Easter in Pittsburgh

Even on Easter Sunday when the church was a jungle of lilies and ferns fat Uncle Paul who loved his liquor so would pound away with both fists on the stone pulpit shouting sin sin sin and the fiery fires of hell and I cried all after- noon the first time I heard what they did to Jesus it was something the children shouldn’t know about till they were older but the new maid told me and both of us cried a lot and so mother got another one right away & she sent away Miss Richardson who came all the way from England because she kept telling how her fiancé Mr. Bowles- Lyon died suddenly of a heart attack he just said one day at lunch I’m afraid I’m not well and the next thing they knew he was sliding un- der the table. Easter was nice the eggs were silly but the big lilies were wonderful & when Uncle Paul got so fat from drinking that he couldn’t squeeze into the pulpit anymore & had to preach from the floor there was an el- ders’ meeting and they said they would have the pulpit rebuilt but Uncle Paul said no it was the Lord’s manifest will and he would pass his remaining years in sacred studies I liked Thanksgiving better be- cause that was the day father took us down to the mills but Easter I liked next best and the rabbits died because we fed them beet tops and the lamb pulled up the grass by the roots and was sold to Mr. Page the butcher I asked Uncle Robert what were sacred studies he said he was not really sure but he guessed they came in a bottle and mother sent me away from the table when I wouldn’t eat my lamb chops that was ridiculous she said it wasn’t the lamb of God it was just Caesar An- dromache Nibbles but I couldn’t I just couldn’t & the year of the strike we didn’t go to Church at all on Easter because they said it wasn’t safe down town so instead we had prayers in the library and then right in the mid- dle the telephone rang it was Mr. Shupstead at the mill they had had to use tear gas father made a special prayer right a- way for God’s protection & mercy and then he sent us out to the farm with mother we stayed a week and missed school but it rained a lot and I broke the bathroom mirror and had to learn a long psalm.