know it’s not as good.”
He held the twenty cent one in his hands, drawing it through his
fingers. “I reckon I’ll take this hyer one,” he says. I offered to take
it and wrap it, but he rolled it up and put it in his overalls. Then he
took out a tobacco sack and finally got it untied and shook some coins
out. He handed me a quarter. “That fifteen cents will buy me a snack of
dinner,” he says.
“All right,” I says, “You’re the doctor. But dont come complaining to me
next year when you have to buy a new outfit.”
“I aint makin next year’s crop yit,” he says. Finally I got rid of him,
but every time I took that letter out something would come up. They were
all in town for the show, coming in in droves to give their money to
something that brought nothing to the town and wouldn’t leave anything
except what those grafters in the Mayor’s office will split among
themselves, and Earl chasing back and forth like a hen in a coop, saying
“Yes, ma’am, Mr Compson will wait on you. Jason, show this lady a churn
or a nickel’s worth of screen hooks.”
Well, Jason likes work. I says no I never had university advantages
because at Harvard they teach you how to go for a swim at night without
knowing how to swim and at Sewanee they dont even teach you what water
is. I says you might send me to the state University; maybe I’ll learn
how to stop my clock with a nose spray and then you can send Ben to the
Navy I says or to the cavalry anyway, they use geldings in the cavalry.
Then when she sent Quentin home for me to feed too I says I guess that’s
right too, instead of me having to go way up north for a job they sent
the job down here to me and then Mother begun to cry and I says it’s not
that I have any objection to having it here; if it’s any satisfaction to
you I’ll quit work and nurse it myself and let you and Dilsey keep the
flour barrel full, or Ben. Rent him out to a sideshow; there must be
folks somewhere that would pay a dime to see him, then she cried more
and kept saying my poor afflicted baby and I says yes he’ll be quite a
help to you when he gets his growth not being more than one and a half
times as high as me now and she says she’d be dead soon and then we’d
all be better off and so I says all right, all right, have it your way.
It’s your grandchild, which is more than any other grandparents it’s got
can say for certain. Only I says it’s only a question of time. If you
believe she’ll do what she says and not try to see it, you fool yourself
because the first time that was that Mother kept on saying thank God you
are not a Compson except in name, because you are all I have left now,
you and Maury, and I says well I could spare Uncle Maury myself and then
they came and said they were ready to start. Mother stopped crying then.
She pulled her veil down and we went down stairs. Uncle Maury was coming
out of the diningroom, his handkerchief to his mouth. They kind of made
a lane and we went out the door just in time to see Dilsey driving Ben
and T. P. back around the corner. We went down the steps and got in.
Uncle Maury kept saying Poor little sister, poor little sister, talking
around his mouth and patting Mother’s hand. Talking around whatever it
was.
“Have you got your band on?” she says. “Why dont they go on, before
Benjamin comes out and makes a spectacle. Poor little boy. He doesn’t
know. He cant even realise.”
“There, there,” Uncle Maury says, patting her hand, talking around his
mouth. “It’s better so. Let him be unaware of bereavement until he has
to.”
“Other women have their children to support them in times like this,”
Mother says.
“You have Jason and me,” he says.
“It’s so terrible to me,” she says, “Having the two of them like this,
in less than two years.”
“There, there,” he says. After a while he kind of sneaked his hand to
his mouth and dropped them out the window. Then I knew what I had been
smelling. Clove stems. I reckon he thought that the least he could do at
Father’s funeral or maybe the sideboard thought it was still Father and
tripped him up when he passed. Like I say, if he had to sell something
to send Quentin to Harvard we’d all been a damn sight better off if he’d
sold that sideboard and bought himself a one-armed strait jacket with
part of the money. I reckon the reason all the Compson gave out before
it got to me like Mother says, is that he drank it up. At least I never
heard of him offering to sell anything to send me to Harvard.
So he kept on patting her hand and saying “Poor little sister,” patting
her hand with one of the black gloves that we got the bill for four days
later because it was the twenty-sixth because it was the same day one
month that Father went up there and got it and brought it home and
wouldn’t tell anything about where she was or anything and Mother crying
and saying “And you didn’t even see him? You didn’t even try to get him
to make any provision for it?” and Father says “No she shall not touch
his money not one cent of it” and Mother says “He can be forced to by
law. He can prove nothing, unless—Jason Compson,” she says, “Were you
fool enough to tell—”
“Hush, Caroline,” Father says, then he sent me to help Dilsey get that
old cradle out of the attic and I says,
“Well, they brought my job home tonight” because all the time we kept
hoping they’d get things straightened out and he’d keep her because
Mother kept saying she would at least have enough regard for the family
not to jeopardize my chance after she and Quentin had had theirs.
“And whar else do she belong?” Dilsey says, “Who else gwine raise her
’cep me? Aint I raised eve’y one of y’all?”
“And a damn fine job you made of it,” I says. “Anyway it’ll give her
something to sure enough worry over now.” So we carried the cradle down
and Dilsey started to set it up in her old room. Then Mother started
sure enough.
“Hush, Miss Cahline,” Dilsey says, “You gwine wake her up.”
“In there?” Mother says, “To be contaminated by that atmosphere? It’ll
be hard enough as it is, with the heritage she already has.”
“Hush,” Father says, “Dont be silly.”
“Why aint she gwine sleep in here,” Dilsey says, “In the same room whar
I put her ma to bed ev’y night of her life since she was big enough to
sleep by herself.”
“You dont know,” Mother says, “To have my own daughter cast off by her
husband. Poor little innocent baby,” she says, looking at Quentin. “You
will never know the suffering you’ve caused.”
“Hush, Caroline,” Father says.
“What you want to go on like that fo Jason fer?” Dilsey says.
“I’ve tried to protect him,” Mother says. “I’ve always tried to protect
him from it. At least I can do my best to shield her.”
“How sleepin in dis room gwine hurt her, I like to know,” Dilsey says.
“I cant help it,” Mother says. “I know I’m just a troublesome old woman.
But I know that people cannot flout God’s laws with impunity.”
“Nonsense,” Father said. “Fix it in Miss Caroline’s room then, Dilsey.”
“You can say nonsense,” Mother says. “But she must never know. She must
never even learn that name. Dilsey, I forbid you ever to speak that name
in her hearing. If she could grow up never to know that she had a
mother, I would thank God.”
“Dont be a fool,” Father says.
“I have never interfered with the way you brought them up,” Mother says,
“But now I cannot stand anymore. We must decide this now, tonight.
Either that name is never to be spoken in her hearing, or she must go,
or I will go. Take your choice.”
“Hush,” Father says, “You’re just upset. Fix it in here, Dilsey.”
“En you’s about sick too,” Dilsey says. “You looks like a hant. You git
in bed and I’ll fix you a toddy and see kin you sleep. I bet you aint
had a full night’s sleep since you lef.”
“No,” Mother says, “Dont you know what the doctor says? Why must you
encourage him to drink? That’s what’s the matter with him now. Look at
me, I suffer too, but I’m not so weak that I must kill myself with
whiskey.”
“Fiddlesticks,” Father says, “What do doctors know? They make their
livings advising people to do whatever they are not doing at the time,
which is the extent of anyone’s knowledge of the degenerate ape. You’ll
have a minister in to hold my hand next.” Then Mother cried, and he went
out. Went down stairs, and then I heard the sideboard. I woke up and
heard him going down again. Mother had gone to sleep or something,
because the house was quiet at last. He was trying to be quiet too,
because I couldn’t hear him, only the bottom of his nightshirt and his
bare legs in front of the sideboard.
Dilsey fixed the cradle and undressed her and put her in it. She never
had waked up since he brought her in the house.
“She pretty near too big fer hit,” Dilsey says. “Dar now. I gwine spread
me a pallet right acrost de hall, so you wont need to git up in de
night.”
“I wont sleep,” Mother says. “You go on home. I wont mind. I’ll be happy
to give the rest of my life to her, if I can just prevent—”
“Hush, now,” Dilsey says. “We gwine take keer of her. En you go on to
bed too,” she says to me, “You got to go to school tomorrow.”
So I went out, then Mother called me back and cried on me awhile.
“You are my only hope,” she says. “Every night I thank God for you.”
While we were waiting there for them to start she says Thank God if he
had to be taken too, it is you left me and not Quentin. Thank God you
are not a Compson, because all I have left now is you and Maury and I
says, Well I could spare Uncle Maury myself. Well, he kept on patting
her hand with his black glove, talking away from her. He took them off
when his turn with the shovel came. He got up near the first, where they
were holding the umbrellas over them, stamping every now and then and
trying to kick the mud off their feet and sticking to the shovels so
they’d have to knock it off, making a hollow sound when it fell on it,
and when I stepped back around the hack I could see him behind a
tombstone, taking another one out of a bottle. I thought he never was
going to stop because I had on my new suit too, but it happened that
there wasn’t much mud on the wheels yet, only Mother saw it and says I
dont know when you’ll ever have another one and Uncle Maury says, “Now,
now. Dont you worry at all. You have me to depend on, always.”
And we have. Always. The fourth letter was from him. But there wasn’t
any need to open it. I could have written it myself, or recited it to
her from memory, adding ten dollars just to be safe. But I had a hunch
about that other letter. I just felt that it was about time she was up
to some of her tricks again. She got pretty wise after that first time.
She found out pretty quick that I was a different breed of cat from
Father. When they begun to get it filled up toward the top Mother
started crying sure enough, so Uncle Maury got in with her and drove
off. He says You can come in with somebody; they’ll be glad to give you
a lift. I’ll have to take your mother on and I thought about saying, Yes
you ought to brought two bottles instead of just one only I thought
about where we were, so I let them go on. Little they cared how wet I
got, because then Mother could have a whale of a time being afraid I was
taking pneumonia.
Well, I got to thinking about that and watching them throwing dirt into
it, slapping it on anyway like they were making mortar or something or
building a fence, and I began to feel sort of funny and so I decided to
walk around a while. I thought that if I went toward town they’d catch
up and be trying to make me get in one of them, so I went on back toward
the nigger graveyard. I got under some cedars, where the rain didn’t
come much, only dripping now and then, where I could see when they got
through and went away. After a while they were all gone and I waited a
minute and came out.
I had to follow the path to keep out of the wet grass so I didn’t see
her until I was pretty near there, standing there in a black cloak,
looking at the flowers. I knew who it was right off, before she turned
and looked at me and lifted up her veil.
“Hello, Jason,” she says, holding out her hand. We shook hands.
“What are you doing here?” I says. “I thought you promised her you
wouldn’t come back here. I thought you had more sense than that.”
“Yes?” she says. She looked at the flowers again. There must have been
fifty dollars’ worth. Somebody had put one bunch on Quentin’s. “You
did?” she says.
“I’m not surprised though,” I says. “I wouldn’t put anything past you.
You dont mind anybody. You dont give a damn about anybody.”
“Oh,” she says, “that job.” She looked at the grave. “I’m sorry about
that, Jason.”
“I bet you are,” I says. “You’ll talk mighty meek now. But you needn’t
have come back. There’s not anything left. Ask Uncle Maury, if you dont
believe me.”
“I dont want anything,” she says. She looked at the grave. “Why didn’t
they let me know?” she says. “I just happened to see it in the paper. On
the back page. Just happened to.”
I didn’t say anything. We stood there, looking at the grave, and then I
got to thinking about when we were little and one thing and another and
I got to feeling funny again, kind of mad or something, thinking about
now we’d have Uncle Maury around the house all the time, running things
like the way he left me to come home in the rain by myself. I says,
“A fine lot you care, sneaking in here soon as he’s dead. But it wont do
you any good. Dont think that you can take advantage of this to come
sneaking back. If you cant stay on the horse you’ve got, you’ll have to
walk,” I says. “We dont even know your name at that house,” I says. “Do
you know that? We don’t even know you with him and Quentin,” I says. “Do
you know that?”
“I know it,” she says. “Jason,” she says, looking at the grave, “if
you’ll fix it so I can see her a minute I’ll give you fifty dollars.”
“You haven’t got fifty dollars,” I says.
“Will you?” she says, not looking at me.
“Let’s see it,” I says. “I dont believe you’ve got fifty dollars.”
I could see where her hands were moving under her cloak, then she held
her hand out. Damn if it wasn’t full of money. I could see two or three
yellow ones.
“Does he still give you money?” I says. “How much does he send you?”
“I’ll give you a hundred,” she says. “Will you?”
“Just a minute,” I says, “And just like I say. I wouldn’t have her know
it for a thousand dollars.”
“Yes,” she says. “Just like you say do it. Just so I see her a minute. I
wont beg or do anything. I’ll go right on away.”
“Give me the money,” I says.
“I’ll give it to you afterward,” she says.
“Dont you trust me?” I says.
“No,” she says. “I know you. I grew up with you.”
“You’re a fine one to talk about trusting people,” I says. “Well,” I
says, “I got to get on out of the rain. Goodbye.” I made to go away.
“Jason,” she says. I stopped.
“Yes?” I says. “Hurry up. I’m getting wet.”
“All right,” she says. “Here.” There wasn’t anybody in sight. I went
back and took the money. She still held to it. “You’ll do it?” she says,
looking at me from under the veil, “You promise?”
“Let go,” I says, “You want somebody to come along and see us?”
She let go. I put the money in my pocket. “You’ll do it, Jason?” she
says. “I wouldn’t ask you, if there was any other way.”
“You’re damn right there’s no other way,” I says. “Sure I’ll do it. I
said I would, didn’t I? Only you’ll have to do just like I say, now.”
“Yes,” she says, “I will.” So I told her where to be, and went to the
livery stable. I hurried and got there just as they were unhitching the
hack. I asked if they had paid for it yet and he said No and I said Mrs
Compson forgot something and wanted it again, so they let me take it.
Mink was driving. I bought him a cigar, so we drove around until it
begun to get dark on the back streets where they wouldn’t see him. Then
Mink said he’d have to take the team on back and so I said I’d buy him
another cigar and so we drove into the lane and I went across the yard
to the house. I stopped in the hall until I could hear Mother and Uncle
Maury upstairs, then I went on back to the kitchen. She and Ben were
there with Dilsey. I said Mother wanted her and I took her into the
house. I found Uncle Maury’s raincoat and put it around her and picked
her up and went back to the lane and got in the hack. I told Mink to
drive to the depot. He was afraid to pass the stable, so we had to go
the back way and I saw her standing on the corner under the light and I
told Mink to drive close to the walk and when I said Go on, to give the
team a bat. Then I took the raincoat off of her and held her to the
window and Caddy saw her and sort of jumped forward.
“Hit ’em, Mink!” I says, and Mink gave them a cut and we went past her
like a fire engine. “Now get on that train like you promised,” I says. I
could see her running after us through the back window. “Hit ’em again,”
I says, “Let’s get on home.” When we turned the corner she was still
running.
And so I counted the money again that night and put it away, and I
didn’t feel so bad. I says I reckon that’ll show you. I reckon you’ll
know now that you cant beat me out of a job and get away with it. It
never occurred to me she wouldn’t keep her promise and take that train.
But I didn’t know much about them then; I didn’t have any more sense
than to believe what they said, because the next morning damn if she
didn’t walk right into the store, only she had sense enough to wear the
veil and not speak to anybody. It was Saturday morning, because I was at
the store, and she came right on back to the desk where I was, walking
fast.
“Liar,” she says, “Liar.”
“Are you crazy?” I says. “What do you mean? coming in here like this?”
She started in, but I shut her off. I says, “You already cost me one
job; do you want me to lose this one too? If you’ve got anything to say
to me, I’ll meet you somewhere after dark. What have you got to say to
me?” I says, “Didn’t I do everything I said? I said see her a minute,
didn’t I? Well, didn’t you?” She just stood there looking at me, shaking
like an ague-fit, her hands clenched and kind of jerking. “I did just
what I said I would,” I says, “You’re the one that lied. You promised to
take that train. Didn’t you Didn’t you promise? If you think you can get
that money back, just try it,” I says. “If it’d been a thousand dollars,
you’d still owe me after the risk I took. And if I see or hear you’re
still in town after number 17 runs,” I says, “I’ll tell Mother and Uncle
Maury. Then hold your breath until you see her again.” She just stood
there, looking at me, twisting her hands together.
“Damn you,” she says, “Damn you.”
“Sure,” I says, “That’s all right too. Mind what I say, now. After
number 17, and I tell them.”
After she was gone I felt better. I says I reckon you’ll think twice
before you deprive me of a job that was promised me. I was a kid then. I
believed folks when they said they’d do things. I’ve learned better
since. Besides, like I say I guess I dont need any man’s help to get
along I can stand on my own feet like I always have. Then all of a
sudden I thought of Dilsey and Uncle Maury. I thought how she’d get
around Dilsey and that Uncle Maury would do anything for ten dollars.
And there I was, couldn’t even get away from the store to protect my own
Mother. Like she says, if one of you had to be taken, thank God it was
you left me I can depend on you and I says well I dont reckon I’ll ever
get far enough from the store to get out of your reach. Somebody’s got
to hold on to what little we have left, I reckon.
So as soon as I got home I fixed Dilsey. I told Dilsey she had leprosy
and I got the bible and read where a man’s flesh rotted off and I told
her that if she ever looked at her or Ben or Quentin they’d catch it
too. So I thought I had everything all fixed until that day when I came
home and found Ben bellowing. Raising hell and nobody could quiet him.
Mother said, Well, get him the slipper then. Dilsey made out she didn’t
hear. Mother said it again and I says I’d go I couldn’t stand that damn
noise. Like I say I can stand lots of things I dont expect much from
them but if I have to work all day long in a damn store damn if I dont
think I deserve a little peace and quiet to eat dinner in. So I says I’d
go and Dilsey says quick, “Jason!”
Well, like a flash I knew what was up, but just to make sure I went and
got the slipper and brought it back, and just like I thought, when he
saw it you’d thought we were killing him. So I made Dilsey own up, then
I told Mother. We had to take her up to bed then, and after things got
quieted down a little I put the fear of God into Dilsey. As much as you
can into a nigger, that is. That’s the trouble with nigger servants,
when they’ve been with you for a long time they get so full of self
importance that they’re not worth a damn. Think they run the whole
family.
“I like to know whut’s de hurt in lettin dat po chile see her own baby,”
Dilsey says. “If Mr Jason was still here hit ud be different.”
“Only Mr Jason’s not here,” I says. “I know you wont pay me any mind,
but I reckon you’ll do what Mother says. You keep on worrying her like
this until you get her into the graveyard too, then you can fill the
whole house full of ragtag and bobtail. But what did you want to let
that damn idiot see her for?”
“You’s a cold man, Jason, if man you is,” she says. “I thank de Lawd I
got mo heart dan dat, even ef hit is black.”
“At least I’m man enough to keep that flour barrel full,” I says. “And
if you do that again, you wont be eating out of it either.”
So the next time I told her that if she tried Dilsey again, Mother was
going to fire Dilsey and send Ben to Jackson and take Quentin and go
away. She looked at me for a while. There wasn’t any street light close
and I couldn’t see her face much. But I could feel her looking at me.
When we were little when she’d get mad and couldn’t do anything about it
her upper lip would begin to jump. Everytime it jumped it would leave a
little more of her teeth showing, and all the time she’d be as still as
a post, not a muscle moving except her lip jerking higher and higher up
her teeth. But she didn’t say anything. She just said,
“All right. How much?”
“Well, if one look through a hack window was worth a hundred,” I says.
So after that she behaved pretty well, only one time she asked to see a
statement of the bank account.
“I know they have Mother’s indorsement on them,” she says, “But I want
to see the bank statement. I want to see myself where those checks go.”
“That’s in Mother’s private business,” I says. “If you think you have
any right to pry into her private affairs I’ll tell her you believe
those checks are being misappropriated and you want an audit because you
dont trust her.”
She didn’t say anything or move. I could hear her whispering Damn you oh
damn you oh damn you.
“Say it out,” I says, “I dont reckon it’s any secret what you and I
think of one another. Maybe you want the money back,” I says.
“Listen, Jason,” she says, “Dont lie to me now. About her. I wont ask to
see anything. If that isn’t enough, I’ll send more each month. Just
promise that she’ll—that she—You can do that. Things for her. Be kind
to her. Little things that I cant, they wont let. . . . But you wont.
You never had a drop of warm blood in you. Listen,” she says, “If you’ll
get Mother to let me have her back, I’ll give you a thousand dollars.”
“You haven’t got a thousand dollars,” I says, “I know you’re lying now.”
“Yes I have. I will have. I can get it.”
“And I know how you’ll get it,” I says, “You’ll get it the same way you
got her. And when she gets big enough—” Then I thought she really was
going to hit at me, and then I didn’t know what she was going to do. She
acted for a minute like some kind of a toy that’s wound up too tight and
about to burst all to pieces.
“Oh, I’m crazy,” she says, “I’m insane. I can’t take her. Keep her. What
am I thinking of. Jason,” she says, grabbing my arm. Her hands were hot
as fever. “You’ll have to promise to take care of her, to—She’s kin to
you; your own flesh and blood. Promise, Jason. You have Father’s name:
do you think I’d have to ask him twice? once, even?”
“That’s so,” I says, “He did leave me something. What do you want me to
do,” I says, “Buy an apron and a go-cart? I never got you into this,” I
says. “I run more risk than you do, because you haven’t got anything at
stake. So if you expect—”
“No,” she says, then she begun to laugh and to try to hold it back all
at the same time. “No. I have nothing at stake,” she says, making that
noise, putting her hands to her mouth, “Nuh-nuh-nothing,” she says.
“Here,” I says, “Stop that!”
“I’m tr-trying to,” she says, holding her hands over her mouth. “Oh God,
oh God.”
“I’m going away from here,” I says, “I cant be seen here. You get on out
of town now, you hear?”