Go Set a Watchman

by Harper Lee

If you did not want much, there was plenty.

How’s Aunty?” “You know good and well she’s been fine for thirty years. Don’t change the subject.”

From the time of Jean Louise’s earliest ecclesiastical recollection, Maycomb had sung the Doxology in one way and in one way only: Praise—God—from—whom—all—blessings—flow, a rendition as much a tradition of Southern Methodism as Pounding the Preacher. That Sunday, Jean Louise and the congregation were in all innocence clearing their throats to drag it accordingly when out of a cloudless sky Mrs. Clyde Haskins crashed down on the organ PraiseGodfromwhomall Bles—sings—Flo—w PraiseHimallcreatures He—re Bee—low PraiseHimaboveye Heav’n—ly Ho—st PraiseFatherSonand Ho—ly Gho—st! In the confusion that followed, if the Archbishop of Canterbury had materialized in full regalia Jean Louise would not have been in the least surprised: the congregation had failed to notice any change in Mrs. Haskins’s lifelong interpretation, and they intoned the Doxology to its bitter end as they had been reared to do, while Mrs. Haskins romped madly ahead like something out of Salisbury Cathedral.