Tobacco Road (11 page)

“Will it have a horn on it?”

“I reckon it will. Don’t all new automobiles come with horns all ready on them?”

“Maybe so,” he said. “You be sure and find out if it’s got one when you buy it, anyway. It won’t be no good at all unless it’s got a horn.”

“Dude is pretty durn lucky,” Jeeter said. “I didn’t get a durn thing when I married Ada, there. She didn’t have nothing but some old dresses of her own, and her people was that durn poor they had to eat meal and fat-back just like we do now. I didn’t get nothing when I married her, except a mess of trouble.”

Ada walked over to Bessie and laid her hand on Bessie’s arm.

“Maybe if you got all that money, Bessie, you and Dude could buy me a jar of snuff in Fuller. Reckon you could do that for Dude’s old Ma? Being that Dude is my boy, you ought to get me just a little jar of snuff, anyway. I’d sure be powerful pleased if you was to get three or four jars while you was about it, though. Snuff drives away the pains in my poor stomach when I can’t get nothing to eat.”

“I been needing a new pair of overalls for the longest time, Bessie,” Jeeter said. “I declare, I’m almost scared to go a far piece from the house any more, because I don’t know but what my clothes will drop right off of me some time when I ain’t noticing. If you could get me a new pair in Fuller, I’d be powerful pleased.”

Bessie led Dude away from the well. They walked around the house, and when nobody was looking, she stood behind him and hugged him so hard he could not breathe until she released him.

“What you doing that to me for?” he said. “I ain’t never had that done to me before.”

“Me and you is going to get married, Dude. Don’t you know that?”

He walked around behind her, looked at the back of her head, and came back in front again.

“When is you going to get a new automobile?” he asked.

“Right away, Dude. We’re going to Fuller right now and get it.”

Dude was more excited over the prospect of driving a new automobile than he had ever been about anything in his whole life. The automobiles he had seen had all been old ones like Jeeter’s, except the ones the rich people in Augusta drove. He could not make himself believe that he was actually going to drive one like those he had seen in the city. He wanted to start for Fuller without another minute’s delay.

“Come on,” he said. “We ain’t got no time to lose.”

“Ain’t you glad we is going to get married, though?” she said. “It’s going to be real nice, ain’t it, Dude?”

The rest of the Lesters had followed them to the front yard, and they stood by the corner of the house waiting to see Dude and Bessie leave for Fuller. Ellie May followed them down the road for about half a mile before she turned around and came back to the house.

Dude walked in front, and Bessie followed him several yards behind. When they reached the top of the first sand hill, they stopped and looked back at the Lester house to see if Ada and Jeeter were watching them. Bessie waved her hand until Dude told her to hurry up so they could get to Fuller.

The long walk to Fuller took them nearly two hours, because Bessie had to stop several times and rest beside the road. The sun was hot by that time, as it was nearly ten o’clock when they left the Lester place; and it was difficult walking through the deep sand, especially for Bessie. In some places the sand was a foot deep, and her feet sank down so far that the sand ran down her shoe tops. Dude would never sit down and wait for Bessie to get ready to start walking again. He waited several hundred feet away, urging her to hurry.

Dude had started out walking slowly enough for Bessie to keep up with him; but as they got closer to Fuller, Dude could not hold himself back. He ran ahead several hundred yards, and then had to walk back to meet Bessie. He would have gone on to town without her, but he did not know what to do when he got there. He was afraid, too, that if he got out of Bessie’s sight she might turn around and go back without buying the new automobile.

Neither of them talked the whole time. Bessie hummed a hymn to herself, occasionally raising a note to the shrill pitch she liked so much, but she did not try to talk to Dude. They were too engrossed in their own thoughts to talk.

D
UDE WAITED OUTSIDE
the garage and looked at the new automobile on display in the show window. Bessie had gone inside. Dude had said he would stay on the street and look through the window a while.

Bessie waited in the middle of the floor several minutes before any one came out of the back room to ask what she wanted. Presently a salesman walked over to her and asked her if she wanted anything. He noticed that there was something unusual about her nose the moment he first saw her.

“I came to buy a new Ford,” she said.

The salesman was so busy looking down into her nostrils that he had to ask her to repeat what she said.

“I came to buy a new Ford.”

“Have you got any money?”

He glanced around to see if any of the other men were in the room. He wanted them to take a good look at Bessie’s nose.

“I’ve got enough to buy a new automobile if it don’t cost more than eight hundred dollars.”

He looked up into her eyes for the first time. It was hard to believe from her appearance that she had as much as a penny.

“How’d you get it?” he said.

“The Lord provides for me. He always provides for His children.”

“He ain’t never sent me nothing, and I been here thirty years now. You must be on the inside some way.”

The salesman laughed at what he had said, and looked down into Bessie’s nostrils again.

“That’s because you don’t put your trust in the Lord.”

“You ain’t got that much money sure enough, have you?”

Bessie took the check-book from her skirt pocket and showed it to him. While he was looking at the name of the bank and the balance to her account tabulated on the stub, she walked to the door and motioned to Dude to come inside.

“Who’s that?” the man said. “Is he your kid?”

“That’s Dude Lester. Everybody’s heard of the Lesters on the tobacco road. Me and Dude is going to get married to-day. As soon as we can get the new automobile we’re going to ride around to the courthouse and get leave to marry.”

The salesman shoved the check-book into her hands, and ran to the door of the office.

“Come here quick, Harry!” he said. “I got a real sight to show you.”

An older man came out of the office and walked over to where Bessie and the salesman stood.

“What’s up?” he said, glancing from one to the other.

“This woman here is going to marry that kid, Harry—what do you know about that! Have you ever seen anything like it before?”

The older man asked Dude how old he was.

Dude was about to tell him that he was sixteen when Bessie pushed him behind her.

“That’s none of your business, how old he is. I want to buy a new automobile. That’s what I came here for. I walked five miles this morning to get here, too.”

The two men were whispering to each other when she had finished talking. The older one looked at her face, and when he saw the two large round holes in her nose, he stepped forward and tried to see down into her nostrils. Bessie covered her nose with her hand.

“Good God!” he said.

“Ain’t it a sight, though?” the salesman said.

“Has she got any money?” Harry asked him. “Don’t waste no time fooling with her if she ain’t. There’s a lot of them just like her who come in here from the country and never buy nothing.”

“She’s got a check-book on the Farmers’ Bank in Augusta, and she said she’s got eight hundred dollars in her account. The stub shows it, too.”

“Better call them up and find out about it first,” Harry said. “She might be telling the truth, and she might be lying. Some of them people out in the country do some tricky things sometimes. She might have found the checkbook and filled it out herself.”

They went back into the office talking about Bessie’s nose, and closed the door. After the salesman had called the bank, they came out again where Bessie and Dude were waiting.

“How much do you want to pay for a car?” the salesman said.

“Eight hundred dollars,” Bessie told him.

Harry nudged the salesman with his elbow.

“Now, this is a nice little job here,” he said, leaning against the fender of a new touring model. “It’s eight hundred dollars. You can drive it away to-day, if you want to. You won’t have to wait for the tags. I’ll get them for you some time next week. You can drive a new car anywhere in the State for seven days while you are waiting for the tags to come from Atlanta.”

They winked at each other; every time they wanted to put over a quick sale they told that lie about the registration laws.

Dude went to the car and blew the horn several times. The tone of it pleased him, and he grinned at Bessie.

“Do you like it, Dude?”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with it,” he said, blowing the horn again.

“We’ll take that one,” Bessie said, pointing at the car.

“Let’s see your check-book,” the other man said, jerking it out of Bessie’s hand before she could give it to him.

He took the check-book, tore out a blank, and hastily filled it out for eight hundred dollars.

While the man was writing the check for Bessie to sign before she could change her mind or leave the garage, the salesman was again trying to look down into her nose. He had never seen anything like it before in all his life.

“Sign your name here,” she was told.

“I always have to make my mark,” she said.

“What’s your name?”

“Sister Bessie Rice.”

“You must be a woman preacher,” the man said. “Ain’t you one?”

“I preach and pray, both.”

She touched the end of the pen while an “x” was crossed after her name on the check.

“The automobile’s yours,” she was told. “Is the boy going to drive it home for you?”

“Wait a minute,” Bessie said. “I clear forgot about praying—let’s all kneel down on the floor and have a little prayer before the trade is made.”

“It’s all over with now,” one of them said.

“No it ain’t, neither,” Bessie insisted. “It ain’t over till the Lord sends his blessings on it.”

The two men laughed at her insistence, but Bessie had already knelt down on the floor and Dude was getting down on his knees beside the automobile. The two men stood behind her so they would not have to kneel on the floor.

“Dear God, we poor sinners kneel down in this garage to pray for a blessing on this new automobile trade, so You will like what me and Dude is doing. This new automobile is for me and Dude to ride around in and do the work You want done for You in this sinful country. You ought to make us not have wrecks with it, so we won’t get hurt none. You don’t want us to get killed, right when we’re starting out to preach the gospel for You, do You? And these two men here who sold the new car to us need your blessing, too, so they can sell automobiles for the best good. They is sinful men just like all the rest of us, but I know they don’t aim to be, and You ought to bless their work and show them how to sell people new automobiles for the best good, just like You would do if You was down here selling automobiles Yourself, in Fuller. That’s all. Save us from the devil and make a place for us in heaven. Amen.”

Dude was the first to get on his feet. He jumped up and blew the horn six or seven long blasts. The two men came around in front of Bessie, wiping the perspiration from their faces, and laughing at Dude and Bessie. They looked at her nose again until she put her hand over it.

Dude and Bessie got into the automobile and sat down. Dude blew the horn again several times.

“Wait a minute,” the salesman said. “We’ll have to roll it outside first and fill up the tank with gas. You can’t drive it like it is now.”

Bessie got out, but Dude refused to leave the horn and steering wheel. He sat where he was and guided the car through the door while the men pushed.

After the gasoline had been pumped into the tank, Dude started the engine and got ready to leave. Bessie got in again, sitting in the centre of the back seat.

“Where you going now?” the salesman asked Bessie. “To get married?”

“We’re going around to the courthouse to get leave of the county,” she said. “Then we’ll get married.”

The two men whispered to each other.

“Did you ever see a nose like that before, Harry?”

“Not when I was sober.”

“Look at them two big round holes running down into her face—how does she keep it from raining down in there, you reckon?”

“I’ll be damned if I know. Maybe she puts cork stoppers in them to keep the water out. She would have to do something like that in a hard shower.”

Bessie leaned over and prodded Dude.

“Drive off, Dude,” she said. “Ain’t no sense in staying here no more.”

Dude put the car into gear and turned the gasoline on. Being unaccustomed to the new model, he did not know how to gauge the amount of gasoline, and the car jerked off so quickly that it almost lifted itself off the ground. The two men jumped out of the way just in time to keep from being hit by the fender.

Bessie showed Dude which way to turn to find the courthouse. When they reached it, Dude got out reluctantly and followed Bessie inside. He wanted to stay in the car and blow the horn, but Bessie said he had to go with her to get the license.

The Clerk’s office was found at the end of the hall on the first floor, and they opened the door and went inside. There was a cardboard sign on the door that Bessie remembered seeing when she came there with her first husband.

“I want leave to get married to Dude,” she stated.

The Clerk looked at her and spread out a blank on the table. He gave her a pen and motioned to her to fill it in with answers to the questions.

“You’ll have to write it for me. I can’t write the words down.”

“Can’t you write?” he asked. “Can’t you sign your name?”

“I never learned how,” she said.

He was about to say something, when he looked up and saw her nose. His eyes opened wider and wider.

“All right, I’ll put it down for you. But it ain’t my business to do that for you. You ought to do it yourself. I don’t get paid for writing people’s names for them.”