Bayard drove on down the valley toward town, passing the iron gates and the serene white house among its trees, and went on at speed. The sound of the unmuffled engine crashed into the dust and swirled it into lethargic bursting shapes and faded across the planted land. Just outside of town he came upon another wagon and he held the car upon it until the mules reared, tilting the wagon; then he swerved and whipped past with not an inch to spare, so close that the yelling negro in the wagon could see the lipless and savage derision of his teeth.
He went on. In a mounting swoop like a niggard zoom the cemetery with his great-grandfather in pompous effigy flashed past, and he thought of old Simon trudging along the dusty road toward home, clutching his rabbit’s foot, and he felt savage and ashamed.
Town among its trees, its shady streets like green tunnels, along which tight lives accomplished their peaceful tragedies. He closed the muffler and at a sedate pace he approached the square. The clock on the courthouse lifted its four faces above the trees, in glimpses seen between arching vistas of trees.
Ten minutes to twelve. At twelve exactly his grandfather would repair to the office in the rear of the bank and drink the pint of buttermilk which he brought in with him in a vacuum bottle every morning, and then sleep for an hour on the sofa there. When Bayard turned on to the square the tilted chair in the bank door was already vacant. He slowed the car and eased it in to the curb before a propped sandwich board.
Fresh Catfish Today the board stated in letters of liquefied chalk, and through the screen doors beyond it came a smell of refrigerated food—cheese and pickle and such—with a faint overtone of fried grease.
He stood for a while on the sidewalk, while the noon throng parted and flowed about him—negroes slow and aimless as figures of a dark, placid dream, with an animal odor, murmuring and laughing among themselves; there was in their consonantless murmuring something ready with mirth, in their laughter something grave and sad—country people, men in overalls or corduroy or khaki and without neckties, women in shapeless calico and sunbonnets and snuff-sticks—groups of young girls in stiff mail-order finery, the young heritage of their bodies’ grace dulled already by self-consciousness and labor and unaccustomed high heels, and soon to be obscured forever by childbearing—youths and young men in cheap, tasteless suits and shirts and caps, weather-tanned and clean-limbed as racehorses and a little belligerently blatant.
Against the wall, squatting, a blind negro beggar, with a guitar and a wire frame holding a mouth organ to his lips, patterned the background of smells and sounds with a plaintive reiteration of rich, monotonous chords, rhythmic as a mathematical formula, but without music. He was a man of at least forty and his was that patient resignation of many sightless years; yet he too wore filthy khaki with a corporal’s stripes on one sleeve and a crookedly-sewn Boy Scout emblem on the other, and on his breast a button commemorating the fourth Liberty Loan and a small metal brooch bearing two gold stars, obviously intended for female adornment. His weathered derby was encircled by an officer’s hatcord, and on the pavement between his feet sat a tin cup containing a dime and three pennies.
Bayard sought a coin in his pocket, and the beggar sensed his approach and his tune became a single repeated chord, but without a break in the rhythm, until the coin rang into the cup, and still without a break in the rhythm and the meaningless strains of the mouth organ, his left hand dropped, groping a little, to the cup and read the coin in a single motion; then once more guitar and mouth organ resumed their monotonous pattern. As Bayard turned away some one spoke at his side—a broad, squat man with a keen weathered face and gray temples.
He wore corduroys and boots, and his body was the supple body of a horseman, and his brown still hands were the hands that horses love. MacCallum his name, one of a family of six brothers who lived eighteen miles away in the hills and with whom Bayard and John hunted foxes and ’coons during their vacations.
“Been hearing about that car of yourn,” MacCallum said. “That’s her, is it?” He stepped down from the curb and moved easily about the car, examining it, his hands on his hips. “Too much barrel,” he said, “and she looks heavy in the withers. Clumsy. Have to use a curb on her, I reckon?”
“I don’t,” Bayard answered. “Jump in, and I’ll show you what she’ll do.”
“No, much obliged,” the other answered. He stepped on to the pavement again, among the negroes gathered to stare at the car. The clock on the courthouse struck twelve, and already along the street there came in small groups children going home from school for the noon recess—little girls with colored boxes and skipping ropes, talking sibilantly among themselves of intense feminine affairs, and boys in various stages of deshabille, shouting and scuffling and jostling the little girls, who shrank together and gave the little hays cold reverted glares. “Going to eat a snack,” MacCallum explained. He crossed the pavement and opened the screen door. “You ate yet?” he asked, looking back. “Come on in a minute, anyway,” and he patted his hip significantly.
The store was half grocery and confectionery, and half restaurant. A number of customers stood about the cluttered but clean front, with sandwiches and bottles of soda water, and the proprietor bobbed his head at them with flurried, slightly distrait affability above the counter. The rear half was filled with tables at which a number of men and a woman or so, mostly country people, sat eating with awkward and solemn decorum.
Next to this was the kitchen, filled with frying odors and the brittle hissing of it, where two negroes moved like wraiths in a blue lethargy of smoke. They crossed this room and MacCallum opened a door set in an outthrust angle of the wall, and they entered a smaller room, or rather a large closet. There was a small window high in the wall, and a bare table and three or four chairs, and presently the younger of the two negroes followed them.
“Yes, suh, Mr. MacCallum and Mr. Sartoris.” He set two freshly rinsed glasses, to which water yet adhered in sliding beads, on the table, and stood drying his hands on his apron. He had a broad, untroubled face, a reliable sort of face.
“Lemons and sugar and ice,” MacCallum said. “You don’t want none of that soda-pop, do you?” The negro paused with his hand on the door.
“No,” Bayard answered. “Rather have a toddy myself.”
“Yes, suh,” the negro agreed. “Y’all wants a toddy.” And he bowed again with grave approval, and turned again and stepped aside as the proprietor in a fresh apron entered at his customary distracted trot and stood rubbing his hands on his thighs.
“Morning, morning,” he said. “How’re you, Rafe? Bayard, I saw Miss Jenny and the old Colonel going up to Doc Peabody’s office the other day. Ain’t nothing wrong, is there?” His head was like an inverted egg; his hair curled meticulously away from the part in the center into two careful reddish-brown wings, like a toupee, and his eyes were a melting, passionate brown.
“Come in here and shut that door,” MacCallum ordered, drawing the other into the room. He produced from beneath his coat a bottle of astonishing proportions and set it on the table. It contained a delicate amber liquid, and the proprietor rubbed his hands on his thighs, and his hot mild gaze gloated upon it.
“Great Savior,” he said, “where’d you have that demi-john hid? In your pants leg?” MacCallum uncorked the bottle and extended it and the proprietor leaned forward and sniffed it, his eyes closed. He sighed.
“Henry’s,” MacCallum said. “Best run he’s made in six months. Reckon you’d take a drink if Bayard and me was to hold you?” The other cackled loudly, unctuously.
“Ain’t he a comical feller, now?” he asked Bayard. “Some joker, ain’t he?” He glanced at the table. “You ain’t got but two gl—” Someone tapped at the door; the proprietor leaned his conical head to it and waggled his hand at them. MacCallum concealed the bottle without haste as the other opened the door. It was the negro, with another glass and lemons and sugar and ice in a cracked bowl. The proprietor admitted him.
“If they want me up front, tell ’em I’ve stepped out but I’ll be back in a minute, Houston.”
“Yes, suh,” the negro replied, setting his burden on the table. MacCallum produced the bottle again.
“What do you keep on telling your customers that old lie for?” he asked. “Everybody knows what you are doing.”
The proprietor cackled again, gloating upon the bottle. “Yes, sir,” he repeated, “he’s sure some joker. Well, you boys have got plenty of time, but I got to get on back and keep things running.”
“Go ahead,” MacCallum told him, and the proprietor made himself a toddy. He raised the glass, stirring it and sniffing it alternately, while the others followed suit. Then he removed his spoon and laid it on the table.
“Well, I hate to hurry a good thing mighty bad,” he said, “but business don’t wait on pleasure, you know.”
“Work does interfere with a man’s drinking,” MacCallum agreed.
“Yes, sir, it sure does,” the other replied. He
