“All right. I’ll tend to her. Quit crying, now.”
“Dont lose your temper,” she says. “She’s just a child, remember.”
“No,” I says. “I wont.” I went out, closing the door.
“Jason,” she says. I didn’t answer. I went down the hall. “Jason,” she says beyond the door. I went on down stairs. There wasn’t anybody in the diningroom, then I heard her in the kitchen. She was trying to make Dilsey let her have another cup of coffee. I went in.
“I reckon that’s your school costume, is it?” I says. “Or maybe today’s a holiday?”
“Just a half a cup, Dilsey,” she says. “Please.”
“No, suh,” Dilsey says. “I aint gwine do it. You aint got no business wid mo’n one cup, a seventeen year old gal, let lone whut Miss Cahline say. You go on and git dressed for school, so you kin ride to town wid Jason. You fixin to be late again.”
“No she’s not,” I says. “We’re going to fix that right now.” She looked at me, the cup in her hand. She brushed her hair back from her face, her kimono slipping off her shoulder. “You put that cup down and come in here a minute,” I says.
“What for?” she says.
“Come on,” I says. “Put that cup in the sink and come in here.”
“What you up to now, Jason?” Dilsey says.
“You may think you can run over me like you do your grandmother and everybody else,” I says. “But you’ll find out different. I’ll give you ten seconds to put that cup down like I told you.”
She quit looking at me. She looked at Dilsey. “What time is it, Dilsey?” she says. “When it’s ten seconds, you whistle. Just a half a cup. Dilsey, pl——”
I grabbed her by the arm. She dropped the cup. It broke on the floor and she jerked back, looking at me, but I held her arm. Dilsey got up from her chair.
“You, Jason,” she says.
“You turn me loose,” Quentin says. “I’ll slap you.”
“You will, will you?” I says. “You will will you?” She slapped at me. I caught that hand too and held her like a wildcat. “You will, will you?” I says. “You think you will?”
“You, Jason!” Dilsey says. I dragged her into the diningroom. Her kimono came unfastened, flapping about her, dam near naked. Dilsey came hobbling along. I turned and kicked the door shut in her face.
“You keep out of here,” I says.
Quentin was leaning against the table, fastening her kimono. I looked at her.
“Now,” I says. “I want to know what you mean, playing out of school and telling your grandmother lies and forging her name on your report and worrying her sick. What do you mean by it?”
She didn’t say anything. She was fastening her kimono up under her chin, pulling it tight around her, looking at me. She hadn’t got around to painting herself yet and her face looked like she had polished it with a gun rag. I went and grabbed her wrist. “What do you mean?” I says.
“None of your damn business,” she says. “You turn me loose.”
Dilsey came in the door. “You, Jason,” she says.
“You get out of here, like I told you,” I says, not even looking back. “I want to know where you go when you play out of school,” I says. “You keep off the streets, or I’d see you. Who do you play out with? Are you hiding out in the woods with one of those dam slick-headed jellybeans? Is that where you go?”
“You—you old goddam!” she says. She fought, but I held her. “You damn old goddam!” she says.
“I’ll show you,” I says. “You may can scare an old woman off, but I’ll show you who’s got hold of you now.” I held her with one hand, then she quit fighting and watched me, her eyes getting wide and black.
“What are you going to do?” she says.
“You wait until I get this belt out and I’ll show you,” I says, pulling my belt out. Then Dilsey grabbed my arm.
“Jason,” she says. “You, Jason! Aint you shamed of yourself.”
“Dilsey,” Quentin says. “Dilsey.”
“I aint gwine let him,” Dilsey says. “Dont you worry, honey.” She held to my arm. Then the belt came out and I jerked loose and flung her away. She stumbled into the table. She was so old she couldn’t do any more than move hardly. But that’s all right: we need somebody in the kitchen to eat up the grub the young ones cant tote off. She came hobbling between us, trying to hold me again. “Hit me, den,” she says, “ef nothin else but hittin somebody wont do you. Hit me,” she says.
“You think I wont?” I says.
“I dont put no devilment beyond you,” she says. Then I heard Mother on the stairs. I might have known she wasn’t going to keep out of it. I let go. She stumbled back against the wall, holding her kimono shut.
“All right,” I says. “We’ll just put this off a while. But dont think you can run it over me. I’m not an old woman, nor an old half dead nigger, either. You dam little slut,” I says.
“Dilsey,” she says. “Dilsey, I want my mother.”
Dilsey went to her. “Now, now,” she says. “He aint gwine so much as lay his hand on you while Ise here.” Mother came on down the stairs.
“Jason,” she says. “Dilsey.”
“Now, now,” Dilsey says. “I aint gwine let him tech you.” She put her hand on Quentin. She knocked it down.
“You damn old nigger,” she says. She ran toward the door.
“Dilsey,” Mother says on the stairs. Quentin ran up the stairs, passing her. “Quentin,” Mother says. “You, Quentin.” Quentin ran on. I could hear her when she reached the top, then in the hall. Then the door slammed.
Mother had stopped. Then she came on. “Dilsey,” she says.
“All right,” Dilsey says. “Ise comin. You go on and git dat car and wait now,” she says, “so you kin cahy her to school.”
“Dont you worry,” I says. “I’ll take her to school and I’m going to see that she stays there. I’ve started this thing, and I’m going through with it.”
“Jason,” Mother says on the stairs.
“Go on, now,” Dilsey says, going toward the door. “You want to git her started too? Ise comin, Miss Cahline.”
I went on out. I could hear them on the steps. “You go on back to bed now,” Dilsey was saying. “Dont you know you aint feeling well enough to git up yet? Go on back, now. I’m gwine to see she gits to school in time.”
I went on out the back to back the car out, then I had to go all the way round to the front before I found them.
“I thought I told you to put that tire on the back of the car,” I says.
“I aint had time,” Luster says. “Aint nobody to watch him till mammy git done in de kitchen.”
“Yes,” I says. “I feed a whole dam kitchen full of niggers to follow around after him, but if I want an automobile tire changed, I have to do it myself.”
“I aint had nobody to leave him wid,” he says. Then he begun moaning and slobbering.
“Take him on round to the back,” I says. “What the hell makes you want to keep him around here where people can see him?” I made them go on, before he got started bellowing good. It’s bad enough on Sundays, with that dam field full of people that haven’t got a side show and six niggers to feed, knocking a dam oversize mothball around. He’s going to keep on running up and down that fence and bellowing every time they come in sight until first thing I know they’re going to begin charging me golf dues, then Mother and Dilsey’ll have to get a couple of china door knobs and a walking stick and work it out, unless I play at night with a lantern. Then they’d send us all to Jackson, maybe. God knows, they’d hold Old Home week when that happened.
I went on back to the garage. There was the tire, leaning against the wall, but be damned if I was going to put it on. I backed out and turned around. She was standing by the drive. I says,
“I know you haven’t got any books: I just want to ask you what you did with them, if it’s any of my business. Of course I haven’t got any right to ask,” I says. “I’m just t
he one that paid $11.65 for them last September.”
“Mother buys my books,” she says. “There’s not a cent of your money on me. I’d starve first.”
“Yes?” I says. “You tell your grandmother that and see what she says. You dont look all the way naked,” I says, “even if that stuff on your face does hide more of you than anything else you’ve got on.”
“Do you think your money or hers either paid for a cent of this?” she says.
“Ask your grandmother,” I says. “Ask her what became of those checks. You saw her burn one of them, as I remember.” She wasn’t even listening, with her face all gummed up with paint and her eyes hard as a fice dog’s.
“Do you know what I’d do if I thought your money or hers either bought one cent of this?” she says, putting her hand on her dress.
“What would you do?” I says. “Wear a barrel?”
“I’d tear it right off and throw it into the street,” she says. “Dont you believe me?”
“Sure you would,” I says. “You do it every time.”
“See if I wouldn’t,” she says. She grabbed the neck of her dress in both hands and made like she would tear it.
“You tear that dress,” I says, “and I’ll give you a whipping right here that you’ll remember all your life.”
“See if I dont,” she says. Then I saw that she really was trying to tear it, to tear it right off of her. By the time I got the car stopped and grabbed her hands there was about a dozen people looking. It made me so mad for a minute it kind of blinded me.
“You do a thing like that again and I’ll make you sorry you ever drew breath,” I says.
“I’m sorry now,” she says. She quit, then her eyes turned kind of funny and I says to myself if you cry here in this car, on the street, I’ll whip you. I’ll wear you out. Lucky for her she didn’t, so I turned her wrists loose and drove on. Luckily we were near an alley, where I could turn into the back street and dodge the square. They were already putting the tent up in Beard’s lot. Earl had already given me the two passes for our show windows. She sat there with her face turned away, chewing her lip. “I’m sorry now,” she says. “I dont see why I was ever born.”
“And I know of at least one other person that dont understand all he knows about that,” I says. I stopped in front of the school house. The bell had rung, and the last of them were just going in. “You’re on time for once, anyway,” I says. “Are you going in there and stay there, or am I coming with you and make you?” She got out and banged the door. “Remember what I say,” I says. “I mean it. Let me hear one more time that you are slipping up and down back alleys with one of those dam squirts.”
She turned back at that. “I dont slip around,” she says. “I dare anybody to know everything I do.”
“And they all know it, too,” I says. “Everybody in this town knows what you are. But I wont have it anymore, you hear? I dont care what you do, myself,” I says. “But I’ve got a position in this town, and I’m not going to have any member of my family going on like a nigger wench. You hear me?”
“I dont care,” she says. “I’m bad and I’m going to hell, and I dont care. I’d rather be in hell than anywhere where you are.”
“If I hear one more time that you haven’t been to school, you’ll wish you were in hell,” I says. She turned and ran on across the yard. “One more time, remember,” I says. She didn’t look back.
I went to the postoffice and got the mail and drove on to the store and parked. Earl looked at me when I came in. I gave him a chance to say something about my being late, but he just said,
“Those cultivators have come. You’d better help Uncle Job put them up.”
I went on to the back, where old Job was uncrating them, at the rate of about three bolts to the hour.
“You ought to be working for me,” I says. “Every other no-count nigger in town eats in my kitchen.”
“I works to suit de man whut pays me Sat’dy night,” he says. “When I does dat, it dont leave me a whole lot of time to please other folks.” He screwed up a nut. “Aint nobody works much in dis country cep de boll-weevil, noways,” he says.
“You’d better be glad you’re not a boll-weevil waiting on those cultivators,” I says. “You’d work yourself to death before they’d be ready to prevent you.”
“Dat’s de troof,” he says. “Boll-weevil got tough time. Work ev’y day in de week out in de hot sun, rain er shine. Aint got no front porch to set on en watch de wattermilyuns growin and Sat’dy dont mean nothin a-tall to him.”
“Saturday wouldn’t mean nothing to you, either,” I says, “if it depended on me to pay you wages. Get those things out of the crates now and drag them inside.”
I opened her letter first and took the check out. Just like a woman. Six days late. Yet they try to make men believe that they’re capable of conducting a business. How long would a man that thought the first of the month came on the sixth last in business. And like as not, when they sent the bank statement out, she would want to know why I never deposited my salary until the sixth. Things like that never occur to a woman.
“I had no answer to my letter about Quentin’s easter dress. Did it arrive all right? I’ve had no answer to the last two letters I wrote her, though the check in the second one was cashed with the other check. Is she sick? Let me know at once or I’ll come there and see for myself. You promised you would let me know when she needed things. I will expect to hear from you before the 10th. No you’d better wire me at once. You are opening my letters to her. I know that as well as if I were looking at you. You’d better wire me at once about her to this address.”
About that time Earl started yelling at Job, so I put them away and went over to try to put some life into him. What this country needs is white labor. Let these dam trifling niggers starve for a couple of years, then they’d see what a soft thing they have.
Along toward ten oclock I went up front. There was a drummer there. It was a couple of minutes to ten, and I invited him up the street to get a dope. We got to talking about crops.
“There’s nothing to it,” I says. “Cotton is a speculator’s crop. They fill the farmer full of hot air and get him to raise a big crop for them to whipsaw on the market, to trim the suckers with. Do you think the farmer gets anything out of it except a red neck and a hump in his back? You think the man that sweats to put it into the ground gets a red cent more than a bare living,” I says. “Let him make a big crop and it wont be worth picking; let him make a small crop and he wont have enough to gin. And what for? so a bunch of dam eastern jews I’m not talking about men of the Jewish religion,” I says. “I’ve known some jews that were fine citizens. You might be one yourself,” I says.
“No,” he says. “I’m an American.”
“No offense,” I says. “I give every man his due, regardless of religion or anything else. I have nothing against jews as an individual,” I says. “It’s just the race. You’ll admit that they produce nothing. They follow the pioneers into a new country and sell them clothes.”
“You’re thinking of Armenians,” he says, “aren’t you. A pioneer wouldn’t have any use for new clothes.”
“No offense,” I says. “I dont hold a man’s religion against him.”
“Sure,” he says. “I’m an American. My folks have some French blood, why I have a nose like this. I’m an American, all right.”
“So am I,” I says. “Not many of us left. What I’m talking about is the fellows that sit up there in New York and trim the sucker gamblers.”
“That’s right,” he says. “Nothing to gambling, for a poor man. There ought to be a law against it.”
“Dont you think I’m right?” I says.
“Yes,” he says. “I guess you’re right. The farmer catches it coming and going.”
“I know I’m right,” I says. “It’s a sucker game, unless a man gets inside information from somebody that knows what’s going on. I happen to be associated with some people who’re r
ight there on the ground. They have one of the biggest manipulators in New York for an adviser. Way I do it,” I says, “I never risk much at a time. It’s the fellow that thinks he knows it all and is trying to make a killing with three dollars that they’re laying for. That’s why they are in the business.”
Then it struck ten. I went up to the telegraph office. It opened up a little, just like they said. I went into the corner and took out the telegram again, just to be sure. While I was looking at it a report came in. It was up two points. They were all buying. I could tell that from what they were saying. Getting aboard. Like they didn’t know it could go but one way. Like there was a law or something against doing anything but buying. Well, I reckon those eastern jews have got to live too. But I’ll be damned if it hasn’t come to a pretty pass when any dam foreigner that cant make a living in the country where God put him, can come to this one and take money right out of an American’s pockets. It was up two points more. Four points. But hell, they were right there and knew what was going on. And if I wasn’t going to take the advice, what was I paying them ten dollars a month for. I went out, then I remembered and came back and sent the wire. “All well. Q writing today.”
“Q?” the operator says.
“Yes,” I says. “Q. Cant you spell Q?”
“I just asked to be sure,” he says.
“You send it like I wrote it and I’ll guarantee you to be sure,” I says. “Send it collect.”
“What you sending, Jason?” Doc Wright says, looking over my shoulder. “Is that a code message to buy?”
“That’s all right about that,” I says. “You boys use your own judgment. You know more about it than those New York folks do.”
“Well, I ought to,” Doc says. “I’d a saved money this year raising it at two cents a pound.”
Another report came in. It was down a point.
“Jason’s selling,” Hopkins says. “Look at his face.”
“That’s all right about what I’m doing,” I says. “You boys follow your own judgment. Those rich New York jews have got to live like everybody else,” I says.
I went on back to the store. Earl was busy up front. I went on back to the desk and read Lorraine’s letter. “Dear daddy wish you were here. No good parties when daddys out of town I miss my sweet daddy.” I reckon she does. Last time I gave her forty dollars. Gave it to her. I never promise a woman anything nor let her know what I’m going to give her. That’s the only way to manage them. Always keep them guessing. If you cant think of any other way to surprise them, give them a bust in the jaw.