to stop and figure out just where the car would be. I knew they wouldn’t
be far from it, just under the closest bush, so I turned and worked back
toward the road. Then I couldn’t tell just how far I was, so I’d have to
stop and listen, and then with my legs not using so much blood, it all
would go into my head like it would explode any minute, and the sun
getting down just to where it could shine straight into my eyes and my
ears ringing so I couldn’t hear anything. I went on, trying to move
quiet, then I heard a dog or something and I knew that when he scented
me he’d have to come helling up, then it would be all off.
I had gotten beggar lice and twigs and stuff all over me, inside my
clothes and shoes and all, and then I happened to look around and I had
my hand right on a bunch of poison oak. The only thing I couldn’t
understand was why it was just poison oak and not a snake or something.
So I didn’t even bother to move it. I just stood there until the dog
went away. Then I went on.
I didn’t have any idea where the car was now. I couldn’t think about
anything except my head, and I’d just stand in one place and sort of
wonder if I had really seen a ford even, and I didn’t even care much
whether I had or not. Like I say, let her lay out all day and all night
with everything in town that wears pants, what do I care. I dont owe
anything to anybody that has no more consideration for me, that wouldn’t
be a damn bit above planting that ford there and making me spend a whole
afternoon and Earl taking her back there and showing her the books just
because he’s too damn virtuous for this world. I says you’ll have one
hell of a time in heaven, without anybody’s business to meddle in only
dont you ever let me catch you at it I says, I close my eyes to it
because of your grandmother, but just you let me catch you doing it one
time on this place, where my mother lives. These damn little slick
haired squirts, thinking they are raising so much hell, I’ll show them
something about hell I says, and you too. I’ll make him think that damn
red tie is the latch string to hell, if he thinks he can run the woods
with my niece.
With the sun and all in my eyes and my blood going so I kept thinking
every time my head would go on and burst and get it over with, with
briers and things grabbing at me, then I came onto the sand ditch where
they had been and I recognised the tree where the car was, and just as I
got out of the ditch and started running I heard the car start. It went
off fast, blowing the horn. They kept on blowing it, like it was saying
Yah. Yah. Yaaahhhhhhhh, going out of sight. I got to the road just in
time to see it go out of sight.
By the time I got up to where my car was, they were clean out of sight,
the horn still blowing. Well, I never thought anything about it except I
was saying Run. Run back to town. Run home and try to convince Mother
that I never saw you in that car. Try to make her believe that I dont
know who he was. Try to make her believe that I didn’t miss ten feet of
catching you in that ditch. Try to make her believe you were standing
up, too.
It kept on saying Yahhhhh, Yahhhhh, Yaaahhhhhhhhh, getting fainter and
fainter. Then it quit, and I could hear a cow lowing up at Russell’s
barn. And still I never thought. I went up to the door and opened it and
raised my foot. I kind of thought then that the car was leaning a little
more than the slant of the road would be, but I never found it out until
I got in and started off.
Well, I just sat there. It was getting on toward sundown, and town was
about five miles. They never even had guts enough to puncture it, to jab
a hole in it. They just let the air out. I just stood there for awhile,
thinking about that kitchen full of niggers and not one of them had time
to lift a tire onto the rack and screw up a couple of bolts. It was kind
of funny because even she couldn’t have seen far enough ahead to take
the pump out on purpose, unless she thought about it while he was
letting out the air maybe. But what it probably was, was somebody took
it out and gave it to Ben to play with for a squirt gun because they’d
take the whole car to pieces if he wanted it and Dilsey says, Aint
nobody teched yo car. What we want to fool with hit fer? and I says
You’re a nigger. You’re lucky, do you know it? I says I’ll swap with you
any day because it takes a white man not to have anymore sense than to
worry about what a little slut of a girl does.
I walked up to Russell’s. He had a pump. That was just an oversight on
their part, I reckon. Only I still couldn’t believe she’d have had the
nerve to. I kept thinking that. I dont know why it is I cant seem to
learn that a woman’ll do anything. I kept thinking, Let’s forget for
awhile how I feel toward you and how you feel toward me: I just wouldn’t
do you this way. I wouldn’t do you this way no matter what you had done
to me. Because like I say blood is blood and you cant get around it.
It’s not playing a joke that any eight year old boy could have thought
of, it’s letting your own uncle be laughed at by a man that would wear a
red tie. They come into town and call us all a bunch of hicks and think
it’s too small to hold them. Well he doesn’t know just how right he is.
And her too. If that’s the way she feels about it, she’d better keep
right on going and a damn good riddance.
I stopped and returned Russell’s pump and drove on to town. I went to
the drugstore and got a coca-cola and then I went to the telegraph
office. It had closed at 12.21, forty points down. Forty times five
dollars; buy something with that if you can, and she’ll say, I’ve got to
have it I’ve just got to and I’ll say that’s too bad you’ll have to try
somebody else, I haven’t got any money; I’ve been too busy to make any.
I just looked at him.
“I’ll tell you some news,” I says, “You’ll be astonished to learn that I
am interested in the cotton market,” I says. “That never occurred to
you, did it?”
“I did my best to deliver it,” he says. “I tried the store twice and
called up your house, but they didn’t know where you were,” he says,
digging in the drawer.
“Deliver what?” I says. He handed me a telegram. “What time did this
come?” I says.
“About half past three,” he says.
“And now it’s ten minutes past five,” I says.
“I tried to deliver it,” he says. “I couldn’t find you.”
“That’s not my fault, is it?” I says. I opened it, just to see what kind
of a lie they’d tell me this time. They must be in one hell of a shape
if they’ve got to come all the way to Mississippi to steal ten dollars a
month. Sell, it says. The market will be unstable, with a general
downward tendency. Do not be alarmed following government report.
“How much would a message like this cost?” I says. He told me.
“They paid it,” he says.
“Then I owe them that much,” I says. “I already knew this. Send this
collect,” I says, taking a blank. Buy, I wrote, Market just on point of
blowing its head off. Occasional flurries for purpose of hooking a few
more country suckers who haven’t got in to the telegraph office yet. Do
not be alarmed. “Send that collect,” I says.
He looked at the message, then he looked at the clock. “Market closed an
hour ago,” he says.
“Well,” I says, “That’s not my fault either. I didn’t invent it; I just
bought a little of it while under the impression that the telegraph
company would keep me informed as to what it was doing.”
“A report is posted whenever it comes in,” he says.
“Yes,” I says, “And in Memphis they have it on a blackboard every ten
seconds,” I says. “I was within sixty-seven miles of there once this
afternoon.”
He looked at the message. “You want to send this?” he says.
“I still haven’t changed my mind,” I says. I wrote the other one out and
counted the money. “And this one too, if you’re sure you can spell
b-u-y.”
I went back to the store. I could hear the band from down the street.
Prohibition’s a fine thing. Used to be they’d come in Saturday with just
one pair of shoes in the family and him wearing them, and they’d go down
to the express office and get his package; now they all go to the show
barefooted, with the merchants in the door like a row of tigers or
something in a cage, watching them pass. Earl says,
“I hope it wasn’t anything serious.”
“What?” I says. He looked at his watch. Then he went to the door and
looked at the courthouse clock. “You ought to have a dollar watch,” I
says. “It wont cost you so much to believe it’s lying each time.”
“What?” he says.
“Nothing,” I says. “Hope I haven’t inconvenienced you.”
“We were not busy much,” he says. “They all went to the show. It’s all
right.”
“If it’s not all right,” I says, “You know what you can do about it.”
“I said it was all right,” he says.
“I heard you,” I says. “And if it’s not all right, you know what you can
do about it.”
“Do you want to quit?” he says.
“It’s not my business,” I says. “My wishes dont matter. But dont get the
idea that you are protecting me by keeping me.”
“You’d be a good business man if you’d let yourself, Jason,” he says.
“At least I can tend to my own business and let other peoples’ alone,” I
says.
“I dont know why you are trying to make me fire you,” he says. “You know
you could quit anytime and there wouldn’t be any hard feelings between
us.”
“Maybe that’s why I dont quit,” I says. “As long as I tend to my job,
that’s what you are paying me for.” I went on to the back and got a
drink of water and went on out to the back door. Job had the cultivators
all set up at last. It was quiet there, and pretty soon my head got a
little easier. I could hear them singing now, and then the band played
again. Well, let them get every quarter and dime in the county; it was
no skin off my back. I’ve done what I could; a man that can live as long
as I have and not know when to quit is a fool. Especially as it’s no
business of mine. If it was my own daughter now it would be different,
because she wouldn’t have time to; she’d have to work some to feed a few
invalids and idiots and niggers, because how could I have the face to
bring anybody there. I’ve too much respect for anybody to do that. I’m a
man, I can stand it, it’s my own flesh and blood and I’d like to see the
colour of the man’s eyes that would speak disrespectful of any woman
that was my friend it’s these damn good women that do it I’d like to see
the good, church-going woman that’s half as square as Lorraine, whore or
no whore. Like I say if I was to get married you’d go up like a balloon
and you know it and she says I want you to be happy to have a family of
your own not to slave your life away for us. But I’ll be gone soon and
then you can take a wife but you’ll never find a woman who is worthy of
you and I says yes I could. You’d get right up out of your grave you
know you would. I says no thank you I have all the women I can take care
of now if I married a wife she’d probably turn out to be a hophead or
something. That’s all we lack in this family, I says.
The sun was down beyond the Methodist church now, and the pigeons were
flying back and forth around the steeple, and when the band stopped I
could hear them cooing. It hadn’t been four months since Christmas, and
yet they were almost as thick as ever. I reckon Parson Walthall was
getting a belly full of them now. You’d have thought we were shooting
people, with him making speeches and even holding onto a man’s gun when
they came over. Talking about peace on earth good will toward all and
not a sparrow can fall to earth. But what does he care how thick they
get, he hasn’t got anything to do; what does he care what time it is. He
pays no taxes, he doesn’t have to see his money going every year to have
the courthouse clock cleaned to where it’ll run. They had to pay a man
forty-five dollars to clean it. I counted over a hundred half-hatched
pigeons on the ground. You’d think they’d have sense enough to leave
town. It’s a good thing I dont have any more ties than a pigeon, I’ll
say that.
The band was playing again, a loud fast tune, like they were breaking
up. I reckon they’d be satisfied now. Maybe they’d have enough music to
entertain them while they drove fourteen or fifteen miles home and
unharnessed in the dark and fed the stock and milked. All they’d have to
do would be to whistle the music and tell the jokes to the live stock in
the barn, and then they could count up how much they’d made by not
taking the stock to the show too. They could figure that if a man had
five children and seven mules, he cleared a quarter by taking his family
to the show. Just like that. Earl came back with a couple of packages.
“Here’s some more stuff going out,” he says. “Where’s Uncle Job?”
“Gone to the show, I imagine,” I says. “Unless you watched him.”
“He doesn’t slip off,” he says. “I can depend on him.”
“Meaning me by that,” I says.
He went to the door and looked out, listening.
“That’s a good band,” he says. “It’s about time they were breaking up,
I’d say.”
“Unless they’re going to spend the night there,” I says. The swallows
had begun, and I could hear the sparrows beginning to swarm in the trees
in the courthouse yard. Every once in a while a bunch of them would come
swirling around in sight above the roof, then go away. They are as big a
nuisance as the pigeons, to my notion. You cant even sit in the
courthouse yard for them. First thing you know, bing. Right on your hat.
But it would take a millionaire to afford to shoot them at five cents a
shot. If they’d just put a little poison out there in the square, they’d
get rid of them in a day, because if a merchant cant keep his stock from
running around the square, he’d better try to deal in something besides
chickens, something that dont eat, like plows or onions. And if a man
dont keep his dogs up, he either dont want it or he hasn’t any business
with one. Like I say if all the businesses in a town are run like
country businesses, you’re going to have a country town.
“It wont do you any good if they have broke up,” I says. “They’ll have
to hitch up and take out to get home by midnight as it is.”
“Well,” he says, “They enjoy it. Let them spend a little money on a show
now and then. A hill farmer works pretty hard and gets mighty little for
it.”
“There’s no law making them farm in the hills,” I says, “Or anywhere
else.”
“Where would you and me be, if it wasn’t for the farmers?” he says.
“I’d be home right now,” I says, “Lying down, with an ice pack on my
head.”
“You have these headaches too often,” he says. “Why dont you have your
teeth examined good? Did he go over them all this morning?”
“Did who?” I says.
“You said you went to the dentist this morning.”
“Do you object to my having the headache on your time?” I says. “Is that
it?” They were crossing the alley now, coming up from the show.
“There they come,” he says. “I reckon I better get up front.” He went
on. It’s a curious thing how no matter what’s wrong with you, a man’ll
tell you to have your teeth examined and a woman’ll tell you to get
married. It always takes a man that never made much at any thing to tell
you how to run your business, though. Like these college professors
without a whole pair of socks to their name, telling you how to make a
million in ten years, and a woman that couldn’t even get a husband can
always tell you how to raise a family.
Old man Job came up with the wagon. After a while he got through
wrapping the lines around the whip socket.
“Well,” I says, “Was it a good show?”
“I aint been yit,” he says. “But I kin be arrested in dat tent tonight,
dough.”
“Like hell you haven’t,” I says. “You’ve been away from here since three
oclock. Mr Earl was just back here looking for you.”
“I been tendin to my business,” he says. “Mr Earl knows whar I been.”
“You may can fool him,” I says. “I wont tell on you.”
“Den he’s de onliest man here I’d try to fool,” he says. “Whut I want to
waste my time foolin a man whut I dont keer whether I sees him Sat’dy
night er not? I wont try to fool you,” he says. “You too smart fer me.
Yes, suh,” he says, looking busy as hell, putting five or six little
packages into the wagon, “You’s too smart fer me. Aint a man in dis town
kin keep up wid you fer smartness. You fools a man whut so smart he cant
even keep up wid hisself,” he says, getting in the wagon and unwrapping
the reins.
“Who’s that?” I says.
“Dat’s Mr Jason Compson,” he says. “Git up dar, Dan!”
One of the wheels was just about to come off. I watched to see if he’d
get out of the alley before it did. Just turn any vehicle over to a
nigger, though. I says that old rattletrap’s just an eyesore, yet you’ll
keep it standing there in the carriage house a hundred years just so
that boy can ride to the cemetery once a week. I says he’s not the first
fellow that’ll have to do things he doesn’t want to. I’d make him ride
in that car like a civilised man or stay at home. What does he know
about where he goes or what he goes in, and us keeping a carriage and a
horse so he can take a ride on Sunday afternoon.
A lot Job cared whether the wheel came off or not, long as he wouldn’t
have too far to walk back. Like I say the only place for them is in the
field, where they’d have to work from sunup to sundown. They cant stand
prosperity or an easy job. Let one stay around white people for a while
and he’s not worth killing. They get so they can outguess you about work
before your very eyes, like Roskus the only mistake he ever made was he
got careless one day and died. Shirking and stealing and giving you a
little more lip and a little more lip until some day you have to lay
them out with a scantling or something. Well, it’s Earl’s business. But
I’d hate to have my business advertised over this town by an old
doddering nigger and a wagon that you thought every time it turned a
corner it would come all to pieces.
The sun was all high up in the air now, and inside it was beginning to
get dark. I went up front. The square was empty. Earl was back closing
the safe, and then the clock begun to strike.
“You lock the back door,” he says. I went back and locked it and came
back. “I suppose you’re going to the show tonight,” he says. “I gave you
those passes yesterday, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” I said. “You want them back?”
“No, no,” he says, “I just forgot whether I gave them to you or not. No
sense in wasting them.”
He locked the door and said Goodnight and went on. The sparrows were
still rattling away in the trees, but the square was empty except for a
few cars. There was a ford in front of the drugstore, but I didn’t even
look at it. I know when I’ve had enough of anything. I dont mind trying
to help her, but I know when I’ve had enough. I guess I could teach
Luster to drive it, then they could chase her all day long if they
wanted to, and I could stay home and play with Ben.
I went in and got a couple of cigars. Then I thought I’d have another
headache shot for luck, and I stood and talked with them awhile.
“Well,” Mac says, “I reckon you’ve got your money on the Yankees this
year.”
“What for?” I says.
“The Pennant,” he says. “Not anything in the League can beat them.”
“Like hell there’s not,” I says. “They’re shot,” I says. “You think a
team can be that lucky forever?”
“I dont call it luck,” Mac says.
“I wouldn’t bet on any team that fellow Ruth played on,” I says. “Even
if I knew it was going to win.”
“Yes?” Mac says.
“I can name you a dozen men in either League who’re more valuable than
he is,” I says.
“What have you got against Ruth?” Mac says.
“Nothing,” I says. “I haven’t got any thing against him. I dont even
like to look at his picture.” I went on out. The lights were coming on,
and people going along the streets toward home. Sometimes the sparrows
never got still until full dark. The night they turned on the new lights
around the courthouse it waked them up and they were flying around and
blundering into the lights all night long. They kept it up two or three
nights, then one morning they were all gone. Then after about two months
they all came back again.
I drove on home. There were no lights in the house yet, but they’d all
be looking out the windows, and Dilsey jawing away in the kitchen like
it was her own food she was having to keep hot until I got there. You’d
think to hear her that there wasn’t but one supper in the world, and
that was the one she had to keep back a few minutes on my account. Well
at least I could come home one time without finding Ben and that nigger
hanging on the gate like a bear and a monkey in the same cage. Just let
it come toward sundown and he’d head for the gate like a cow for the
barn, hanging onto it and bobbing his head and sort of moaning to
himself. That’s a hog for punishment for you. If what had happened to
him for fooling with open gates had happened to me, I never would want
to see another one. I often wondered what he’d be thinking about, down
there at the gate, watching the girls going home from school, trying to
want something he couldn’t even remember he didn’t and couldn’t want any
longer. And what he’d think when they’d be undressing him and he’d
happen to take a look at himself and begin to cry like he’d do. But like
I say they never did enough of that. I says I know what you need, you
need what they did to Ben then you’d behave. And if you dont know what
that was I says, ask Dilsey to tell you.
There was a light in Mother’s room. I put the car up and went on into
the kitchen. Luster and Ben were there.
“Where’s Dilsey?” I says. “Putting supper on?”
“She upstairs wid Miss Cahline,” Luster says. “Dey been goin hit. Ever
since Miss Quentin come home. Mammy up there keepin um fum fightin. Is
dat show come, Mr Jason?”
“Yes,” I says.
“I thought I heard de band,” he says. “Wish I could go,” he says. “I
could ef I jes had a quarter.”
Dilsey came in. “You come, is you?” she says. “Whut you been up to dis
evenin? You knows how much work I got to do; whyn’t you git here on
time?”
“Maybe I went to the show,” I says. “Is supper ready?”
“Wish I could go,” Luster said. “I could ef I jes had a quarter.”
“You aint got no business at no show,” Dilsey says. “You go on in de
house and set down,” she says. “Dont you go up stairs and git um started
again, now.”
“What’s the matter?” I says.
“Quentin come in a while ago and says you been follerin her around all
evenin and den Miss Cahline jumped on her. Whyn’t you let her alone?
Cant you live in de same house wid you own blood niece widout quoilin?”
“I cant quarrel with her,” I says, “because I haven’t seen her since
this morning. What does she say I’ve done now? made her go to school?
That’s pretty bad,” I says.
“Well, you tend to yo business and let her alone,” Dilsey says, “I’ll
take keer of her ef you’n Miss Cahline’ll let me. Go on in dar now and
behave yoself twell I get supper on.”
“Ef I jes had a quarter,” Luster says, “I could go to dat show.”
“En ef you had wings you could fly to heaven,” Dilsey says. “I dont want
to hear another word about dat show.”
“That reminds me,” I says, “I’ve got a couple of tickets they gave me.”
I took them out of my coat.
“You fixin to use um?” Luster says.
“Not me,” I says. “I wouldn’t go to it for ten dollars.”
“Gimme one of um, Mr Jason,” he says.
“I’ll sell you one,” I says. “How about it?”
“I aint got no money,” he says.
“That’s too bad,” I says. I made to go out.
“Gimme one of um, Mr Jason,” he says. “You aint gwine need um bofe.”
“Hush yo mouf,” Dilsey says, “Dont you know he aint gwine give nothing
away?”
“How much you want fer hit?” he says.
“Five cents,” I says.
“I aint got dat much,” he says.
“How much you got?” I says.
“I aint got nothing,” he says.
“All right,” I says. I went on.
“Mr Jason,” he says.
“Whyn’t you hush up?” Dilsey says. “He jes teasin you. He fixin to use
dem tickets hisself. Go on, Jason, and let him lone.”
“I dont want them,” I says. I came back to the stove. “I came in here to
burn them up. But if you want to buy one for a nickel?” I says, looking
at him and opening the stove lid.
“I aint got dat much,” he says.
“All right,” I says. I dropped one of them in the stove.
“You, Jason,” Dilsey says, “Aint you shamed?”
“Mr Jason,” he says, “Please, suh. I’ll fix dem tires ev’ry day fer a
mont’.”
“I need the cash,” I says. “You can have it for a nickel.”
“Hush, Luster,” Dilsey says. She jerked him back. “Go on,” she says,
“Drop hit in. Go on. Git hit over with.”
“You can have it for a nickel,” I says.
“Go on,” Dilsey says. “He aint got no nickel. Go on. Drop hit in.”
“All right,” I says. I dropped it in and Dilsey shut the stove.
“A big growed man like you,” she says. “Git on outen my kitchen. Hush,”
she says to Luster. “Dont you git Benjy started. I’ll git you a quarter
fum Frony tonight and you kin go tomorrow night. Hush up, now.”
I went on into the living room. I couldn’t hear anything from upstairs.
I opened the paper. After awhile Ben and Luster came in. Ben went to the
dark place on the wall where the mirror used to be, rubbing his hands on
it and slobbering and moaning. Luster begun punching at the fire.
“What’re you doing?” I says. “We dont need any fire tonight.”
“I trying to keep him quiet,” he says. “Hit always cold Easter,” he
says.
“Only this is not Easter,” I says. “Let it alone.”
He put the poker back and got the cushion out of Mother’s chair and gave
it to Ben, and he hunkered down in front of the fireplace and got quiet.