Then I had to get back in the bushes because Uncle Fred had to pass right by me to go to the woodshed to get the axe to open Mandy’s door. But they couldn’t fool Uncle Rodney. If Mr. Tucker couldn’t fool Uncle Rodney in Mr. Tucker’s own house, Uncle Fred and papa ought to known they couldn’t fool him right in his own papa’s back yard. So I didn’t even need to hear them.
I just waited until after a while Uncle Fred came back out the broken door and came to the woodshed and took the axe and pulled the lock and hasp and steeple off the woodhouse door and went back and then papa came out of Mandy’s house and they nailed the woodhouse lock onto Mandy’s door and locked it and they went around behind Mandy’s house, and I could hear Uncle Fred nailing the windows up. Then they went back to the house.
But it didn’t matter if Mandy was in the house too and couldn’t get out, because the train came from Jefferson with Rosie and papa’s Sunday clothes on it and so Rosie was there to cook for Grandpa and us and so that was all right too.
But they couldn’t fool Uncle Rodney. I could have told them that. I could have told them that sometimes Uncle Rodney even wanted to wait until after dark to even begin to do business. And so it was all right even if it was late in the afternoon before I could get away from Cousin Fred and Cousin Louisa.
It was late; soon they would begin to shoot the fireworks downtown, and then we would be hearing it too, so I could just see his face a little between the slats where papa and Uncle Fred had nailed up the back window; I could see his face where he hadn’t shaved, and he was asking me why in hell it took me so long because he had heard the Jefferson train come before dinner, before eleven o’clock, and laughing about how papa and Uncle Fred had nailed him up in the house to keep him when that was exactly what he wanted, and that I would have to slip out right after supper somehow and did I reckon I could manage it?
And I said how last Christmas it had been a quarter, but I didn’t have to slip out of the house that time, and he laughed, saying Quarter? Quarter? did I ever see ten quarters all at once? and I never did, and he said for me to be there with the screw driver right after supper and I would see ten quarters, and to remember that even God didn’t know where he is and so for me to get the hell away and stay away until I came back after dark with the screw driver.
And they couldn’t fool me either. Because I had been watching the man all afternoon, even when he thought I was just playing and maybe because I was from Jefferson instead of Mottstown and so I wouldn’t know who he was. But I did, because once when he was walking past the back fence and he stopped and lit his cigar again and I saw the badge under his coat when he struck the match and so I knew he was like Mr. Watts at Jefferson that catches the niggers. So I was playing by the fence and I could hear him stopping and looking at me and I played and he said, “Howdy, son. Santy Claus coming to see you tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“You’re Miss Sarah’s boy, from up at Jefferson, ain’t you?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Come to spend Christmas with your grandpa, eh?” he said. “I wonder if your Uncle Rodney’s at home this afternoon.”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Well, well, that’s too bad,” he said. “I wanted to see him a minute. He’s downtown, I reckon?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Well, well,” he said. “You mean he’s gone away on a visit, maybe?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Well, well,” he said. “That’s too bad. I wanted to see him on a little business. But I reckon it can wait.” Then he looked at me and then he said, “You’re sure he’s out of town, then?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Well, that was all I wanted to know,” he said. “If you happen to mention this to your Aunt Louisa or your Uncle Fred you can tell them that was all I wanted to know.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. So he went away. And he didn’t pass the house any more. I watched for him, but he didn’t come back. So he couldn’t fool me either.
IV
Then it began to get dark and they started to shoot the fireworks downtown. I could hear them, and soon we would be seeing the Roman candles and skyrockets and I would have the ten quarters then and I thought about the basket full of presents and I thought how maybe I could go on downtown when I got through working for Uncle Rodney and buy a present for Grandpa with a dime out of the ten quarters and give it to him tomorrow and maybe, because nobody else had given him a present, Grandpa might give me a quarter too instead of the dime tomorrow, and that would be twenty-one quarters, except for the dime, and that would be fine sure enough.
But I didn’t have time to do that. We ate supper, and Rosie had to cook that too, and mamma and Aunt Louisa with powder on their faces where they had been crying, and Grandpa; it was papa helping him take a dose of tonic every now and then all afternoon while Uncle Fred was downtown, and Uncle Fred came back and papa came out in the hall and Uncle Fred said he had looked everywhere, in the bank and in the Compress, and how Mr. Pruitt had helped him but they couldn’t find a sign either of them or of the money, because Uncle Fred was afraid because one night last week Uncle Rodney hired a rig and went somewhere and Uncle Fred found out Uncle Rodney drove over to the main line at Kingston and caught the fast train to Memphis, and papa said Damnation, and Uncle Fred said By God we will go down there after supper and sweat it out of him, because at least we have got him. I told Pruitt that and he said that if we hold to him, he will hold off and give us a chance.
So Uncle Fred and papa and Grandpa came in to supper together, with Grandpa between them saying Christmas don’t come but once a year, thank God, so hooray for it, and papa and Uncle Fred saying Now you are all right, pa; straight ahead now, pa, and Grandpa would go straight ahead awhile and then begin to holler Where in hell is that damn boy? and that meant Uncle Rodney, and that Grandpa was a good mind to go downtown himself and haul Uncle Rodney out of that damn pool hall and make him come home and see his kinfolks.
And so we ate supper and mamma said she would take the children upstairs and Aunt Louisa said No, Emmeline could put us to bed, and so we went up the back stairs, and Emmeline said how she had done already had to cook breakfast extra today and if folks thought she was going to waste all her Christmas doing extra work they never had the sense she give them credit for and that this looked like to her it was a good house to be away from nohow, and so we went into the room and then after a while I went back down the back stairs and I remembered where to find the screw driver too. Then I could hear the firecrackers plain from downtown, and the moon was shining now but I could still see the Roman candles and the skyrockets running up the sky.
Then Uncle Rodney’s hand came out of the crack in the shutter and took the screw driver. I couldn’t see his face now and it wasn’t laughing exactly, it didn’t sound exactly like laughing, it was just the way he breathed behind the shutter. Because they couldn’t fool him. “All right,” he said. “Now that’s ten quarters. But wait. Are you sure nobody knows where I am?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I waited by the fence until he come and asked me.”
“Which one?” Uncle Rodney said.
“The one that wears the badge,” I said.
Then Uncle Rodney cussed. But it wasn’t mad cussing. It sounded just like it sounded when he was laughing except the words.
“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
