Until the sun slipped finally behind the tree line, Mrs. Turpin
remained there with her gaze bent to them as if she were absorbing
some abysmal life-giving knowledge. At last she lifted her head.
There was only a purple streak in the sky, cutting through a field of
crimson and leading, like an extension of the highway, into the
descending dusk. She raised her hands from the side of the pen in a
gesture hieratic and profound. A visionary light settled in her eyes.
She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from
the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls
were tumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of
white trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black
niggers in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics
shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the
end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at
once as those who , like herself and Claud, had always had a little of
everything and the given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to
observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with
great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order
and common sense and respectable behavior. They, alone were on
key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces even their
virtues were being burned away. She lowered hands and gripped the
rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed unblinkingly on what lay
ahead. In a moment the vision faded but she remained where she
was.

At length she got down and turned off the faucet and in her slow
way on the darkening path to the house. In woods around her the
invisible cricket choruses had struck up, but what she heard were
the voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry field and
shouting hallelujah.

F. O'Connor