God's Little Acre

  Towards morning Will woke up and went to the kitchen for a drink of water. It was cooler then, but still too hot to get under covers. He came back and looked at Pluto on the floor, watching him in the flickering street light that shone through the windows. In the other room he went to the bed and looked down at Rosamond and Darling Jill. He stood beside the bed for several minutes, wide awake, looking down at their white bodies in the dim glow of the street light on the corner. Will thought for a moment of waking Darling Jill, but he felt a little sick and his head was beginning to throb again, and he turned away and went back to his room and closed his eyes. He did not remember anything else until the sun woke him by shining in his face. It was nearly nine o’clock then, and there was not a sound in the house.

  Chapter VI

  Will was lying on his side, looking out the window at the yellow company house next door, when he felt something warm against his back, something that felt like a purring kitten against his bare skin. He turned over, wide awake, partly raised on his elbow.

  “Well, for God’s sake!” he exclaimed.

  Darling Jill sat up and began teasing him. She pulled his hair and ran her hand over his face rather hard, mashing his nose.

  “You wouldn’t get mad at me, would you, Will?”

  “Mad?” he said. “I’m tickled to death.”

  “Tickle me some, Will,” she said.

  He reached for her, and she squirmed out of his reach. He thought he had such a grip around her that she could never get away. Will lunged after her, catching her arm and pulling her back beside him. Darling Jill cuddled up in his arms, kissing his chest, while he laughed at her.

  “Where’s Rosamond?” he asked, suddenly remembering her.

  “She’s gone downtown for a box of hairpins.”

  “How long has she been gone?”

  “Only a minute or so.”

  Will raised his head and tried to see over the foot of the bed.

  “Where’s Pluto?”

  “Sitting on the front porch.”

  “Hell,” Will said, letting his head fall upon the pillow, “he’s too lazy to get up.”

  She cuddled closer, putting her arms securely around him. Will pressed her breast tightly in his hand.

  “Don’t do that so hard, Will. You hurt me.”

  “I’m going to hurt you more than that before I get through with you.”

  “Kiss me a little first, Will. I like it.”

  He drew her closer and kissed her. Darling Jill threw her arms around Will and pulled herself to him. When she was closer, Will kissed her more desperately.

  “Take me, Will,” Darling Jill begged. “Please, Will, right now.”

  The woman in the yellow company house next door leaned out the window and shook a dust-mop, striking it several times against the side of the building to shake loose the sand and lint.

  “Take me, Will--I can’t wait,” she said.

  “You and me both,” said he.

  Will got on his hands and knees and raised Darling Jill’s head until he could draw her hair from under her. He lowered her pillow, and her long brown hair hung over the bed and almost touched the floor. He looked down and saw that she had raised herself until she was almost touching him.

  He awoke to hear Darling Jill screaming in his ear. He did not know how long she had been screaming. He had been oblivious to everything in the complete joy of the moment.

  He raised his head after a while and looked into her face. She opened her eyes wide and smiled at him.

  “That was wonderful, Will,” she whispered. “Do it to me again.”

  He tried to free himself and arise, but she would not let him move. He knew she was waiting for him to answer her.

  “Will, do it to me again.”

  “Damn it, Darling Jill, I can’t right now.”

  He struggled once more to free himself and arise. She held him determinedly.

  “When we get back to Georgia?”

  “If it’s as good in Georgia as it is in Carolina, you’re damn right, Darling Jill.”

  “It’s better in Georgia,” she smiled.

  “Strike me down,” he said.

  “I said, it’s better in Georgia, Will.”

  “It had better be. If it’s not, I’m going to bring you back to Carolina right away.”

  “But I would still be a Georgia girl, even if you did bring me back over here.”

  “All right, you win,” he said, “but if all the Georgia girls are as good as you are, I’m going to stay over there.”

  Darling Jill raised her arm and rubbed the teethmarks where he had bitten her. Will wished he could get up and lie on his back, but she still refused to release him. He lay quietly for a while, with his eyes closed, feeling good all over.

  Suddenly, like a stroke of lightning out of a cloudless sky, something hit him an awful whack on the buttocks. Will let out a yell and turned completely over in the air, falling on his back with his eyes almost popping out. He knew a bolt of lightning could not have frightened him any more thoroughly.

  Before he could say anything, his eyes fell upon Rosamond at the side of the bed. She had the hairbrush raised threateningly in one hand, and with the other she was trying with all her might to turn Darling Jill over on her stomach. She succeeded in getting her sister turned over, and she whacked five or six times in quick succession, striking before Darling Jill could squirm out of reach.

  Will realized that there was no sense in his attempting to get up, so he lay still, watching the hairbrush in Rosamond’s hands and praying that she would not turn him over on his stomach and blister him again.

  Darling Jill first laughed, but she was so badly blistered, and the blisters hurt so much, she started to cry. Will put his hand under himself and felt the big welt that had been raised on his body. He rubbed it, trying to make the stinging feeling leave. Darling Jill’s buttocks were as red as fire all over, and there were ridges of scarlet welts on her tender flesh. He looked again and saw that there were welts on top of welts, rising like oblong blocks the size and shape of Rosamond’s hairbrush.

  Pluto stood behind Rosamond looking pityingly at Darling Jill’s trembling bare body and at her quivering blistered buttocks.

  “Jesus,” Will said, touching the blister behind.

  “Is that all you got to say for yourself?” Rosamond asked him. “I went down the street to the store and was gone for fifteen or twenty minutes. And this is what you were doing while I was away! What do you suppose Pluto would say if he could talk? Don’t you know he hopes to marry her? It’s almost breaking his heart to see this. Suppose you had gone downtown and had come back and found me in bed with Pluto--what would you do about it? Can’t you say anything but ‘Jesus’?”

  Darling Jill suddenly burst out laughing. She looked at Rosamond a moment, and at Pluto. She laughed louder.

  “Not with that belly, Rosamond,” Darling Jill said. “How could he with that belly of his?”

  Rosamond choked back a smile, but Pluto’s face became crimson. He turned his head, backing against the wall and trying to press himself into it out of sight. Darling Jill put her hand on the blisters and began crying again.

  “Now, wait a minute, Rosamond,” Will said.

  Rosamond looked down at Will, resting the hand that held the hairbrush on the foot of the bed.

  “I have to beg you to sleep with me sometimes, but Darling Jill comes to the house just for one night and you take her. She’s no better-looking than I am, Will.”

  He could think of nothing to say. He could not think of a single word to utter in reply. She continued looking down at him, however; he knew he had to say something before she would move.

  “Just once was all right, wasn’t it, Rosamond?”

  “Once! That’s all you ever say. Every time I ask you why you did it, you say you only did it once. You’ve had every girl in town, once. It might just as well be a hundred times. Don’t you ever stop to think how it makes me feel--you out somewhere with
a girl you have no business being with, and here I am sitting at home wondering where you are and what you’re doing?”

  Will turned his head just enough to see Darling Jill out of the corners of his eyes.

  “Maybe it’s because she’s a Georgia girl, Rosamond. I reckon that’s why.”

  “That’s no excuse--you can’t even make one up. I’m a Georgia girl myself--at least I used to be before I married you and came over here to Carolina.”

  Will looked at Pluto, but Pluto apparently had no suggestion worth the offer. He stared back blankly at Will.

  “Rosamond, honey,” he said meekly. “I felt of her and kissed her some and then the first thing I knew about it was that I just had to do it. I didn’t mean any harm. That’s just how it was.”

  “If I had a baseball bat, I’d do a thing or two to you,” Rosamond replied.

  Will began to have a little more confidence in his ability to argue with Rosamond. He was not afraid of Rosamond any longer, and he knew he could take the hairbrush away from her if she tried to blister him again.

  “Now, listen here, Rosamond,” he said. “A girl like Darling Jill can’t come around without someone getting her. She was made that way from the start.”

  Rosamond made as if to take the hairbrush and blister them both all over again, but she turned instead and ran to the dresser near the corner where Pluto was. She jerked open the top drawer and pulled out the little pearl-handled thirtytwo she kept there. She ran back to the bed, holding it out in front of her.

  “For God’s sake, Rosamond,” Will shouted, “Rosamond, honey, don’t do that!”

  Darling Jill looked up from the pillow just in time to see the hammer go back and to hear it cock. Will sat up in bed, hugging the pillow in front of him.

  “If I blister you, you won’t stay blistered, but if I shoot you, you’ll stay shot, Will Thompson.”

  “Honey,” he begged, “if you’ll put that down, I’ll never do it again. I swear to God I won’t, honey. If a girl tries to make me, I’ll throw her in Horse Creek. I swear to God I’ll never do it again as long as I live, Rosamond, honey.”

  Rosamond pulled the trigger and the room was full of white smoke. She had shot at Will’s feet, but she had missed. Will jumped at Rosamond, with one hand out after the little revolver. Rosamond shot it again. The bullet went between his legs, and he was scared to death. He looked down to see if he had been shot, but he was afraid to take the time to look closely. He ran to the window and jumped out, landing on his hands and chest. He was up and out of sight around the corner of the house a second after he had struck the ground.

  The woman in the yellow company house next door ran to the window and stuck out her head. She saw Will running naked across the front yard and down the street as fast as his heels would fly. After he had passed from sight, she turned and looked at Rosamond at the window with the little pearlhandled revolver shaking in her hand.

  “Is that Will Thompson?” the woman asked.

  Rosamond leaned out the window, looking up the street and down it.

  “Where did he go?” Rosamond asked her.

  “Down the street yonder,” the woman said, unable to keep from laughing any longer. “It’s something new for Will Thompson to get shot out of his own house, ain’t it? I’ll have to tell Charlie about Will when he comes home. He’ll die laughing when he hears about it. And Will Thompson was as naked as a jay-bird, too. Ain’t that something, though?”

  Rosamond went back and put the revolver into the dresser drawer and shut it. Then she sat down in a chair and cried. Pluto did not know what to do. He did not know whether to go after Will and try to bring him back home, or whether to stay in the room and try to quiet Rosamond and Darling Jill. Darling Jill had quieted down some, and she was not crying so loudly then. But Rosamond was. Pluto leaned over and put his hand on her arm and patted it. Rosamond threw his hand off and cried even more hysterically. Pluto decided then that the best thing for him to do was to do nothing for a while. He sat down again and waited.

  Presently Rosamond got up and ran to the bed where her sister was. She threw herself upon the bed, hugging Darling Jill in her arms and bursting into tears once more. They both lay there consoling one another. Pluto looked on uneasily. He had expected to see them fly at each other, pulling hair, scratching, and calling each other names. But they were doing nothing of the sort. They were actually hugging one another and weeping together. Pluto could not understand why Rosamond did not try to shoot Darling Jill, or at least why she was not angry with her. To look at them at that moment, Pluto could not imagine how Rosamond had acted as she had a few minutes before. They were behaving as though suffering a common bereavement.

  When Rosamond’s sobs had almost ceased, she sat up and looked down at her sister. The red welts on Darling Jill’s buttocks still throbbed with intense pain, and she could not lie upon them. Rosamond touched one of the welts tenderly with the tips of her fingers as though she might be able to soothe the hurt a little thereby.

  “Lie where you are until I come back,” Rosamond told her. “I’ll only be gone a moment.”

  She ran to the kitchen and came back with a cup of lard and a large bath towel. She sat down on the side of the bed and dipped her fingers into the grease.

  “Come here, Pluto,” she said, not turning around to look at him. “You can help me.”

  Pluto came over to the bed, blushing to the tips of his ears at the sight of Darling Jill lying naked before him.

  “Lift her gently, Pluto, and hold her across your lap,” Rosamond instructed. “Now be careful. Don’t irritate those welts, whatever you do.”

  Pluto put his arms under Darling Jill, laying the palms of his hands flat against her breasts and thighs. He jerked his hands from under her, his face and neck burning.

  “Now, what’s the matter?”

  “Maybe you had better lift her.”

  “Don’t be silly, Pluto. How can I? I’m not strong.”

  He put his hands under her again, closing his eyes and compressing his lips.

  “Hurry, Pluto, and let me put this lard on those swollen places before they turn blue.”

  Pluto lifted her and turned around. He sat down on the side of the bed next to Rosamond with Darling Jill lying across his knees. Rosamond began applying the lard at once. Pluto would have watched her, but he could not take his eyes from Darling Jill’s long brown hair hanging to the floor. He raised her a little so her hair would not touch it. She winced once or twice when Rosamond touched her, but she did not protest or try to get up. When the lard had been carefully spread, Rosamond wiped her fingers on a piece of cloth and began folding the towel until it was a long thick bandage. Pluto looked down at Darling Jill’s soft buttocks with a sudden desire to touch them and try to soothe the pain. Each time he looked down at her in his lap, though, he began to blush all over again.

  “Help her to her feet, Pluto,” Rosamond said. “Lift her up and let her stand on her feet, Pluto.”

  Darling Jill stood up in front of Pluto and her sister while the towel was being fastened securely around her. Pluto’s gaze was fixed on a point of her body that happened to be the closest. He looked straight ahead, moving his eyes neither to the right nor to the left. He knew Darling Jill was looking down at him, but he could not bring himself to raise his head and look up into her face.

  He was not at all certain, but he believed she had leaned forward towards him.

  “Like me, Pluto?” Darling Jill asked, smiling.

  Pluto’s face trembled, his neck stung with a sudden rush of blood, and he tried to look up and meet her eyes. It was an exertion for him to move his head upward and backward, but he forced himself to move it.

  “I’m going to be angry if you won’t say you like me now,” she pouted.

  “I’m crazy about you, Darling Jill,” he said, partly choked. “And that’s a fact.”

  “Why do you turn red in the face and neck when you see me like this, Pluto?”

  He fel
t fresh blood rush in to embarrass him. He pulled at a loose thread in the counterpane without knowing what he was doing.

  “I like it, though,” he replied.

  “Marry me, Pluto?”

  “Right now, or anytime you say,” he told her. “And that’s a fact.”

  “But your belly is too big, Pluto.”

  “Aw, now, Darling Jill, don’t let that stand in the way.”

  “If it wasn’t so big, Pluto, you could stand closer.”

  “Aw, now, Darling Jill.”

  “And that’s a fact,” she said, mocking him.

  “Aw, now, Darling Jill,” he said, reaching out to put his arms around her waist.

  She allowed him to draw her close enough to be kissed. Pluto drew her between his legs and stretched his head as high as he could but her lips were so far above his reach he knew he could never kiss her unless he stood up beside her or unless she bent down to him. He reasoned that it would be much easier for her to bend over than it would be for him to get to his feet, and he knew she was aware of it. But she remained standing erectly in his arms, tantalizing him by refusing to bend over and place her lips on his. When he did not know what to do, unless it was to get to his feet beside her, Darling Jill leaned against him and twisted her body a little. Before he realized how it had come about, he felt her warm breast against his face and he was kissing her madly.

  “Stop it this instant, Darling Jill!” Rosamond said, geting up and pulling them apart. “Stop teasing Pluto like that. It’s a shame to treat the poor boy the way you do all the time. Some of these days he’s going to turn on you, and anything may happen.”

  Darling Jill, jerking herself out of his embrace, ran to the door and into the next room holding the towel around her buttocks. Pluto sat in a daze, his hands lifeless beside him, and his mouth hanging agape. Rosamond, turning, saw him; she felt so sorry for him that she came back and patted his cheek tenderly.