“He said if you were out of town on a visit, and I said Yes, sir,” I said.
“Good,” Uncle Rodney said. “By God, some day you will be as good a business man as I am. And I won’t make you a liar much longer, either. So now you have got ten quarters, haven’t you?”
“No,” I said. “I haven’t got them yet.”
Then he cussed again, and I said, “I will hold my cap up and you can drop them in it and they won’t spill then.”
Then he cussed hard, only it wasn’t loud. “Only I’m not going to give you ten quarters,” he said, and I begun to say You said — and Uncle Rodney said, “Because I am going to give you twenty.”
And I said Yes, sir, and he told me how to find the right house, and what to do when I found it. Only there wasn’t any paper to carry this time because Uncle Rodney said how this was a twenty-quarter job, and so it was too important to put on paper and besides I wouldn’t need a paper because I would not know them anyhow, and his voice coming hissing down from behind the shutter where I couldn’t see him and still sounding like when he cussed while he was saying how papa and Uncle Fred had done him a favor by nailing up the door and window and they didn’t even have sense enough to know it.
“Start at the corner of the house and count three windows. Then throw the handful of gravel against the window. Then when the window opens — never mind who it will be, you won’t know anyway — just say who you are and then say ‘He will be at the corner with the buggy in ten minutes. Bring the jewelry.’ Now you say it,” Uncle Rodney said.
“He will be at the corner with the buggy in ten minutes. Bring the jewelry,” I said.
“Say ‘Bring all the jewelry,’” Uncle Rodney said.
“Bring all the jewelry,” I said.
“Good,” Uncle Rodney said. Then he said, “Well? What are you waiting on?”
“For the twenty quarters,” I said.
Uncle Rodney cussed again. “Do you expect me to pay you before you have done the work?” he said.
“You said about a buggy,” I said. “Maybe you will forget to pay me before you go and you might not get back until after we go back home. And besides, that day last summer when we couldn’t do any business with Mrs. Tucker because she was sick and you wouldn’t pay me the nickel because you said it wasn’t your fault Mrs. Tucker was sick.”
Then Uncle Rodney cussed hard and quiet behind the crack and then he said, “Listen. I haven’t got the twenty quarters now. I haven’t even got one quarter now. And the only way I can get any is to get out of here and finish this business. And I can’t finish this business tonight unless you do your work. See? I’ll be right behind you. I’ll be waiting right there at the corner in the buggy when you come back. Now, go on. Hurry.”
V
So I went on across the yard, only the moon was bright now and I walked behind the fence until I got to the street. And I could hear the firecrackers and I could see the Roman candles and skyrockets sliding up the sky, but the fireworks were all downtown, and so all I could see along the street was the candles and wreaths in the windows. So I came to the lane, went up the lane to the stable, and I could hear the horse in the stable, but I didn’t know whether it was the right stable or not; but pretty soon Uncle Rodney kind of jumped around the corner of the stable and said Here you are, and he showed me where to stand and listen toward the house and he went back into the stable. But I couldn’t hear anything but Uncle Rodney harnessing the horse, and then he whistled and I went back and he had the horse already hitched to the buggy and I said Whose horse and buggy is this; it’s a lot skinnier than Grandpa’s horse? And Uncle Rodney said It’s my horse now, only damn this moonlight to hell. Then I went back down the lane to the street and there wasn’t anybody coming so I waved my arm in the moonlight, and the buggy came up and I got in and we went fast. The side curtains were up and so I couldn’t see the skyrockets and Roman candles from town, but I could hear the firecrackers and I thought maybe we were going through town and maybe Uncle Rodney would stop and give me some of the twenty quarters and I could buy Grandpa a present for tomorrow, but we didn’t; Uncle Rodney just raised the side curtain without stopping and then I could see the house, the two magnolia trees, but we didn’t stop until we came to the corner.
“Now,” Uncle Rodney said, “when the window opens, say ‘He will be at the corner in ten minutes. Bring all the jewelry.’ Never mind who it will be. You don’t want to know who it is. You want to even forget what house it is. See?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “And then you will pay me the—”
“Yes!” he said, cussing. “Yes! Get out of here quick!”
So I got out and the buggy went on and I went back up the street. And the house was dark all right except for one light, so it was the right one, besides the two trees. So I went across the yard and counted the three windows and I was just about to throw the gravel when a lady ran out from behind a bush and grabbed me. She kept on trying to say something, only I couldn’t tell what it was, and besides she never had time to say very much anyhow because a man ran out from behind another bush and grabbed us both. Only he grabbed her by the mouth, because I could tell that from the kind of slobbering noise she made while she was fighting to get loose.
“Well, boy?” he said. “What is it? Are you the one?”
“I work for Uncle Rodney,” I said.
“Then you’re the one,” he said. Now the lady was fighting and slobbering sure enough, but he held her by the mouth. “All right. What is it?”
Only I didn’t know Uncle Rodney ever did business with men. But maybe after he began to work in the Compress Association he had to. And then he had told me I would not know them anyway, so maybe that was what he meant.
“He says to be at the corner in ten minutes,” I said. “And to bring all the jewelry. He said for me to say that twice. Bring all the jewelry.”
The lady was slobbering and fighting worse than ever now, so maybe he had to turn me loose so he could hold her with both hands.
“Bring all the jewelry,” he said, holding the lady with both hands now. “That’s a good idea. That’s fine. I don’t blame him for telling you to say that twice. All right. Now you go back to the corner and wait and when he comes, tell him this: ‘She says to come and help carry it.’ Say that to him twice, too. Understand?”
“Then I’ll get my twenty quarters,” I said.
“Twenty quarters, hah?” the man said, holding the lady. “That’s what you are to get, is it? That’s not enough. You tell him this, too: ‘She says to give you a piece of the jewelry.’ Understand?”
“I just want my twenty quarters,” I said.
Then he and the lady went back behind the bushes again and I went on, too, back toward the corner, and I could see the Roman candles and skyrockets again from toward town and I could hear the firecrackers, and then the buggy came back and Uncle Rodney was hissing again behind the curtain like when he was behind the slats on Mandy’s window.
“Well?” he said.
“She said for you to come and help carry it,” I said.
“What?” Uncle Rodney said. “She said he’s not there?”
“No, sir. She said for you to come and help carry it. For me to say that twice.” Then I said, “Where’s my twenty quarters?” because he had already jumped out of the buggy and jumped across the walk into the shadow of some bushes. So I went into the bushes too and said, “You said you would give—”
“All right; all right!” Uncle Rodney said. He was kind of squatting along the bushes; I could hear him breathing. “I’ll give them to you tomorrow. I’ll give you thirty quarters tomorrow. Now you get to hell on home. And if they have been down to Mandy’s house, you don’t know anything. Run, now. Hurry.”
“I’d rather have the twenty quarters tonight,” I said.
He was squatting fast along in the shadow of the bushes, and I was right behind him, because when he whirled around he almost touched me, but I jumped back out of the bushes in time
and he stood there cussing at me and then he stooped down and I saw it was a stick in his hand and I turned and ran. Then he went on, squatting along in the shadow, and then I went back to the buggy, because the day after Christmas we would go back to Jefferson, and so if Uncle Rodney didn’t get back before then I would not see him again until next summer and then maybe he would be in business with another lady and my twenty quarters would be like my nickel that time when Mrs. Tucker was sick. So I waited by the buggy and I could watch the skyrockets and the Roman candles and I could hear the firecrackers from town, only it was late now and so maybe all the stores would be closed and so I couldn’t buy Grandpa a present, even when Uncle Rodney came back and gave me my twenty quarters. So I was listening to the firecrackers and thinking about how maybe I could tell Grandpa that I had wanted to buy him a present and so maybe he might give me fifteen cents instead of a dime anyway, when all of a sudden they started shooting firecrackers back at the house where Uncle Rodney had gone. Only they just shot five of them fast, and when they didn’t shoot any more I thought that maybe in a minute they would shoot the skyrockets and Roman candles too. But they didn’t. They just shot the five firecrackers right quick and then stopped, and I stood by the buggy and then folks began to come out of the houses and holler at one another and then I began to see men running toward the house where Uncle Rodney had gone, and then a man came out of the yard fast and went up the street toward Grandpa’s and I thought at first it was Uncle Rodney and that he had forgotten the buggy, until I saw that it wasn’t.
But Uncle Rodney never came back and so I went on toward the yard to where the men were, because I could still watch the buggy too and see Uncle Rodney if he came back out of the bushes, and I came to the yard and I saw six men carrying something long and then two other men ran up and stopped me and one of them said Hell-fire, it’s one of those kids, the one from Jefferson. And I could see then that what the men were carrying was a window blind with something wrapped in a quilt on it and so I thought at first that they had come to help Uncle Rodney carry the jewelry, only I didn’t see Uncle Rodney anywhere, and then one of the men said, “Who? One of the kids? Hell-fire, somebody take him on home.”
So the man picked me up, but I said I had to wait on Uncle Rodney, and the man said that Uncle Rodney would be all right, and I said But I wanted to wait for him here, and then one of the men behind us said Damn it, get him on out of here, and we went on. I was riding on the man’s back and then I could look back and see the six men in the moonlight carrying the blind with the bundle on it, and I said Did it belong to Uncle Rodney? and the man said No, if it belonged to anybody now it belonged to Grandpa. And so then I knew what it was.
“It’s a side of beef,” I said. “You are going to take it to Grandpa.” Then the other man made a funny sound and the one I was riding on said Yes, you might call it a side of beef, and I said, “It’s a Christmas present for Grandpa. Who is it going to be from? Is it from Uncle Rodney?”
“No,” the man said. “Not from him. Call it from the men of Mottstown. From all the husbands in Mottstown.”
VI
Then we came in sight of Grandpa’s house. And now the lights were all on, even on the porch, and I could see folks in the hall, I could see ladies with shawls over their heads, and some more of them going up the walk toward the porch, and then I could hear somebody in the house that sounded like singing and then papa came out of the house and came down the walk to the gate and we came up and the man put me down and I saw Rosie waiting at the gate too. Only it didn’t sound like singing now because there wasn’t any music with it, and so maybe it was Aunt Louisa again and so maybe she didn’t like Christmas now any better than Grandpa said he didn’t like it.
“It’s a present for Grandpa,” I said.
“Yes,” papa said. “You go on with Rosie and go to bed. Mamma will be there soon. But you be a good boy until she comes. You mind Rosie. All right, Rosie. Take him on. Hurry.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” Rosie said. She took my hand. “Come on.”
Only we didn’t go back into the yard, because Rosie came out the gate and we went up the street. And then I thought maybe we were going around the back to dodge the people and we didn’t do that, either. We just went on up the street, and I said, “Where are we going?”
And Rosie said, “We gonter sleep at a lady’s house name Mrs. Jordon.”
So we went on. I didn’t say anything. Because papa had forgotten to say anything about my slipping out of the house yet and so maybe if I went on to bed and stayed quiet he would forget about it until tomorrow too. And besides, the main thing was to get a holt of Uncle Rodney and get my twenty quarters before we went back home, and so maybe that would be all right tomorrow too. So we went on and Rosie said Yonder’s the house, and we went in the yard and then all of a sudden Rosie saw the possum. It was in a persimmon tree in Mrs. Jordon’s yard and I could see it against the moonlight too, and I hollered, “Run! Run and get Mrs. Jordon’s ladder!”
And Rosie said, “Ladder my foot! You going to bed!”
But I didn’t wait. I began to run toward the house, with Rosie running behind me and hollering You, Georgie! You come back here! But I didn’t stop. We could get the ladder and get the possum and give it to Grandpa along with the side of meat and it wouldn’t cost even a dime and then maybe Grandpa might even give me a quarter too, and then when I got the twenty quarters from Uncle Rodney I would have twenty-one quarters and that will be fine.
That Evening Sun
I
MONDAY IS NO different from any other weekday in Jefferson now. The streets are paved now, and the telephone and electric companies are cutting down more and more of the shade trees — the water oaks, the maples and locusts and elms — to make room for iron poles bearing clusters of bloated and ghostly and bloodless grapes, and we have a city laundry which makes the rounds on Monday morning, gathering the bundles of clothes into bright-colored, specially-made motor cars: the soiled wearing of a whole week now flees apparitionlike behind alert and irritable electric horns, with a long diminishing noise of rubber and asphalt like tearing silk, and even the Negro women who still take in white people’s washing after the old custom, fetch and deliver it in automobiles.
But fifteen years ago, on Monday morning the quiet, dusty, shady streets would be full of Negro women with, balanced on their steady, turbaned heads, bundles of clothes tied up in sheets, almost as large as cotton bales, carried so without touch of hand between the kitchen door of the white house and the blackened washpot beside a cabin door in Negro Hollow.
Nancy would set her bundle on the top of her head, then upon the bundle in turn she would set the black straw sailor hat which she wore winter and summer. She was tall, with a high, sad face sunken a little where her teeth were missing. Sometimes we would go a part of the way down the lane and across the pasture with her, to watch the balanced bundle and the hat that never bobbed nor wavered, even when she walked down into the ditch and up the other side and stooped through the fence. She would go down on her hands and knees and crawl through the gap, her head rigid, uptilted, the bundle steady as a rock or a balloon, and rise to her feet again and go on.
Sometimes the husbands of the washing women would fetch and deliver the clothes, but Jesus never did that for Nancy, even before father told him to stay away from our house, even when Dilsey was sick and Nancy would come to cook for us.
And then about half the time we’d have to go down the lane to Nancy’s cabin and tell her to come on and cook breakfast. We would stop at the ditch, because father told us to not have anything to do with Jesus — he was a short black man, with a razor scar down his face — and we would throw rocks at Nancy’s house until she came to the door, leaning her head around it without any clothes on.
“What yawl mean, chunking my house?” Nancy said. “What you little devils mean?”
“Father says for you to come on and get breakfast,” Caddy said. “Father says it’s over a half
an hour now, and you’ve got to come this minute.”
“I aint studying no breakfast,” Nancy said. “I going to get my sleep out.”
“I bet you’re drunk,” Jason said. “Father says you’re drunk. Are you drunk, Nancy?”
“Who says I is?” Nancy said. “I got to get my sleep out. I aint studying no breakfast.”
So after a while we quit chunking the cabin and went back home. When she finally came, it was too late for me to go to school. So we thought it was whisky until that day they arrested her again and they were taking her to jail and they passed Mr Stovall. He was the cashier in the bank and a deacon in the Baptist church, and Nancy began to say:
“When you going to pay me, white man? When you going to pay me, white man? It’s been three times now since you paid me a cent—” Mr Stovall knocked her down, but she kept on saying, “When you going to pay me, white man? It’s been three times now since—” until Mr Stovall kicked her in the mouth with his heel and the marshal caught Mr Stovall back, and Nancy lying in the street, laughing. She turned her head and spat out some blood and teeth and said, “It’s been three times now since he paid me a cent.”
That was how she lost her teeth, and all that day they told about Nancy and Mr Stovall, and all that night the ones that passed the jail could hear Nancy singing and yelling. They could see her hands holding to the window bars, and a lot of them stopped along the fence, listening to her and to the jailer trying to make her stop. She didn’t shut up until almost daylight, when the jailer began to hear a bumping and scraping upstairs and he went up there and found Nancy hanging from the window bar. He said that it was cocaine and not whisky, because no nigger would try to commit suicide unless he was full of cocaine, because a nigger full of cocaine wasn’t a nigger any longer.
The jailer cut her down and revived her; then he beat her, whipped her. She had hung herself with her dress. She had fixed it all right, but when they arrested her she didn’t have on anything except a dress and so she didn’t have anything to tie her hands with and she couldn’t make her hands let go of the window ledge. So the jailer heard the noise and ran up there and found Nancy hanging from the window, stark naked, her belly already swelling out a little, like a little balloon.
Complete Works of William Faulkner Page 619
