I tore it up and burned it over the spittoon. I make it a rule never to keep a scrap of paper bearing a woman’s hand, and I never write them at all. Lorraine is always after me to write to her but I says anything I forgot to tell you will save till I get to Memphis again but I says I dont mind you writing me now and then in a plain envelope, but if you ever try to call me up on the telephone, Memphis wont hold you I says. I says when I’m up there I’m one of the boys, but I’m not going to have any woman calling me on the telephone. Here I says, giving her the forty dollars. If you ever get drunk and take a notion to call me on the phone, just remember this and count ten before you do it.
“When’ll that be?” she says.
“What?” I says.
“When you’re coming back,” she says.
“I’ll let you know,” I says. Then she tried to buy a beer, but I wouldn’t let her. “Keep your money,” I says. “Buy yourself a dress with it.” I gave the maid a five, too. After all, like I say money has no value; it’s just the way you spend it. It dont belong to anybody, so why try to hoard it. It just belongs to the man that can get it and keep it. There’s a man right here in Jefferson made a lot of money selling rotten goods to niggers, lived in a room over the store about the size of a pigpen, and did his own cooking. About four or five years ago he was taken sick. Scared the hell out of him so that when he was up again he joined the church and bought himself a Chinese missionary, five thousand dollars a year. I often think how mad he’ll be if he was to die and find out there’s not any heaven, when he thinks about that five thousand a year. Like I say, he’d better go on and die now and save money.
When it was burned good I was just about to shove the others into my coat when all of a sudden something told me to open Quentin’s before I went home, but about that time Earl started yelling for me up front, so I put them away and went and waited on the dam redneck while he spent fifteen minutes deciding whether he wanted a twenty cent hame string or a thirty-five cent one.
“You’d better take that good one,” I says. “How do you fellows ever expect to get ahead, trying to work with cheap equipment?”
“If this one aint any good,” he says, “why have you got it on sale?”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t any good,” I says. “I said it’s not as good as that other one.”
“How do you know it’s not,” he says. “You ever use airy one of them?”
“Because they dont ask thirty-five cents for it,” I says. “That’s how I 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 the 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 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 dam 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 jeopardise 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 ev’y one of y’all?”
“And a dam 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 Dils
ey 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 maw 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 says. “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 a while.
“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 dam 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 dont even know your name. You’d be better off if you were down there 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. Dam 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.”