Snopes: The Hamlet, the Town, the Mansion

by William Faulkner

  And this time Gowan said Mr de Spain opened the cut-out as soon as he left the Square; he could hear it all the way getting louder and louder as it turned the two corners into our street, the ripping loud and jeering but at least not in second gear this time, going fast past the house and the dark parlor where Uncle Gavin was sitting, and on around the other two corners he would have to turn to get back into the street he belonged in, dying away at last until all you could hear was just the night and then Uncle Gavin’s feet coming quiet up the stairs. Then the hall light went out, and that was all.

  All for that night, that day I mean. Because even Uncle Gavin didn’t expect it to be completely all. In fact, the rest of them found out pretty quick that Uncle Gavin didn’t aim for it to be all; the next morning at breakfast it was Uncle Gavin himself that raised his head first and said: “There goes Manfred back to our salt-mine,” and then to Gowan: “Mr de Spain has almost as much fun with his automobile as you’re going to have with one as soon as your Cousin Charley buys it, doesn’t he?” Whenever that would be because Father said almost before Uncle Gavin could finish getting the words out:

  “Me own one of those stinking noisy things? I wouldn’t dare. Too many of my customers use horses and mules for a living.” But Gowan said that if Father ever did buy one while he was there, he would find something better to do with it besides running back and forth in front of the house with the cut-out open.

  And again while he was on the way home at noon to eat dinner, and again while they were sitting at the table. Nor was it just Gowan who found out Uncle Gavin didn’t aim for that to be all because Mother caught Gowan almost before Uncle Gavin turned his back. Gowan didn’t know how she did it. Aleck Sander always said that his mother could see and hear through a wall (when he got bigger he said Guster could smell his breath over the telephone) so maybe all women that were already mothers or just acting like mothers like Mother had to while Gowan lived with us, could do that too and that was how Mother did it: stepping out of the parlor just as Gowan put his hand in his pocket.

  “Where is it?” Mother said. “What Gavin just gave you. It was a box of tacks; wasn’t it a box of tacks? To scatter out there in the street where he will run over them? Wasn’t it? Acting just like a high-school sophomore. He should marry Melisandre Backus before he ruins the whole family.”

  “I thought you said it’s too late for that,” Gowan said. “That the one that marries Cousin Gavin will have to be a widow with four children.”

  “Maybe I meant too early,” Mother said. “Melisandre hasn’t even got the husband yet.” Then she wasn’t seeing Gowan. “Which is exactly what Manfred de Spain is acting like,” she said. “A high-school sophomore.” Gowan said she was looking right at him but she wasn’t seeing him at all, and all of a sudden he said she was pretty, looking just like a girl. “No: exactly what we are all acting like,” and now she was seeing him again. “But dont you dare let me see you doing it, do you hear? Dont you dare!”

  “Yessum,” Gowan said. It was no trouble. All he and Top had to do after school was just divide the tacks into their hands and kind of fool around out in the middle of the street like they were trying to decide what to do next while the tacks dribbled down across the tracks of the automobile; Mr de Spain had made nine trips by now so Gowan said he almost had two ruts. Only he and Top had to stay out in the cold now because they wanted to see it. Top said that when the wheels blew up, they would blow the whole automobile up. Gowan didn’t think so, but he didn’t know either and Top might be partly right, enough right anyway to be worth watching.

  So they had to stand behind the big jasmine bush and it began to get dark and it got colder and colder and Guster opened the kitchen door and begun to holler for Top then after awhile she came to the front door and hollered for both of them; it was full dark and good and cold now when at last they saw the lights coming, they reached the corner of the yard and the cut-out went on and the car ripped slow and loud past and they listened and watched both but nothing happened, nothing at all, it just went on and even the cut-out went back off; Gowan said how maybe it would take a little time for the tacks to finally work in and blow the wheels up and they waited for that too but nothing happened. And now it had been long enough for him to be home.

  And after supper, all of them in the office again, but not anything at all this time, not even anything passed the house so Gowan thought maybe it hadn’t blown up until after he was home and now Uncle Gavin never would know when it would be safe to come out of the dark parlor and go upstairs to bed; so that he, Gowan, made a chance to whisper to Uncle Gavin: “Do you want me to go up to his house and look?” Only Father said,

  “What? What’re you whispering about?” so that didn’t do any good either. And the next morning nothing happened either, the cutout ripping slow past the house like next time it was coming right through the dining room itself. And twice more at noon and that afternoon when Gowan got home from school Top jerked his head at him and they went to the cellar; Top had an old rake-head with a little of the handle still in it so they built a fire behind the stable and burned the handle out and when it was dark enough Gowan watched up and down the street while Top scraped a trench across the tire rut and set the rake teeth-up in it and scattered some leaves over to hide it and they watched from behind the jasmine bush again while the car ripped past. And nothing happened though when the car was gone they went and saw for themselves where the wheels had mashed right across the rake.

  “We’ll try it once more,” Gowan said. And they did: the next morning: and nothing. And that afternoon Top worked on the rake a while with an old file and then Gowan worked on it a while even after they both knew they would still be working on it that way when the Cotillion Club would be planning next year’s Christmas Ball. “We need a grindstone,” Gowan said.

  “Unk Noon,” Top said.

  “We’ll take the gun like we are going rabbit hunting,” Gowan said. So they did: as far as Uncle Noon Gatewood’s blacksmith shop on the edge of town. Uncle Noon was big and yellow; he had a warped knee that just seemed to fit exactly into the break of a horse’s forearm and pastern; he would pick up a horse’s hind leg and set the foot inside the knee and reach out with one hand and take hold of the nearest post and if the post held, the horse could jerk and plunge all it wanted to and Uncle Noon and the horse might sway back and forth but the foot wouldn’t move. He let Gowan and Top use his rock and while Top turned and tilted the water-can Gowan held the teeth one by one to the stone until they would have gone through almost anything that mashed against them, let alone an automobile.

  And Gowan said they sure did have to wait for dark this time. For dark and late too, when they knew nobody would see them. Because if the sharpened rake worked, the car might not blow up so bad that Mr de Spain wouldn’t have time to wonder what caused it and start looking around and find the rake. And at first it looked like it was going to be a good thing it was a long December night too because the ground was frozen so hard that they had to dig the trench through, not just a short trench like before to set the rake in but one long enough so they could tie a string to the rake and then snatch the rake back into the yard between the time the wheel blew up and Mr de Spain could begin to hunt for what caused it. But Gowan said at least tomorrow was Saturday so they would have all day to fix the rake so they could be behind the jasmine bush and see it by daylight.

  So they were: already behind the bush with the rake-head fixed and the end of the string in Gowan’s hand when they heard it coming and then saw it, then the cut-out came on and it came ripping past with the cut-out like it was saying HAhaHAhaHAha until they were already thinking they had missed this time too when the wheel said BANG and Gowan said he didn’t have time to snatch the string because the string did the snatching, out of his hand and around the jasmine bush like the tail of a snake, the car saying HAhaHAha-clankHAhaHAhaclank every time the rake that seemed to be stuck to the wheel would wham against the mudguard again, until Mr de Spai
n finally stopped it. Then Gowan said the parlor window behind them opened, with Mother and Father standing in it until Mother said:

  “You and Top go out and help him so you both will learn something about automobiles when your Cousin Charley buys one.”

  “Me buy one of those noisy stinking things?” Father said. “Why, I’d lose every horse and mule customer I’ve got—”

  “Nonsense,” Mother said. “You’d buy one today if you thought Papa would stand for it.—No,” she said to Gowan. “Just you help Mr de Spain. I want Top in the house.”

  So Top went into the Top in the and Gowan went out to the car where Mr de Spain was standing beside the crumpled wheel holding the rake-head in his hand and looking down at it with his lips poked out like he was kind of whistling a tune to himself, Gowan said. Then he looked around at Gowan and took out his knife and cut the string loose and put the rake-head into his overcoat pocket and begun to roll the string up, watching the string where it came jerking out of our yard, his mouth still pursed out like he was whistling to himself. Then Top came up. He was wearing the white jacket he wore when Mother would try to teach him to wait on the table, carrying a tray with a cup of coffee and the cream and sugar bowl. “Miss Maggie say would you care for a cup of coffee while you resting in the cold?” he said.

  “Much obliged,” Mr de Spain said. He finished rolling the string up and took the tray from Top and set it on the mudguard of the car and then handed the rolled-up string to Top. “Here’s a good fish line for you,” he said.

  “It aint none of mine,” Top said.

  “It is now,” Mr de Spain said. “I just gave it to you.” So Top took the string. Then Mr de Spain told him to take off that clean white coat first and then he opened the back of the automobile and showed Gowan and Top the jack and tire tool and then he drank the coffee while Top crawled under the car and set the jack in place and he and Gowan wound up the wheel. Then Mr de Spain put down the empty cup and took off his overcoat and hunkered down by the crumpled wheel with the tire tool. Except that from then on Gowan said all he and Top learned was some curse-words they never had heard before, until Mr de Spain stood up and threw the tire tool at the wheel and said, to Gowan this time: “Run in the house and telephone Buck Connors to bring Jabbo here double quick.” Only Father was there by that time.

  “Maybe you’ve got too many experts,” he said. “Come on in and have a drink. I know it’s too early in the morning but this is Christmas.”

  So they all went into the house and Father telephoned Mr Connors to bring Jabbo. Jabbo was Uncle Noon Gatewood’s son. He was going to be a blacksmith too until Mr de Spain brought that first red automobile to town and, as Uncle Noon said, “ruint him.” Though Gowan said that never made much sense to him because Jabbo used to get drunk and wind up in jail three or four times a year while he was still only a blacksmith, while now, since automobiles had come to Jefferson, Jabbo was the best mechanic in the county and although he still got drunk and into jail as much as ever, he never stayed longer than just overnight any more because somebody with an automobile always needed him enough to pay his fine by morning.

  Then they went into the dining room, where Mother already had the decanter and glasses set out. “Wait,” Father said. “I’ll call Gavin.”

  “He’s already gone,” Mother said right quick. “Sit down now and have your toddy.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t,” Father said, going out anyway.

  “Please dont wait on them,” Mother said to Mr de Spain.

  “I don’t mind waiting,” smith too aid. “It’s too early in the morning to start drinking for the next few minutes.” Then Father came back.

  “Gavin says to please excuse him,” Father said. “He seems to have heartburn these days.”

  “Tell him salt is good for heartburn,” Mr de Spain said.

  “What?” Father said.

  “Tell him to come on,” Mr de Spain said. “Tell him Maggie will set a salt-cellar between us.” And that was all then. Mr Connors came with a shotgun and Jabbo in handcuffs and they all went out to the car while Mr Connors handed the shotgun to Jabbo to hold while he got out the key and unlocked the handcuffs and took the shotgun back. Then Jabbo picked up the tire tool and had the tire off in no time.

  “Why dont you,” Father said, “if you could just kind of embalm Jabbo a little—you know: so he wouldn’t get cold or hungry—tie him on the back of the car like he was an extra wheel or engine, then every time you had a puncture or it wouldn’t start, all you’d have to do would be to untie Jabbo and stand him up and unbalm him—is that the word? Unbalm?”

  “When you get it patched,” Mr de Spain said to Jabbo, “bring it on to my office.”

  “Yes sir,” Jabbo said. “Mr Buck can bring the fining paper along with us.”

  “Thank your aunt for the coffee,” Mr de Spain said to Gowan.

  “She’s my cousin,” Gowan said. “And the toddy.”

  “I’ll walk to town with you,” Father said to Mr de Spain. That was Saturday. The Cotillion Ball would be Wednesday. On Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday Jefferson had the biggest run on flowers the town ever had, even when old General Compson died, who had not only been a Confederate brigadier, but for two days he had been Governor of Mississippi too. It wasn’t through any of us that Mr de Spain found out what Uncle Gavin was planning to do, and decided that he—Mr de Spain—had better do it too. And it would be nice to think that the same notion occurred to Uncle Gavin and Mr de Spain at the same time. But that was too much to expect either.

  So it was Mrs Rouncewell. She ran the flower shop; not, Uncle Gavin said, because she loved flowers nor even because she loved money but because she loved funerals; she had buried two husbands herself and took the second one’s insurance and opened the flower shop and furnished the flowers for every funeral in Jefferson since; she would be the one that told Mr de Spain how Uncle Gavin had wanted to send Mrs Snopes a corsage to wear to the ball until Mother told him that Mrs Snopes already had a husband and he couldn’t send one to her alone and Uncle Gavin said All right, did Mother want him to send one to Mr Snopes too? And Mother said he knew what she meant and Uncle Gavin said All right, he would send one to each one of the Cotillion ladies. Until Mr de Spain had to do the same thing, so that not just Mrs Snopes but all the ladies of the Cotillion Club were going to get two corsages apiece.

  Not to mention the rest of the town: not just the husbands and beaus of the ladies in the Club, but the husbands and beaus of all the other ladies who were invited; especially the husbands who were already married because they wouldn’t have had to send their wives a corsage at all because their wives wouldn’t have expected one except for Uncle Gavin and Mr de Spain. But mainly Uncle Gavin since he started the whole thing; to listen to them around the barbershop getting their hair cut for the dance, and in Mr Kneeland’s tailor shop renting the dress suits, you would have thought they were going to lynch Uncle Gavin.

  And one was more than just cussing Uncle Gavin: Mr Grenier Weddel and Mrs Maurice Priest. But all that came out later; we didn’t hear about that until the day after the Ball. All we knew about now was the corsage-run on Mrs Rouncewell, what Father called the Rouncewell panic. (“I had to make that one myself,” Father said. “It was Gavin’s by right; he should have done it but right now he aint even as faintly close to humor as that one was.” Because he was cussing Uncle Gavin too, since now he would have to send Mother a corsage that he hadn’t figured on doing, since Uncle Gavin was, which would make three she would get—that is, if the rest of the men aiming to attend the Ball didn’t panic too and decide they would all have to send the members a separate corsage.) Because by Monday night Mrs Rouncewell had run clean out of flowers; by the time the northbound train ran Tuesday afternoon all the towns up and down the road from Jefferson had been milked dry too; and early Wednesday morning a special hired automobile made a night emergency run from Memphis with enough flowers to make out so Mrs Rouncewell could begin to deliver the corsages, u
sing her own delivery boy and Lucius Hogganbeck’s jitney and even renting Miss Eunice Habersham’s home-made truck that she peddled vegetables from to finish the deliveries in time, delivering five of them at our house which they all thought were for Mother until she read the names on the boxes and said:

  “This one’s not for me. It’s for Gavin.” And they all stood watching Uncle Gavin while he stood right still looking down at the box, his hand already raised toward the box and then his hand stopped too in midair. Until at last he broke the string and lifted the lid and moved the tissue paper aside and then Gowan said it was all of a sudden yet it wasn’t fast either—moved the tissue paper back and put the lid back on and picked up the box. “Aren’t you going to let us see it?” Mother said.

  “No,” Uncle Gavin said. But Gowan had already seen. It was the rake-head, with two flowers like a bouquet, all bound together with a band or strip of something that Gowan knew was thin rubber but it was another year or two until he was a good deal bigger and older that he knew what the thing was; and at the same time he realised what it was, he said he knew it had already been used; and at the same time he knew at least how Uncle Gavin was supposed to believe it had been used, which was the reason Mr de Spain sent it to him: that whether Uncle Gavin was right or not about how it had been used, he would never be sure and so forever afterward would have no peace about it.

  And Gowan was just thirteen then; until that one, he wouldn’t have thought that anybody could have paid him or even dragged him to a Cotillion Ball. But he said he had already had to see too much by now; he had to be there if there was going to be anything else, any more to it, even if he couldn’t imagine what else there could be after this, what more could happen at just a dance. So hput on his blue Sunday suit and watched Mother with her hair all primped and Grandmother’s best diamond earrings trying to make Father say which of her four corsages to carry: the one he gave her or to agree with the one of the other three that she thought went best with her dress; then he went across to Uncle Gavin’s room where Uncle Gavin got out another white bow tie like his and put it on Gowan and a flower for his buttonhole too and they all went downstairs, the hack was waiting and they drove through the cold to the Square and the Opera House where the other hacks and now and then a car were pulling up for the other guests to get out crimped and frizzed in scarves and earrings and perfume and long white gloves like Mother or in claw-hammer coats and boiled shirts and white ties and yesterday’s haircuts like Father and Uncle Gavin and (the white tie at least) Gowan, with the loafers, Negro and white boys too, hanging around the door to hear the music after the band started to play.