had a toy of her own. Docie found it on Sister Susie’s desk, not yet wrapped for the tree. She ran to Evening Circle, shouting, “Alpha has got a new toy!” Dilly’s boy has no use for a doll, but Docie, at age three, couldn’t imagine something so wondrous for herself.
3. Mabel Jones will relate her experience and tell of snares set for office girls.
4. Details of the recent death of a child in the Home, as well as our first wedding.
5. School report from our instructor, Mrs. Fannie Suddarth.
6. Home receipts for November totaled $428.13.
7. Reminder approved by Brother J. T. Upchurch: Our family numbers about forty. The expenses are heavy, but the money arrives to meet each obligation. Beloved, if we could express in cold type what is accomplished with the money you send, we’re convinced you’d be thrilled with the outcome.
–HVT
MATTIE
Arlington, Texas
EARLY 1905
After the New Year, once Mattie had time to catch her breath, Lizzie gently prodded her to get right with the Lord too. She said it would give Mattie her hope back. But Mattie was not Lizzie. Hope was behind her now, though she knew she had to keep living, even without it. What else could she do?
Even growing up, she’d been stubborn. Others believed her shy. Her family knew better. At Sunday meetings, Mama sang and shouted, filled with the Holy Spirit. She’d assumed her flock of nine would follow her lead, willingly and joyfully. But Mattie, middle in age—and in the straight-backed wooden pew her family occupied in their tiny Methodist Episcopal church—wouldn’t budge, mouth closed, chin tucked, and arms folded tight.
The services often dragged on an hour or two—or three!—beyond the scheduled end, if the spirit moved. Mattie thought she’d lose her marbles before their wagon finally rolled out of the churchyard. She could scarcely wait to get home, where she sprang from the wagon bed, pushing past all the other kids, and raced to brush the mules or fill the troughs—any chore to relieve the tension that built at church until she was twitchy as a shotgun.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like to sing or shout or wave her hands. To the contrary, it nearly did her in to be still. But she never felt easy with the frenzy. She could never readily accept what didn’t make plain sense to her eyes. She needed to roll things around in her mind a spell, and then decide what she would—or wouldn’t—believe. It gave her parents and teachers fits, especially Mama, but she couldn’t be any other way.
It was no different at the Home. She didn’t not believe. She simply struggled to accept that a prescribed formula, spelled out in so many steps, was the one way to heaven. She’d read the Bible, maybe more than most of the girls. To her, the scriptures weren’t black-and-white. She saw grays in every verse. Well, except one: God is love.
Lately she’d had her doubts about that too.
Mattie could never pretend to be something she was not. Not even hint at it. Not until now.
By the time Brother JT gave the altar call at the end of a Sunday evening service in town, Mattie was nearly frantic from pretending she was whole when inside she ached like a quarry of broken stone. She couldn’t contain her need to move. She surprised even herself, barreling down the aisle as if chased by the Devil—at least that was how Sister Maggie Mae Upchurch, Brother JT’s wife, described it later. Mattie arrived at his side and, after only the briefest hesitation, exclaimed, “I want to be saved!”
Brother JT enthusiastically pressed her to her knees and prayed over her. She repeated the sinner’s prayer, and by then, it was too late for regret. So all the way back to the Home, she sang and shouted at the top of her lungs, just as she’d witnessed her mother and siblings doing countless times. It cleansed her, releasing her pent-up feelings in the loudest cries she’d permitted herself since she’d been under the roof of the Berachah. Oh, it felt good. She couldn’t vouch for why the rest did it, but she wondered if she’d been a fool for months—years even—squandering the chance to shed emotion so efficiently.
The sheriff stopped by the next morning to inform them a neighbor had complained about the commotion. Brother JT shook his hand, grinning. The sheriff shook his head and moved on. He was used to the complaints. The community wasn’t exactly happy to have the Home just down the road.
As a poor teen growing up in Waco, with a widowed mother who struggled to make ends meet, Brother JT had carried newspapers into the Waco red-light district, where he soon fell into a life of drinking and carousing until he was converted at a church service and called to rescue work. He and Sister Maggie Mae had raised funds independently to open the Home, convinced unwed mothers had as much right to grace and forgiveness as any other sinner. This set the Home apart. Most charitable institutions expected women to quietly hand off their fatherless babies to good Christian couples who couldn’t bear their own children. Brother JT’s ordaining denomination wanted no part in condoning—indeed fully supporting—the practice of women keeping and raising children conceived out of wedlock. Brother JT had seen the holes their devastating losses left in those mothers’ hearts—not to mention, he believed addressing sin in secret did not get at the heart of a matter. The Upchurches extended the same grace to drunks, prostitutes, and opium and heroin addicts. Sister Maggie Mae set out regularly for Hell’s Half Acre in Fort Worth or Frog Town in Dallas, frequently accompanied by Gertrude Chase, who already had more responsibilities than any of the other girls. They returned occasionally with a young woman so low, she reeked of her sin. It was harder to entice this type—unless she stumbled in on dying legs. These women left again more often than not, unable to keep the house contract.
Mattie had not confessed to what she’d done only one time, but the girls who fell into the latter group accepted her more readily even so. The new or expecting mothers seemed afraid to even be near her, as if her particular heartache might be catching.
Being a convert made things easier. The Home still often taunted Mattie with reminders she’d sooner forget, but now, at least, instead of watching for her to repent, the Upchurches and some of the girls greeted her with joyful embraces.
When Brother JT approached her about baptism, however, she shook her head. “I was baptized as an infant,” she said, though guilt rose in her throat to claim it. She’d never taken Cap to church, much less had him baptized. After he died, she’d asked if they should do it then, but Brother JT had said God didn’t hold little ones accountable until they truly knew the difference between right and wrong. He’d welcomed Cap into his paradise with open arms.
Her negligence still bothered her, though—and she wasn’t even sure she believed in heaven. She couldn’t accept that someone with God’s omnipotence allowed children to die. At the very same time, she wondered if her own actions had somehow caused God to turn away when she and Cap needed him most.
“Miss Mattie,” Brother JT said, “don’t you want to show your inward change to the world through an outward symbol?”
No, she didn’t. It rubbed her the wrong way that something as simple as walking the aisle at church was all it took to say she was a brand-new person. She didn’t feel so different. She still cried herself to sleep every night until she was nauseated, though she tried to muffle the sound of her sobs. Lizzie Bates often came to Mattie’s side, just as she had in the quiet and lonely room downstairs after Cap’s death. She patted Mattie’s arm and stroked her hair without a word until Mattie managed to doze off.
But Brother JT was a patient man—and not just with Mattie.
One w
inter day, blustery and bright, she encountered the secretary and treasurer of the Home in the foyer, examining the new issue of The Purity Journal. Miss Hallie was a sourpuss, always on the lookout for infractions, much like Gertrude, who’d been there nearly from the first—so long the Upchurches treated Gertrude like a trusted employee too.
Miss Hallie helped Brother JT write and edit the Journal each month before Mr. Ferry and Mabel printed it and mailed it to their supporters. She always placed a neat stack on the foyer table for guests or residents who wished to have a copy.
Mattie had avoided the January stack, fearing the latest issue might announce the news she’d rather never encounter in print, but she quietly walked the pretty donated carpet runner now, curious at the woman’s absorption. As she drew near, Mattie’s breath caught.
The issue featured halftone photographs of the workers, some of the girls, and several babies and children. Miss Hallie smoothed her hand across a portrait of Brother JT, a dreamy smile lifting the corners of her mouth. When her gaze shifted slightly, her lips turned down. Mattie speculated that Miss Hallie was focused on Sister Maggie Mae Upchurch now, seated next to him in the photo. Miss Hallie had not yet married and from the look of her, probably never would. Maybe a decade older than Mattie, Miss Hallie was plain, verging on homely, and certainly not very warm—except in proximity to Brother JT. Then, her cheeks glowed so bright you had to wonder if she was sweet on him. Lots of the girls were, though Mattie herself had no inclination to idolize a married man with four children.
She couldn’t help the cough that tumbled from her mouth—a chuckle restrained only halfway. It surprised her, feeling nearly like a betrayal. Her laugh had always landed her in trouble. It had been Charley’s favorite thing, and she’d wondered more than once if the gravity of her news when she learned she was expecting, delivered without her usual wit and boisterous laughter, had driven his disappearance. She wasn’t much fun by then.
Miss Hallie twisted toward Mattie, flipping pages as if she’d been doing it all along. “It isn’t polite to steal up on folks without making your presence known.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Hallie. You were so preoccupied, I didn’t want to startle you.” Mattie barely stifled another laugh, for Miss Hallie had managed to stop on a page where her own likeness gazed straight off it, right at the two of them. The woman harrumphed under her breath.
“That’s a pretty picture of you,” Mattie said. It was almost true. Miss Hallie’s hair, generally frizzier as the day progressed, had remained in place, and her complexion, which tended to angry eruptions worsened by her habit of worrying them with a fingernail, was unusually clear.
But while the photo showed her at her best cosmetically, her lips and eyes seemed more petulant than ever. Perhaps they had been. Perhaps the photographer had pressed the shutter on her portrait mere moments after Brother JT and Sister Maggie May sat for theirs. Witnessing those two in all their wedded glory might have produced a moment of unchecked jealousy.
A commotion startled them both. Brother JT himself pushed inside the front door in his usual flurry, as if he’d brought the wind with him. For a small man, he had more presence than any Mattie had known. He seemed prepared to mount a passionate soapbox at any time.
He perched his hat on the rack and hurried to look at the photograph. “Why, Miss V, what a fine likeness! Jernigan outdid himself.”
Mattie had heard Brother JT address Miss Hallie by her middle initial before, usually with a teasing grin. Miss Hallie used it at every opportunity in writing, as if she wished for a less common name. Appreciation stained her cheeks. “Your portrait is fine as well.” She blushed deeply and rushed to correct herself. “Yours and Sister Maggie Mae’s, of course.”
“Of course,” he repeated, with an indulgent smile. Brother JT surely knew Miss Hallie labored to contain her admiration. He had to be used to such displays, but Miss Hallie was clearly mortified. She firmly closed the journal and returned it to the stack.
“Are you ready to go over the financials?” she said.
Brother JT produced a sheaf from his leather case. “Already have. Nicely done.” Miss Hallie’s face fell. “The association will approve how well our year turned out.” As she accepted the report, he rested his hand on hers. “Excellent work this year. I hope you find it fulfilling. Can we ever thank you properly?” He turned toward Mattie. “Miss Mattie, you are glowing today. You must feel better.”
She simply smiled.
His hurried words seemed to strike Miss Hallie dumb. As he continued toward his study, she rubbed her hand furiously, as though his touch had scorched it.
* * *
—
Brother JT mentioned baptism twice in February and a third time in March. Finally, Mattie acquiesced. It was a relief, almost as if she had let someone else make the decision for her so she wouldn’t have to struggle with it any longer—and she had little energy for struggles. Alongside her relentless grief, they’d put her to work in the kitchen. It was past time. Kneading bread dough and chopping onions and trimming meat when they were lucky enough to have it gave her aching arms and hands something to do. She was physically exhausted at the end of the day too, and she didn’t mind. Often, now, she fell asleep without Lizzie to soothe her.
On the Sunday before Easter, they paraded with palm branches to a section of the creek where water rushed from a wider stream into a shallow pool before forcing its way into narrower crevices beyond. Mattie wore a white robe Dilly had sewn for baptisms, nothing but her shift beneath it. In the quickly warming weather, it was nearly a pleasure to walk outside with a soft breeze fluttering the winged sleeves and the loose hems around her freed wrists and ankles and to sense fresh air at her waist with no corset or stays to restrain it.
But the shock of cold water on her skin brought her to her senses, halfway when she eased into it up to her thighs, and fully when Brother JT pressed her down to kneel after he prayed over her. Under the light touch of his palm, she began to struggle, gasping reflexively and gulping water that was supposed to wash her clean, gazing up at Brother JT, who tilted his head in confusion. He helped her stand again, and she panted with relief.
“What is it, Mattie? Are you not ready to be a daughter of the King?”
Mattie frantically scanned the group of women and the few men on the creek bank until she found Lizzie, whose earlier wide smile had been replaced by a look of panic, as if she’d struggled in the water herself. But Mattie knew Lizzie had gone to her own baptism willingly, as soon as it was warm enough, with no reservations. Mattie had observed quietly at the edge of the group when Lizzie rose from the water with shining eyes and a ringing “Hallelujah!”
Helplessly, Mattie clutched her hands across her chest and belly, feeling exposed now in the drenched and clinging robe. “I thought I was. Now I don’t know…”
Then, it seemed Lizzie came from nowhere, wading into the water in her heavy dress, not even pausing to remove her shoes. She pushed through, lifting her skirts high enough to reach Mattie’s side without any struggle at all.
“I can do it with you,” she said.
Brother JT glanced quizzically from Lizzie to Mattie. Mattie knew this was surely not done. She should be ready and willing of her own accord, and there was no obvious reason for Lizzie to be baptized again. But in that moment, it was unclear to anyone whether Mattie was not ready for baptism or simply afraid of the water.
“We have no rule saying you must be fully immersed,” Brother JT said. “If you’re nervous to go under, there’s no need at all. But if you’re genuinely not ready…”
Mattie looked into Lizzie’s eyes again and saw the same strength she’d borrowed for months now. She didn’t know how Lizzie had it to give, for she’d begun to tell them all of her horrors before the Home—enough to destroy the hardiest human. Mattie sensed there was even more—maybe more than they’d ever know.
If Lizzie could do this, Mattie could too. She nodded at her friend, who took Mattie’s larger, softer hands in her own small, rough ones and held them tight as Brother JT prayed over them both. They knelt together, ducking their heads under, and then rose in unison with water streaming off them, from their sleeves, their shining hair, and their clasped hands.
Now Mattie felt changed.
She had a sister again—one who had saved her instead of abandoning her when she didn’t know which way to turn.
* * *
—
After their baptism, Mattie clung to Lizzie in a way she hadn’t clung to another woman since her mother died. They were opposite as milk and tea, but complementary just the same. While Mattie kept quiet about her doubts, Lizzie was enthusiastic enough for both of them.
Accepting Docie was harder.
The first time Docie appeared at the edge of Mattie’s bed in the dormitory-style bedroom she and Lizzie shared with several other women and babies, Mattie had nearly shoved her away. But she clenched her fists and resisted. Docie couldn’t know her pain. And in all likelihood, she was mirroring Lizzie—though she wouldn’t have known it was Lizzie doing the comforting.
“Go on now,” Mattie told the waif, who tugged Mattie’s nightgown sleeve and asked to be held without uttering a word, her dark, enormous eyes begging for comfort Mattie wasn’t equipped to give away. She had little enough for herself. “Go back to your bed, child,” she hissed, “I’m sleeping.”
Docie gripped Mattie’s sleeve as if it were rope meant to keep her from floating from safety. “Where’s your mama?” Mattie asked, and the girl glanced toward the empty bed. Surely Lizzie had only slipped away to the water closet. “She’ll be back. Go on now.”
But the child pressed her cheek to Mattie’s arm, and though it nearly killed Mattie, she said, “All right. Climb up, but just until your mama comes.”
