“What? Tell a jury about what?”
“Nothing. Because hit ain’t going to no jury. A jury between her and me? Me and Mannie Hait? You boys don’t know her if you think she’s going to make trouble over a pure acci-dent couldn’t nobody help. Why, there ain’t a fairer, finer woman in the county than Miz Mannie Hait.
I just wisht I had a opportunity to tell her so.” The opportunity came at once. Old Het was behind her, carrying the shopping-bag. Mrs. Hait looked once, quietly, about at the faces, making no response to the murmur of curious salutation, then not again. She didn’t look at Snopes long either, nor talk to him long.
“I come to buy that mule,” she said.
“What mule?” They looked at one another. “You’d like to own that mule?” She looked at him. “Hit’ll cost you a hundred and fifty, Miz Mannie.”
“You mean dollars?”
“I don’t mean dimes nor nickels neither, Miz Mannie.”
“Dollars,” she said. “That’s more than mules was in Hait’s time.”
“Lots of things is different since Hait’s time. Including you and me.”
“I reckon so,” she said. Then she went away. She turned without a word, old Het following.
“Maybe one of them others you looked at this morning would suit you,” Snopes said. She didn’t answer. Then they were gone.
“I don’t know as I would have said that last to her,” one said.
“What for?” Snopes said. “If she was aiming to law something outen me about that fire, you reckon she would have come and offered to pay me money for hit?” That was about one o’clock. About four o’clock he was shouldering his way through a throng of Negroes before a cheap grocery store when one called his name. It was old Het, the now bulging shopping-bag on her arm, eating bananas from a paper sack.
“Fo God I wuz jest dis minute huntin fer you,” she said. She handed the banana to a woman beside her and delved and fumbled in the shopping-bag and extended a greenback. “Miz Mannie gimme dis to give you; I wuz jest on de way to de sto whar you stay at. Here.” He took the bill.
“What’s this? From Miz Hait?”
“Fer de mule.” The bill was for ten dollars. “You don’t need to gimme no receipt. I kin be de witness I give hit to you.”
“Ten dollars? For that mule? I told her a hundred and fifty dollars.”
“You’ll have to fix dat up wid her yo’self. She jest gimme dis to give ter you when she sot out to fetch de mule.”
“Set out to fetch — She went out there herself and taken my mule outen my pasture?”
“Lawd, chile,” old Het said, “Miz Mannie ain’t skeered of no mule. Ain’t you done foun dat out?”
And then it became late, what with the yet short winter days; when she came in sight of the two gaunt chimneys against the sunset, evening was already finding itself. But she could smell the ham cooking before she came in sight of the cow shed even, though she could not see it until she came around in front where the fire burned beneath an iron skillet set on bricks and where nearby Mrs. Hait was milking the cow. “Well,” old Het said, “you is settled down, ain’t you?” She looked into the shed, neated and raked and swept even, and floored now with fresh hay.
A clean new lantern burned on a box, beside it a pallet bed was spread neatly on the straw and turned neatly back for the night. “Why, you is fixed up,” she said with pleased astonishment. Within the door was a kitchen chair. She drew it out and sat down beside the skillet and laid the bulging shopping-bag beside her.
“I’ll tend dis meat whilst you milks. I’d offer to strip dat cow fer you ef I wuzn’t so wo out wid all dis excitement we been had.” She looked around her. “I don’t believe I sees yo new mule, dough.” Mrs. Hait grunted, her head against the cow’s flank. After a moment she said,
“Did you give him that money?”
“I give um ter him. He ack surprise at first, lak maybe he think you didn’t aim to trade dat quick. I tole him to settle de details wid you later. He taken de money, dough. So I reckin dat’s offen his mine en yo’n bofe.” Again Mrs. Hait grunted.
Old Het turned the ham in the skillet. Beside it the coffee pot bubbled and steamed. “Cawfee smell good too,” she said. “I ain’t had no appetite in years now. A bird couldn’t live on de vittles I eats.
But jest lemme git a whiff er cawfee en seem lak hit always whets me a little. Now, ef you jest had nudder little piece o dis ham, now — Fo God, you got company aready.” But Mrs. Hait did not even look up until she had finished. Then she turned without rising from the box on which she sat.
“I reckon you and me better have a little talk,” Snopes said. “I reckon I got something that belongs to you and I hear you got something that belongs to me.” He looked about, quickly, ceaselessly, while old Het watched him. He turned to her. “You go away, aunty. I don’t reckon you want to set here and listen to us.”
“Lawd, honey,” old Het said. “Don’t you mind me. I done already had so much troubles myself dat I kin set en listen to udder folks’ widout hit worryin me a-tall. You gawn talk whut you came ter talk; I jest set here en tend de ham.” Snopes looked at Mrs. Hait.
“Ain’t you going to make her go away?” he said.
“What for?” Mrs. Hait said. “I reckon she ain’t the first critter that ever come on this yard when hit wanted and went or stayed when hit liked.” Snopes made a gesture, brief, fretted, restrained.
“Well,” he said. “All right. So you taken the mule.”
“I paid you for it. She give you the money.”
“Ten dollars. For a hundred-and-fifty-dollar mule. Ten dollars.”
“I don’t know anything about hundred-and-fifty-dollar mules. All I know is what the railroad paid.” Now Snopes looked at her for a full moment.
“What do you mean?”
“Them sixty dollars a head the railroad used to pay you for mules back when you and Hait—”
“Hush,” Snopes said; he looked about again, quick, ceaseless. “All right. Even call it sixty dollars. But you just sent me ten.”
“Yes. I sent you the difference.” He looked at her, perfectly still. “Between that mule and what you owed Hait.”
“What I owed—”
“For getting them five mules onto the tr—”
“Hush!” he cried. “Hush!” Her voice went on, cold, grim, level.
“For helping you. You paid him fifty dollars each time, and the railroad paid you sixty dollars a head for the mules. Ain’t that right?” He watched her. “The last time you never paid him. So I taken that mule instead. And I sent you the ten dollars difference.”
“Yes,” he said in a tone of quiet, swift, profound bemusement; then he cried: “But look! Here’s where I got you. Hit was our agreement that I wouldn’t never owe him nothing until after the mules was—”
“I reckon you better hush yourself,” Mrs. Hait said.
“ — until hit was over. And this time, when over had come, I never owed nobody no money because the man hit would have been owed to wasn’t nobody,” he cried triumphantly. “You see?” Sitting on the box, motionless, downlooking, Mrs. Hait seemed to muse. “So you just take your ten dollars back and tell me where my mule is and we’ll just go back good friends to where we started at. Fore God, I’m as sorry as ere a living man about that fire—”
“Fo God!” old Het said, “hit was a blaze, wuzn’t it?”
“ — but likely with all that ere railroad money you still got, you just been wanting a chance to build new, all along. So here. Take hit.” He put the money into her hand. “Where’s my mule?” But Mrs. Hait didn’t move at once.
“You want to give it back to me?” she said.
“Sho. We been friends all the time; now we’ll just go back to where we left off being. I don’t hold no hard feelings and don’t you hold none. Where you got the mule hid?”
“Up at the end of that ravine ditch behind Spilmer’s,” she said.
“Sho. I know. A good, sheltered place, since you ain’t got nere barn. Only if you’d a just left hit in the pasture, hit would a saved us both trouble. But hit ain’t no hard feelings though. And so I’ll bid you goodnight. You’re all fixed up, I see. I reckon you could save some more money by not building no house a-tall.”
“I reckon I could,” Mrs. Hait said. But he was gone.
“Whut did you leave de mule dar fer?” old Het said.
“I reckon that’s far enough,” Mrs. Hait said.
“Fer enough?” But Mrs. Hait came and looked into the skillet, and old Het said, “Wuz hit me er you dat mentioned something erbout er nudder piece o dis ham?” So they were both eating when in the not-quite-yet accomplished twilight Snopes returned. He came up quietly and stood, holding his hands to the blaze as if he were quite cold. He did not look at any one now.
“I reckon I’ll take that ere ten dollars,” he said.
“What ten dollars?” Mrs. Hait said.
