“Look it over,” he says, with his heels dug too and that white pistol sticking outen his pocket and his neck swole up like a spreading adder’s until you could just tell what he was saying, cussing the horse and talking to us all at once: “Look him over, the fiddle-headed son of fourteen fathers.
Try him, buy him; you will get the best—” Then it was all dust again, and we couldn’t see nothing but spotted hide and mane, and that ere Texas man’s boot-heels like a couple of walnuts on two strings, and after a while that two-gallon hat come sailing out like a fat old hen crossing a fence.
When the dust settled again, he was just getting outen the far fence corner, brushing himself off. He come and got his hat and brushed it off and come and clumb onto the gate post again. He was breathing hard. He taken the gingersnap box outen his pocket and et one, breathing hard.
The hammer-head horse was still running round and round the lot like a merry-go-round at a fair. That was when Henry Armstid come shoving up to the gate in them patched overalls and one of them dangle-armed shirts of hisn.
Hadn’t nobody noticed him until then. We was all watching the Texas man and the horses. Even Mrs. Littlejohn; she had done come out and built a fire under the wash-pot in her back yard, and she would stand at the fence a while and then go back into the house and come out again with a arm full of wash and stand at the fence again. Well, here come Henry shoving up, and then we see Mrs. Armstid right behind him, in that ere faded wrapper and sunbonnet and them tennis shoes. “Git on back to that wagon,” Henry says.
“Henry,” she says.
“Here, boys,” the Texas man says; “make room for missus to git up and see. Come on, Henry,” he says; “here’s your chance to buy that saddle-horse missus has been wanting. What about ten dollars, Henry?”
“Henry,” Mrs. Armstid says. She put her hand on Henry’s arm. Henry knocked her hand down.
“Git on back to that wagon, like I told you,” he says.
Mrs. Armstid never moved. She stood behind Henry, with her hands rolled into her dress, not looking at nothing. “He hain’t no more despair than to buy one of them things,” she says. “And us not five dollars ahead of the pore house, he hain’t no more despair.” It was the truth, too. They ain’t never made more than a bare living offen that place of theirs, and them with four chaps and the very clothes they wears she earns by weaving by the firelight at night while Henry’s asleep.
“Shut your mouth and git on back to that wagon,” Henry says. “Do you want I taken a wagon stake to you here in the big road?”
Well, that Texas man taken one look at her. Then he begun on Eck again, like Henry wasn’t even there. But Eck was skeered. “I can git me a snapping turtle or a water moccasin for nothing. I ain’t going to buy none.”
So the Texas man said he would give Eck a horse. “To start the auction, and because you holp me last night. If you’ll start the bidding on the next horse,” he says, “I’ll give you that fiddle-head horse.”
I wish you could have seen them, standing there with their seed-money in their pockets, watching that Texas man give Eck Snopes a live horse, all fixed to call him a fool if he taken it or not. Finally Eck says he’ll take it.
“Only I just starts the bidding,” he says. “I don’t have to buy the next one lessen I ain’t overtopped.” The Texas man said all right, and Eck bid a dollar on the next one, with Henry Armstid standing there with his mouth already open, watching Eck and the Texas man like a mad-dog or something. “A dollar,” Eck says.
The Texas man looked at Eck. His mouth was already open too, like he had started to say something and what he was going to say had up and died on him. “A dollar?” he says. “One dollar? You mean, one dollar, Eck?”
“Durn it,” Eck says; “two dollars, then.”
Well, sir, I wish you could a seen that Texas man. He taken out that gingersnap box and held it up and looked into it, careful, like it might have been a diamond ring in it, or a spider. Then he throwed it away and wiped his face with a bandanna. “Well,” he says. “Well. Two dollars. Two dollars. Is your pulse all right, Eck?” he says. “Do you have ager-sweats at night, maybe?” he says. “Well,” he says, “I got to take it. But are you boys going to stand there and see Eck get two horses at a dollar a head?”
That done it. I be dog if he wasn’t nigh as smart as Flem Snopes. He hadn’t no more than got the words outen his mouth before here was Henry Armstid, waving his hand. “Three dollars,” Henry says. Mrs. Armstid tried to hold him again. He knocked her hand off, shoving up to the gate post.
“Mister,” Mrs. Armstid says, “we got chaps in the house and not corn to feed the stock. We got five dollars I earned my chaps a-weaving after dark, and him snoring in the bed. And he hain’t no more despair.”
“Henry bids three dollars,” the Texas man says. “Raise him a dollar, Eck, and the horse is yours.”
“Henry,” Mrs. Armstid says.
“Raise him, Eck,” the Texas man says.
“Four dollars,” Eck says.
“Five dollars,” Henry says, shaking his fist. He shoved up right under the gate post. Mrs. Armstid was looking at the Texas man too.
“Mister,” she says, “if you take that five dollars I earned my chaps a-weaving for one of them things, it’ll be a curse onto you and yourn during all the time of man.”
But it wasn’t no stopping Henry. He had shoved up, waving his fist at the Texas man. He opened it; the money was in nickels and quarters, and one dollar bill that looked like a cow’s cud. “Five dollars,” he says. “And the man that raises it’ll have to beat my head off, or I’ll beat hisn.”
“All right,” the Texas man says. “Five dollars is bid. But don’t you shake your hand at me.”
III
It taken till nigh sundown before the last one was sold. He got them hotted up once and the bidding got up to seven dollars and a quarter, but most of them went around three or four dollars, him setting on the gate post and picking the horses out one at a time by mouth-word, and Mrs. Littlejohn pumping up and down at the tub and stopping and coming to the fence for a while and going back to the tub again. She had done got done too, and the wash was hung on the line in the back yard, and we could smell supper cooking. Finally they was all sold; he swapped the last two and the wagon for a buckboard.
We was all kind of tired, but Henry Armstid looked more like a mad-dog than ever. When he bought, Mrs. Armstid had went back to the wagon, setting in it behind them two rabbit-sized, bone-pore mules, and the wagon itself looking like it would fall all to pieces soon as the mules moved. Henry hadn’t even waited to pull it outen the road; it was still in the middle of the road and her setting in it, not looking at nothing, ever since this morning.
Henry was right up against the gate. He went up to the Texas man. “I bought a horse and I paid cash,” Henry says. “And yet you expect me to stand around here until they are all sold before I can get my horse. I’m going to take my horse outen that lot.”
The Texas man looked at Henry. He talked like he might have been asking for a cup of coffee at the table. “Take your horse,” he says.
Then Henry quit looking at the Texas man. He begun to swallow, holding onto the gate. “Ain’t you going to help me?” he says.
“It ain’t my horse,” the Texas man says.
Henry never looked at the Texas man again, he never looked at nobody. “Who’ll help me catch my horse?” he says. Never nobody said nothing. “Bring the plowline,” Henry says. Mrs. Armstid got outen the wagon and brought the plowline. The Texas man got down offen the post. The woman made to pass him, carrying the rope.
“Don’t you go in there, missus,” the Texas man says.
Henry opened the gate. He didn’t look back. “Come on here,” he says.
“Don’t you go in there, missus,” the Texas man says.
Mrs. Armstid wasn’t looking at nobody, neither, with her hands across her middle, holding the rope. “I reckon I better,” she says. Her and Henry went into the lot. The horses broke and run. Henry and Mrs. Armstid followed.
“Get him into the corner,” Henry says. They got Henry’s horse cornered finally, and Henry taken the rope, but Mrs. Armstid let the horse get out. They hemmed it up again, but Mrs. Armstid let it get out again, and Henry turned and hit her with the rope. “Why didn’t you head him back?” Henry says. He hit her again. “Why didn’t you?” It was about that time I looked
