Susan took care of Vearl. He ate at her house, he slept there, he played in the yard and in the road all day long with the other children, and his clothes were washed in the big black iron pot with all the others. There were days when neither Clay nor Dene saw him at all; when they did see him, he was usually playing in the road with the other children. Occasionally he came to the house on an errand for Susan or George, when she needed some soap, or when George wished tobacco; and if Clay happened to be at home at the time, he always tried to catch Vearl and talk to him.
Clay had not succeeded in catching Vearl for nearly a year. Vearl knew that Dene was not his mother, and he was not certain that Clay was his father. His mother had dark hair, and she had always worn a ribbon of some kind around her hair. Dene’s hair was almost yellow, and Vearl had never seen it hanging down her back as his mother had worn hers most of the time.
Clay shifted his feet on the railing and contemplated Vearl. It was the first time he had taken any notice of the boy in several days.
“That boy,” he said to himself.
Vearl had been left in Clay’s care when Lorene went to Jacksonville. She had said she would not be able to take care of him for a while.
That was the same time she had made him promise to take Vearl to the doctor in McGuffin and have him treated until he was well. The boy had contracted syphilis when he was three or four years old, and nothing had been done for him. The disease had run on and on for the past year and a half. Clay still intended taking Vearl to town to see the doctor, but he had postponed it so long that it had become a habit. He did buy a bottle of medicine in McGuffin for Vearl one Saturday; the bottle stood on the kitchen shelf, where it had been ever since the day he brought it home. He had never been able to catch Vearl to give him the medicine.
“That boy, Vearl,” he said again, watching him dart in and out of the group of Negro children.
The boy was six years old then, going on seven, and Susan had told him several times lately that Vearl ought to be treated. Susan hated to see him in such a condition, and she was afraid her own four children would catch syphilis. She had begged Clay to take Vearl to the doctor in McGuffin; she had even started out walking with him herself one day. She would have got there, but before they had gone a mile, Vearl had broken loose from her and run across the creek where she could not catch him.
Clay knew it was his duty to take Lorene’s boy to the doctor, but he could not exert himself to go to the trouble of catching him and holding him in the car all the way to town. Susan did not blame him for Vearl’s disease, but she did blame him for not doing something about it.
As he sat looking up the road, Clay realized that he had not kept his promise to Lorene. But he was determined to take Vearl to the doctor in McGuffin some day. He assured himself of that.
It was then that he remembered the bottle of medicine on the kitchen shelf. He started to get up to go after it, but when he thought of the effort it would require to catch Vearl and force a dose down his throat, he sat down again. He knew the chances were that he could not catch Vearl, even if he spent the whole day trying, because the boy could shin up a tree nearly as fast as a squirrel.
He decided to wait until he could slip up on Vearl some day and grab him unexpectedly.
“That boy, Vearl,” he said, spitting.
Chapter VI
UP THE ROAD beyond the cabins a cloud of dust boiled high into the air. An automobile was throbbing through the deep sand and yellow dust. Clay knew it was Tom Rhodes even before he could recognize the car at that distance. He stood up to watch its approach.
For a moment it looked as if Tom were going past without stopping, but when he was within ten feet of the gate, he locked the wheels and steered into the shade of the magnolia tree beside Semon’s car. He hopped out and began inspecting the strange machine from front to back. He walked around it, kicking the tires to see how much air was in them. When he had finished looking at the car, he grasped the rear of it and shook with all his might. That was all he wished to know about it. He opened the gate and came up the walk.
“How’s everything, Tom?” Clay said, moving over to the next chair.
Tom took the seat and threw his hat on the floor.
“Couldn’t be better with me.”
“Going to town?”
“I thought I might drive in to McGuffin for a little while. Can’t buy nothing, but looking’s free.”
Tom turned around and glanced into the hall through the open door. After that he turned again and looked through the window behind him.
“Heard anything?” Clay asked, dropping his voice to a hoarse whisper.
“A little,” Tom nodded. “One of the darkies was telling me something about it before breakfast this morning.”
Clay said nothing. There was little left for him to tell Tom. The Negroes always knew as much as anyone else, and sometimes more.
“Who is this fellow, anyway?” Tom asked.
“Semon?”
“I reckon that’s his name.”
“It’s the traveling preacher, Semon Dye. He drove up here yesterday afternoon and said he was going to stay a while. He’s aiming to preach at the schoolhouse Sunday.”
“I reckon I’ve heard enough about him,” Tom said. “Now I’d like to see what he looks like.”
“He’s in the kitchen eating breakfast. He’ll be done in a little while. He ought to have been done long ago.”
“Who’s out there with him? Dene?”
“I reckon so,” Clay acknowledged.
“He’ll take his time then.”
Clay dropped his feet from the railing and listened. He could hear not a single sound from that part of the house.
“Where’d he come from?”
“He said he came from Alabama. That’s all I know about him. He won’t talk much about himself, except to say that his wife left him and went to Atlanta to live.”
“A lot of them do that,” Tom said. “Or go to Augusta or Jacksonville.”
“I reckon so,” Clay said.
Tom looked around again, stretching his neck to see through the hall to the back porch. A moment later he straightened up, winking at Clay. “Here he comes now.”
They waited for Semon to reach the porch. When he saw Tom Rhodes, he looked at him sharply for a moment, as if he wished to be certain he had never seen him before. He went to the vacant chair at the railing.
“Howdy,” Tom said.
Semon bent his head forward and looked down into Tom’s face. A smile spread across his leather-tight face.
“Live around here?”
“Up the creek,” Tom said. “Folks call me Tom Rhodes.”
Semon settled himself comfortably in the chair and raised his feet to the railing.
“This is fine spring weather we’re having,” he said.
“Can’t expect much better for April,” Tom told him. “It never gets good and hot in Rocky Comfort till about June or July.”
The sun beat down upon the house and yard without mercy. It was between nine and ten o’clock then, and the temperature in the shade of the porch was eighty-five. By mid-afternoon it would probably be ninety-five.
“Clay tells me you’re a preacher,” Tom said. “I reckon he knows what he’s talking about.”
“I am, I am,” Semon confirmed.
“Well, that’s a doggone shame.”
“Why is it?” Semon asked, sitting up.
“I’ve got a little drink out there in the car, and I’d like to be sociable with it. But being as you’re a preacher, I reckon I’ll have to go on off and drink by myself. Some preachers don’t take to it, I’ve heard.”
Semon laughed a little, looking at Clay.
“I started out for McGuffin,” Tom explained. “Just before I got ready to leave the house, my wife came to the door and said, ‘Tom, you’re forgetting the molasses jug.’ And sure enough I was forgetting it. But I’ve got it with me now, and it looks like I can’t be sociable with it.”
“It ain’t that, preacher. I just always manage to get the two jugs mixed up.”
“Corn?” Semon asked, wetting his lips.
“The best dew in Georgia,” Tom said. “I made it myself up the creek.”
“Maybe you did get the molasses jug instead. Maybe when your wife was reminding you to take the molasses jug to the store, you did get the two mixed up, sure enough.”
“Doggone!” Tom said. “Maybe you’re right, preacher. I’d better go out and see right away.”
He got up and ran down the steps. When he reached the gate, Semon left the porch and followed him. Clay ran after them.
Tom pulled the jug from under the back seat and shook it. There was a smile all over his face.
“You got me rattled, preacher,” he said. “You sure did. You got me so balled up I didn’t know my own mind. But it’s just like I thought. The molasses jug is still at home.”
“Corn?” Semon inquired, coming closer and smelling the stopper.
“And ripe,” Tom insisted. “I made it myself, and I ought to know good dew when I see it.”
“That’s a man’s drink all right, all right.”
Tom and Clay walked to the magnolia tree and were getting ready to sit down in the shade. Semon found himself left alone.
“Being as you’re a preacher,” Tom said, shaking the liquor in the gallon jug, “I don’t reckon you’d take a drink of Georgia dew.”
Semon sat down between them, pushing their knees out of his way to make room for himself.
“He took a liking to Sugar,” Clay said. “I reckon he could take a liking to corn, too.”
“Doggone!” Tom said in pretended surprise. “Is that right? I never would have thought it, preacher. Maybe I could be a preacher myself, if that’s what it takes.”
He pulled the stopper and held it up to Semon; but Semon handed the stopper over to Clay and stuck his stiff thumb through the glass handle and threw the jug into the crook of his arm. He raised his elbow slowly and allowed the colorless liquor to gurgle down his throat. A pint was gone when he handed it over to Clay.
Clay wiped off the mouth of the jug with his hand and drank six or eight swallows. Tom took his time when it became his turn. He never liked to be pushed when it came to drinking. He set the jug on the ground between his legs and looked at it.
“Are you aiming to preach at the schoolhouse Sunday, preacher?” he said.
“Nothing else but, coz,” Semon said.
“Doggone,” Tom promised. “I’ll sure be there to hear you. I couldn’t miss that for love or money.”
He lifted the jug to his mouth and swallowed a little more than either Clay or Semon had. After he had finished, he put the stopper back and drove it in with his fist.
The April sun beat down upon the magnolia leaves over their heads. The sky was blue and cloudless, and the day had started out to be another hot one. By two o’clock that afternoon the sun would be scorching.
Presently Tom took out his watch and looked at it. He studied the open face as though he were looking at something he had never seen before. He shook his head and put it back into his overalls pocket.
“I’ve got to be going to McGuffin,” he said determinedly. “I’ll never get there and back the same day if I don’t get started.”
“Let’s have another drink before you go, coz,” Semon suggested, reaching for the jug. He took out the stopper and drank heavily. Then he handed it over to Clay. “That’s a man’s drink all right, all right.”
“You must have been around a little in your day, preacher,” Tom said.
“My day is a long way from being over yet,” Semon said. “But when my day is done, it’s going to have been a long one.”
Tom walked towards his car with the jug. He placed it under the back seat, wrapped it carefully with a burlap bag to keep it from being broken.
He got into his automobile and started the motor. He sat with the engine running, waving to Clay and Semon. They waved back at him.
“I’ll be seeing you folks on my way back,” Tom promised. “I’ll stop by, and we’ll all have another drink.”
Tom once more started to leave, but he idled the engine again and leaned far over the door.
“Look out for loaded dice, preacher,” he shouted. “Don’t let anybody roll you.”
He was gone. The car sped down the road and rounded the bend a quarter of a mile away. But long after he had passed from sight, the dust that had been blown into the air floated over the field and drifted slowly out of sight into the woods.
Both of them were feeling good when they went back to the porch. Their step was light, and their eyes shone. Dene had watched everything that had happened, and she remained in the house out of sight. She was afraid of men when they were drinking; she was even afraid of Clay.
“We ought to make Tom a deacon,” Semon said. He’s a fine fellow. I like to do things for fine fellows.”
“I didn’t know you was going to have deacons at the schoolhouse Sunday.”
“Sure,” Semon told him. “Who’d take up the collections if we didn’t have deacons?”
“That’s right,” Clay agreed, nodding his head. “I hadn’t thought about that at all.”
“Have to take up the money,” Semon explained. “I couldn’t bear the expense of preaching unless I was paid for it.”
“I can’t say as I blame you for wanting pay. That’s right and proper. But you don’t go to expense to preach, do you? It don’t cost you anything to get your bed and board, and gas for your car won’t amount to so very much.”
“I always like to have a little money left over. When I pass through a city like Augusta or Macon or Atlanta, I like to have enough money in my pocket to pay my way, laying over for a day or two.”
“It wouldn’t take so awful much for that.”
“I like the best money can buy when it comes to laying over in a city.”
“That don’t sound so bad,” Clay said. “Maybe I’d like it myself. Reckon I could be a preacher, Semon?”
Semon jabbed him in the ribs with a piercing thrust of his stiff thumb. Clay shouted, jumping high into the air.
“Good God Almighty!” he yelled. “Don’t never do that again! I can’t stand to be goosed like that!”
“You don’t happen to be ticklish, do you, Horey?”
“That ain’t no name for it,” Clay said, keeping beyond reach of Semon’s nubbin-like thumb. “I just never could stand to be goosed.”
Semon put his feet on the railing and gazed across the yard as though nothing had happened.
“You have to have religion to be a preacher, Horey,” he explained. “You can’t preach unless you know what you’re preaching about.”
“I reckon you must be right. But maybe I’ll get it at the schoolhouse Sunday.”
“I’ll do my damnedest to give it to you. That’s my job—giving people religion.”
“There’s one thing about being a preacher I don’t know about, though,” Clay said doubtfully.
“What’s that?”
“I like white girls just a shade better than I do darky ones. I don’t know whether I could be satisfied with one like Sugar all the time.”
“That all depends,” Semon said. “Every man has his own likes. You could have white ones, I reckon, if you’d rather. It don’t make much difference, in the end. Colored girls are a little easier and quicker to get; other than that, I don’t know that it would make much difference—except that they know how to get ’way down like a white girl don’t know about.”
“I reckon a fellow could sort of get used to them,” Clay said. “And he could switch around every once in a while, too, if he wanted to.”
“That sounds like it might be all right, but it won’t work out. It never does work out.”
“Why won’t it work out? What’s wrong with that?”
“You get so you lose your hold, jumping around fr
om one to the other. You forget that white girls cry when it’s all over and you get ready to leave. Colored girls don’t.”
“Well, I’ll declare,” Clay said. “I never would have known that. I reckon it would spoil it some.”
Chapter VII
TOM RHODES WAS late in getting back from McGuffin. Clay and Semon had been waiting for him all afternoon. They were afraid he had drunk the rest of the corn liquor in the jug. If he had, Clay had already decided to make him go home and bring them another jugful to take the place of that which he and Semon considered rightfully theirs.
Neither of them ate much supper. As soon as they had eaten a little grits and sweet potatoes, they got up hurriedly from the table and went back on the front porch to wait for Tom. Tom had promised to stop when he came back; they wished to be there to remind him of it when he did drive up.
Half an hour before dark Semon heard an automobile coming up the road in a hurry. Clay ran out to see if it was Tom coming back from McGuffin. In the failing light it was not easy to recognize Tom’s car a quarter of a mile away, and Clay went to the middle of the road to be in a position to wave him down. He was going to stop Tom Rhodes from going on past if he possibly could.
“It’s Tom, all right,” he called to Semon at the gate a moment later. “I know his noise.”
Semon ran out to the road and waited beside him.
Tom bore down upon them without slackening speed. Just when it looked as if he had no intention of stopping, and that he was going to run over them, he swung the front wheels to the side of the road with a mighty wrench of both arms, and the car narrowly missed them both. He stopped it and shut off the engine.
“Who’s that with you, Tom?” Clay yelled at him, running to the car.
Tom leaped out on the ground as though he were a ten-year-old boy.
“You’ve seen her enough times to remember,” Tom said. “Now, look and see if you don’t.”
Lorene stepped out and ran around to the other side.
“Well, I’ll be doggone if I won’t!” Clay said. “Where did you come from, Lorene?”
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