Tobacco Road (15 page)

“Wasn’t you blowing the horn then, Dude?” Jeeter said.

“Not right then I wasn’t, because I was busy looking at the big still. I never saw one that big nowhere before. It was almost as big as a corn-liquor still, only it wasn’t as shiny-looking.”

“It’s a shame to get the new car smashed up so soon already, though,” Bessie said, going back and wiping off the dust. “It was brand new only a short time before noon, and now it’s only sundown.”

“It was that nigger,” Dude said. “If he hadn’t been asleep on the wagon it wouldn’t have happened at all. He was plumb asleep till it woke him up and threw him out in the ditch.”

“He didn’t get hurt much, did he?” Jeeter asked.

“I don’t know about that,” Dude said. “When we drove off again, he was still lying in the ditch. The wagon turned over on him and mashed him. His eyes was wide open all the time, but I couldn’t make him say nothing. He looked like he was dead.”

“Niggers will get killed. Looks like there ain’t no way to stop it.”

The sun had been down nearly half an hour and the chill dampness of an early spring night settled over the ground. The grandmother had already gone into the house and got into bed. Ada went up on the porch, hugging her arms across her chest to keep warm, and Bessie started inside, too.

Dude and Jeeter stood around the car until it was so dark they could not see it any longer, and then they too went inside.

The glare of woods-fire soon began to light the sky on the horizons, and the smell of pine smoke filled the damp evening air. Fires were burning in all directions; some of them had been burning a week or longer, while others had been burning only since that afternoon.

In the spring, the farmers burned over all of their land. They said the fire would kill the boll-weevils. That was the reason they gave for burning the woods and fields, whenever anybody asked why they did not stop burning up young pine seedlings and standing timber. But the real reason was because everybody had always burned the woods and fields each spring, and they saw no cause for abandoning life-long habits. Burning fields and woods seemed to them to be as necessary as drilling guano in the cotton fields to make the plants yield a large crop. If the wood that was burned had been sawn into lumber or cut into firewood, instead of burning to ashes on the ground, there would have been something for them to sell. Boll-weevils were never killed in any great numbers by the fire; the cotton plants had to be sprayed with poison in the summer, anyway. But everybody had always burned over the land each spring, and they continued if only for the reason that their fathers had done it. Jeeter always burned over his land, even though there was no reason in the world why he should do it; he never raised crops any more. This was why the land was bare of everything except broom-sedge and blackjack; the sedge grew anew each year, and the hottest fire could not hurt those tough scrub oaks.

Inside the house the women gathered in the bedroom in the darkness and waited for Jeeter and Dude. The grandmother was already in bed, covered with her ragged quilts. Ellie May had gone out into the broom-sedge and had not yet returned. Bessie and Ada sat on the beds waiting.

The three beds had always held all the Lesters, even when there were sometimes as many as eight or nine of them there. Occasionally, some had slept on pallets on the floor in summer, but in winter it was much warmer for every one in the beds. Now that all of the children had left except Dude and Ellie May, there was just enough room for every one. Bessie had a house of her own, a three-room tenant house on the last sand hill at the river; but the roof was rotten, and the shingles had blown away, and when it rained everything in the three rooms was soaked with water.

Sometimes in the middle of the night when a storm came up suddenly, Bessie would wake up to find the bed filled with water, every piece of her clothes wet, and more water pouring down through the roof. She had told Ada that she did not want to stay there any more until she could have a new shingle roof put on the house. The building and the land around it belonged to Captain John Harmon; he never came out to the tobacco road any more, and he made no repairs to the buildings. He had told Jeeter and Bessie, and all the other people who lived out there, that they could stay in the houses until the buildings rotted to the ground and that he would never ask for a penny of rent. They understood the arrangement fully; he was not going to make any repairs to the roofs, porches, rotted under-sills, or anything about the buildings. If the houses fell down, he said, it would be too bad for them; but if they stood up, then Jeeter, Bessie, and all the others could remain in them as long as they wanted to stay.

Jeeter and Dude came into the house, stumbling through the darkness. There was a lamp in the house, but no kerosene had been bought that whole winter. The Lesters went to bed at dark, except in summer when it was warm enough to sit on the porch, and they got up at daylight. There was no need for kerosene, anyway. Jeeter sat down on his bed beside Ada and pulled off his heavy shoes. The brogans fell on the floor like bricks dropped waist high.

“We stopped in every house we came to, and got out and visited a while,” Bessie said. “Some of them wanted prayer, and some didn’t. It didn’t make much difference to me, because me and Dude was all excited about riding around. Some of the people wanted to know where I got all the money to buy a brand-new car, and why I married Dude, and I told them. I told them my former husband left me eight hundred dollars, and I said I married Dude because I was going to make a preacher out of him. Of course, that was only one reason why we got married, but I knew that would be enough to tell them.”

“Nobody said things against you, did they, Sister Bessie?” Jeeter asked. “Some people has got a way of talking about people like us.”

“Well, some of them did say a few things about me marrying Dude. They said he was too young to be married to a woman my age, but when they started talking like that, we just got in our new automobile and rode off. A lot of them said it was a sin and a shame for to take my husband’s money and buy an automobile and get married to a young boy like Dude, but while they was doing the talking, me and Dude was doing the riding, wasn’t we, Dude?”

Dude did not answer.

“I reckon Dude has gone to sleep,” Jeeter said. “He worked pretty hard to-day, driving that automobile clear to McCoy and back again.”

Ada sat up in bed.

“Take them overalls off, Jeeter,” she said angrily. “I ain’t never seen the like of it. You know I ain’t going to let you sleep in the bed with them dirty pants on. I have to tell you about it nearly every time. They dirty-up the bed something bad. You ought to know I ain’t going to stand for that.”

“It’s pretty cold again to-night,” Jeeter said. “I get chilly when I don’t sleep with my overalls on. It seems like I can’t do nothing no more like I want to. Sleeping in overalls ain’t going to hurt nothing, noway.”

“You’re the only man I ever knowed of who wanted to sleep in his overalls. Don’t nobody else do like that.”

Jeeter did not answer her. He got up out of bed and climbed out of his overalls and hung them on the foot of the bed. When he got back under the quilts, he was shivering all over.

Bessie could be heard over on the other side of the room stepping around in her stockinged feet getting ready for bed. She had kept her shoes on until she removed her clothes.

Jeeter lifted his head from under the cover and tried to look through the darkness of the room.

“You know, Bessie,” he said, “it sort of makes me feel good like I was before I lost my health to have a woman preacher sleep in my house. It’s a fine feeling I has about you staying here.”

“I’m a woman preacher, all right,” she said, “but I ain’t no different in other ways from the rest of the women-folks. Jeeter, you know that, don’t you?”

Jeeter raised himself on his elbow and strained his eyes to see through the darkness across the room.

“I hope you ain’t leaving us no time soon,” he said. “I’d be powerful pleased to have you sleep here all the time, Bessie.”

Ada thrust her elbow into his ribs with all her strength, and he fell down groaning with pain on the bed beside her.

Bessie could be heard getting into her bed. The corn-shuck mattress crackled, and the slats rattled as she lay down and stretched out her feet. She lay still for several minutes, and then she began to stretch her hands out towards the other side, the impact of her arms making the shucks crackle more than ever.

Suddenly she sat up in bed, throwing the quilts aside.

“Where’s Dude?” she demanded angrily, her voice gruff and unnatural. “Where is you, Dude?”

Not a sound was to be heard in the room. Ada had sat upright, and Jeeter had sprung to a sitting position on the side of the bed. Bessie’s corn-shuck mattress crackled some more, and then the thump of her bare feet on the pine floor could be heard all over the house. Jeeter still did not attempt to speak or to move. He waited to catch every sound in the house.

“You Dude—you Dude!” Bessie cried from the centre of the room, trying to feel her way from bed to bed. “Where is you, Dude—why don’t you answer me? You’d better not try to hide from me, Dude!”

“What’s the matter, Bessie?” Jeeter said.

“Dude ain’t in the bed—I can’t find him nowhere at all.”

Reaching for his overalls, Jeeter jumped to his feet. He began fumbling in his pockets for a match. At last he found one, and bending over, he struck it on the floor.

The flare of the match revealed every one in the room. Every one was there except Ellie May and Dude. Bessie was only a few feet away from Jeeter, and he tried to look at her. She was shielding her eyes from the light.

Ada crawled out of bed and stood behind Jeeter the moment she saw Bessie.

“Put them overalls on,” she commanded Jeeter. “I don’t know what you and her is up to, but I’m watching. You put them overalls on right now. I don’t care if she is a woman preacher, she ain’t got no right to stand in the floor in front of you like she is.”

Jeeter hesitated, and the match burned down to his fingers. He stepped into his overalls, put one arm through a gallus, and reached into his pocket for another match.

Bessie was still standing beside Jeeter, but when he struck the match, she ran to Mother Lester’s bed. She jerked back the covers, and saw Dude sound asleep. The grandmother was awake, and she lay trembling in her old torn black clothes.

Jeeter shook Dude awake and pulled him to the floor. Ada jerked him by the arm.

“What you mean by not getting in bed with Bessie?” Jeeter demanded, shaking him roughly by the collar.

Dude looked around him and blinked his eyes. He was unable to see anything in the flare of the match.

“What you want?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Dude, he didn’t know which bed to get in,” Sister Bessie said tenderly. “He was so tired and sleepy he didn’t look to see which one we was going to sleep in, did you, Dude?”

“Dude, you can’t act that way,” Jeeter said. “You got to keep your eyes open when you get married. Bessie, here, got powerful nervous when she didn’t find you in bed.”

Ada went back to bed, and Jeeter followed her. He did not take off his overalls, and Ada went to sleep without thinking about them.

Ellie May came in after a while and got into bed with her grandmother. No one spoke to her.

The grandmother had been wide awake all the time, but no one said anything to her, and she did not try to tell Bessie that Dude was in her bed. No one ever said anything to her, except to tell her to get out of the way, or to stop eating the bread and meat.

Dude and Bessie went to their bed and lay down. Sister Bessie tried to talk to Dude, but Dude was tired and sleepy. He did not answer her. The rustling sound of the corn-shuck mattress continued most of the night.

J
EETER DRANK HIS
third cup of chicory and cleared his throat. Dude had already left the kitchen and gone to the yard, and Sister Bessie was on the back porch combing her hair. Jeeter went down the back steps and leaned against the well.

“It would be a pretty smart deal if I was to take a load of wood to Augusta to-day,” he said. “Me and Dude’s got a big pile of it all cut and ready to haul. Now, if we was to pile it in the new automobile it wouldn’t take no time to haul it to the city, would it, Bessie?”

She finished combing her hair, stuck half a dozen pins and the rhinestone comb into it, and walked with Jeeter over to the automobile.

“Maybe it would hold a load,” she said. “There ain’t so much room in the back seat, though.”

“Mine holds a fair load, and it ain’t no bigger than that one. They is the same kind of automobiles. The only difference being that yours is near about a brand-new one now.”

Dude turned on the switch and raced the engine. The motor hummed perfectly. The tightness that had bothered Dude the day before had gone, and the engine was in good running order. He blew the horn several times, grinning at Jeeter.

“I’d sort of like to take a trip to Augusta, all right,” Bessie said. “Me and Dude was going there yesterday, before we changed our mind and went down to McCoy instead.”

“It won’t take long to put a load of wood in the back seat,” Jeeter said. “We can leave pretty soon. Dude—you drive the automobile out across the field yonder to that pile of wood we been cutting the past week. I’ll get some pieces of baling wire to bind the load good and tight so it won’t drop off.”

Bessie got in beside Dude, and they started out across the old cotton field towards the grove of blackjack. The field had grown up into four-foot broom-sedge in the past few years. Once it had been the finest piece of tobacco land on the whole farm.

The rows of the last crop of cotton were still there, and as the car gathered speed, the bumps tossed Dude and Bessie up and down so suddenly and so often that they could not keep their seats. Dude grasped the steering-wheel tightly and held himself better than Bessie could; Bessie bobbed up and down as the car raced over the old cotton rows and her head hit the top every time there was a bump. They had gone about a quarter of a mile, and were almost at the edge of the grove where the pile of blackjack was, when suddenly there was a jarring crash that stopped the car dead in its tracks.