Why Beulah Shot Her Pistol Inside the Baptist Church. Clayton Sullivan

their daughters up as far as money is concerned. I’ve heard Velma talk about this. She said Dr. Roland Hodges and his wife fixed their daughter up in such a way that every month she gets a check for four thousand dollars. Dr. Hodges is a urologist in Laurel. Daddy calls him a peter plumber. Can you believe that? Gettin’ a check every month for four thousand dollars! And not even having to work for it. That’s what every girl needs—a check rollin’ in every month for four thousand dollars. If you had that you wouldn’t have to kiss any man’s butt. You could tell ’em all to go to hell. Of course I don’t go around tellin’ folks to go to hell. I’m just thinkin’ about what you could do if you for sure had four thousand dollars a month comin’ in.

      So there I was. No education. No money. And a husband who wanted me to be Ruth Ann’s shadow. The way I saw it I had two choices. One choice was to throw in the towel and give up. But giving up doesn’t solve anything. The other choice was to make the best of it and keep on goin’. I wasn’t about to give up. No way was I gonna do that. I’m a Buchanan and Buchanans don’t give up. I remember Granddaddy sayin’ “Don’t ever give up because you don’t ever know what might turn up.” I think that’s a pretty good rule to live by. So instead of givin’ up, I made the best of it. I gave it all I had. I want you to know that for the last six years I’ve busted my fanny bein’ Ralph Rainey’s wife. I’ve got up every morning and I’ve fixed him a big breakfast. I’ve come home every evening and I’ve fixed him a pipin’ hot supper with everything from meat loaf to pecan pie. Six days a week I’ve drove up to Laurel to work in his barbecue cafe. I’ve took orders from customers and I’ve cleaned dirty dishes off of dirty tables. I’ve washed dishes and scrubbed greasy pots and pans. I’ve handled the cash register. I’ve been nice to the customers. I’ve smiled at them even when I didn’t feel like smiling. I’ve said to ’em, “We sure do appreciate your business. I hope everything was okay. Please come back to see us.” From time to time I’ve even helped out in the butcher shop. Ralph’s cafe and butcher shop are under the same roof. All that separates them is a swinging louvered door. And besides doin’ all of this I’ve helped out in the summer with Ralph’s garden. I haven’t told you about Ralph’s garden. Every year I was married to Ralph he planted a garden that was the mother of all gardens. I can hear him saying, “Granddaddy Rainey had a garden. My daddy has a garden. So I’m gonna have a garden too. Only mine is gonna be bigger and better.” So every spring and summer Ralph had him a garden. During the summer the days in Jones County are long. And they’re hot. There ain’t nothing hotter than the sun in Mississippi during the summer. Particularly in the middle of the day when there ain’t no breeze or shade. When the days was the hottest and the longest is when I’d stay home and work in the garden. Ralph believing so strong about having a big garden is why he kept a mule on the place. Ralph’s mule was named “JR.” He said “JR” was short for the Jordan River. I don’t know how many times I heard Ralph say, “Since I live at New Jerusalem I think I oughta have a mule named for the Jordan River.” Every time he said this he’d laugh. I didn’t think the name was funny and I didn’t get the connection between New Jerusalem and the mule being named after the Jordan River. JR was as old as the hills. Ralph and Sumrall used JR mainly to plow the garden. I think I told you about Sumrall. Sumrall is the albino who lives on Ralph’s place. Sumrall don’t have no family. The reason everybody calls him “Sumrall” is because he was born and raised in Sumrall, Mississippi. That’s a town not too far from Hattiesburg.

      I hope you can see what I’m getting at. Being Ralph Rainey’s wife has been work piled on top of work. I worked hard at Ralph’s barbecue cafe and on Friday everybody who worked there got a paycheck but me. I didn’t get paid nothing. And by nothing I mean nothing. The only thing we done other than work was to go to church on Sunday to the New Jerusalem Primitive Baptist Church. Believe you me, Ralph believed in goin’ to church. He never missed a Sunday. Not one. The way he put it, “I want to go to church so I can let my light shine for Jesus.” The reason he said this is because of the Jesus board at the church. Five years ago Brother Ledbetter had a Jesus board built and put at the front of the church right between the pulpit and the piano. It’s wired with electricity. This electric Jesus board is something. You oughta see it. I’m guessing it’s about eight feet tall and four feet wide. Across the top in big red letters it says “Let Your Light Shine for Jesus.” The way the Jesus board works is like this. The name of every person who belongs to the church is painted on it. Beside each name is a lightbulb and a switch. When you get to church on Sunday morning the first thing you’re supposed to do is go to the Jesus board and turn on the lightbulb beside your name. Brother Ledbetter says that by turning on your lightbulb you’re lettin’ your light shine for Jesus. Every Sunday when he got to church the first thing Ralph done was to go and turn on the bulb beside his name. He always got a kick out of doin’ it. I thought Brother Ledbetter’s Jesus board was silly. But him and Ralph thought it was the greatest thing since somebody invented the wheel or figured out how to write and spell.

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      I hope you understand by now who I once was and I hope you understand who I now am. For the first sixteen years of my life I was Beulah Buchanan. I was the daughter of Arnold and Josephine . For the last six years I have been Beulah Rainey. I’ve been the wife of Ralph Rainey. Like I’ve just told you, these last six years have been like a wagon wheel goin’ around and around and around. It’s been the same thing over and over. Monday through Saturday I’ve worked at Ralph’s cafe and on Sunday I’ve gone to church to let my light shine for Jesus.

      During all this time I felt trapped like a mouse in a cat’s paw. But then last February—about six months ago—things started changing. Things started changing because of what Brother Ledbetter done.

      One day at Ralph’s cafe the subject of preachers come up. How and why the subject of preachers come up I don’t remember. But it did. I popped off and said, “We’ve got a mighty fine preacher at our church. His name is Brother Ledbetter. His full name is Brother Henry Ledbetter.”

      Quick as a frog chasing a tadpole Robert Hawthorn spoke up and said, “Henry Ledbetter! I’ve known that son-of-a-gun all of my life.” Robert works at the Masonite plant with my daddy. The two of them is buddies. And he’s a regular at Ralph’s cafe. He eats with us at least three times a week. He says he can’t get enough of our barbecue chicken and barbecue beans.

      Robert went on to say, “Henry and I went to school together.” I didn’t know Robert knew Brother Ledbetter and I didn’t know they’d gone to school together. And so I asked, “Where did you and the preacher go to school with each other?”

      “At Salem.” That was Robert’s answer. Salem is a little community like New Jerusalem. It’s across the county line in Naboshuba County.

      Robert kept on talking. “Yeah, I’ve known old Henry Ledbetter all my life. It’s hard for me to think of him being a preacher. His daddy worked for the county. His old man drove a road scraper in Naboshuba County for thirty years. I’ll say one thing for him: he knew how to keep gravel roads in shape. Henry was the only son the Ledbetters had. Henry always had a hard time in school with spelling. The reason I know is because me and him was in the same grade. For three years we set side by side. He didn’t have a hard time with arithmetic. Or reading. He just had a hard time with spellin’. In the sixth grade we had this teacher named Miss Motley. She really knew her stuff. She was a graduate of the teachers’ college in Hattiesburg. Miss Motley believed the Good Lord in heaven above had put her here on this earth to teach pupils in Naboshuba County how to spell. She made progress with most of us, but not with old Henry. If you asked him to spell cat he’d say k-a-t. Or maybe k-a-t-t. If you asked him to spell bird he’d say b-u-r-d. If you tried to correct him he’d say, ‘If b-u-r-d doesn’t spell bird you tell me what it spells.’ Old Henry gave Miss Motley fits. I remember her one day sayin’ in class, ‘Henry, you’re, driving me crazy.’”

      Robert went on to say, “Henry’s full name is Henry Franklin Ledbetter. His folks named him ‘Franklin’ after Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That is why his nickname in school was ‘Mr. President.’ But he never used his middle name. As best I can remember