Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

when she could pray for a sinner and save him from the devil, because she had been a sinner herself before Brother Rice chased the devil out of her and married her. Her husband was dead now though, and she was carrying on his work in the sand hills. He had left her eight hundred dollars in insurance money when he died the summer before, and she was saving it to carry on his work when the time came that it was needed most. She had the money in a bank in Augusta.
    Some of the people in the sand hills said the kind of religion Sister Bessie talked about was far from being God’s idea of what consecrated people should say and do. Every time she heard it, Bessie always said that the other people did not know any more about God’s religion than the male preachers who talked about it knew. Most of them belonged to no sect at all, while the rest were Hard-shell Baptists. Bessie hated Hard-shell Baptists with the same intensity with which she hated the devil.
    There was no church building to house Bessie’s congregation, nor was there an organized band of communicants to support her. She went from house to house in the sand hills, mostly along the crest of the ridge where the old tobacco road was, and prayed for people who needed prayer and wanted it. She was past thirty-five, almost forty, and she was much better-looking than most women in the sand hills, except for her nose.
    Bessie’s nose had failed to develop properly. There was no bone in it, and there was no top to it. The nostrils were exposed, and Dude had once said that when he looked at her nose it was like looking down the end of a double-barrel shotgun. Bessie was sensitive about the appearance of it, and she tried to keep people from staring at her and commenting on what they saw.
    Ada had already told Bessie about the turnips Jeeter took from Lov. Bessie had come prepared to pray for Jeeter for his sins in general, but she was glad she had a specific sin to pray for him to God about. Prayer always did a man more good, she said, if there was something he was ashamed of.
    First of all though, she finished eating all the turnips Jeeter would let her have.
    “I wish Lov was here so I could ask his forgiveness,” Jeeter said. “I reckon I’ll have to go down to his house the first thing in the morning and tell him how powerful sorry I am. I hope he ain’t so mad about it that he’ll try to beat me with a stick. He’s got a whopping big temper when he gets good and mad about something.”
    “Let’s have a little prayer,” Bessie said, swallowing the last of the turnip.
    “The good Lord be praised,” Jeeter said. “I’m sure glad you came when you did, Sister Bessie, because I’m needing prayer about as bad as I ever did. I was a sinful man to-day. The Lord don’t take up with humans who commits theft. I don’t know what made me so bad. I reckon the old devil just came along and got the upper hand on me.”
    Every one got down on his knees, except Ellie May and Dude. They sat on the steps eating and watching.
    “You know,” Bessie said, “some people make an objection to kneeling down and having prayer out of doors. They don’t like to have me pray for them on the front porch or in the yard. They say, ‘Sister Bessie, can’t we go in the house out of sight and pray there just as good?’ And do you know what I tell them? I say, ‘Brothers and Sisters, I ain’t ashamed to pray out here in the open. I want folks passing along the road to know I’m on God’s side. I ain’t ashamed to let folks see me pray. It’s the old devil that’s always whispering about going in the house out of sight.’ That’s the way I stick up for the Lord. I kneel right down and pray in the big road just as loud as I do in a schoolhouse or at a camp-meeting. I ain’t ashamed to pray in the front yard or on the porch. It’s the old devil who’s always telling folks to go in the house out of sight.”
    “The good Lord be praised,” Jeeter said.
    “Let’s get ready