way. It’s your grandchild, which is more than any other grandparents it’s got can say for certain. Only I says it’s only a question of time. If you believe she’ll do what she says and not try to see it, you fool yourself because the first time that was that Mother kept on saying thank God you are not a Compson except in name, because you are all I have left now, you and Maury, and I says well I could spare Uncle Maury myself and then they came and said they were ready to start. Mother stopped crying then. She pulled her veil down and we went down stairs. Uncle Maury was coming out of the diningroom, his handkerchief to his mouth. They kind of made a lane and we went out the door just in time to see Dilsey driving Ben and T. P. back around the corner. We went down the steps and got in. Uncle Maury kept saying Poor little sister, poor little sister, talking around his mouth and patting Mother’s hand. Talking around whatever it was.
“Have you got your band on?” she says. “Why dont they go on, before Benjamin comes out and makes a spectacle. Poor little boy. He doesn’t know. He cant even realise.”
“There, there,” Uncle Maury says, patting her hand, talking around his mouth. “It’s better so. Let himbe unaware of bereavement untilhe has to.”
“Other women have their children to support themin times like this,” Mother says. “You have Jason and me,” he says.
“It’s so terrible to me,” she says, “Having the two of themlike this, in less than two years.” “There, there,” he says. After a while he kind of sneaked his hand to his mouth and
dropped themout the window. Then I knew what I had been smelling. Clove stems. I reckon he thought that the least he could do at Father’s funeral or maybe the sideboard thought it was still Father and tripped him up when he passed. Like I say, if he had to sell something to send Quentin to Harvard we’d allbeen a damn sight better off if he’d sold that sideboard and bought himself a one-armed strait jacket with part of the money. I reckon the reason all the Compson gave out before it got to me like Mother says, is that he drank it up. At least I never heard of himoffering to sellanything to send me to Harvard.
So he kept on patting her hand and saying “Poor little sister,” patting her hand with one of the black gloves that we got the bill for four days later because it was the twenty-sixth because it was the same day one month that Father went up there and got it and brought it home and wouldn’t tell anything about where she was or anything and Mother crying and saying “And you didn’t even see him? You didn’t even try to get him to make any provision for it?” and Father says “No she shall not touch his money not one cent of it” and Mother says “He can be forced to by law. He can prove nothing, unless—Jason Compson,” she says, “Were you fool enough to tell—”
“Hush, Caroline,” Father says, then he sent me to help Dilsey get that old cradle out of the attic and I says,
“Well, they brought my job home tonight” because all the time we kept hoping they’d get things straightened out and he’d keep her because Mother kept saying she would at least have enough regard for the family not to jeopardize my chance after she and Quentin had had theirs.
“And whar else do she belong?” Dilsey says, “Who else gwine raise her ’cep me? Aint I raised eve’y one of y’all?”
“And a damn fine job you made of it,” I says. “Anyway it’ll give her something to sure enough worry over now.” So we carried the cradle down and Dilsey started to set it up in her old room. Then Mother started sure enough.
“Hush, Miss Cahline,” Dilsey says, “You gwine wake her up.”
“In there?” Mother says, “To be contaminated by that atmosphere? It’ll be hard enough as
it is, with the heritage she already has.” “Hush,” Father says, “Dont be silly.”
“Why aint she gwine sleep in here,” Dilsey says, “In the same room whar I put her ma to bed ev’y night of her life since she was big enough to sleep by herself.”
“You dont know,” Mother says, “To have my own daughter cast off by her husband. Poor little innocent baby,” she says, looking at Quentin. “You will never know the suffering you’ve caused.”
“Hush, Caroline,” Father says.
“What you want to go on like that fo Jason fer?” Dilsey says.
“I’ve tried to protect him,” Mother says. “I’ve always tried to protect himfromit. At least I can do my best to shield her.”
“How sleepin in dis roomgwine hurt her, I like to know,” Dilsey says.
“I cant help it,” Mother says. “I know I’m just a troublesome old woman. But I know that people cannot flout God’s laws with impunity.”
“Nonsense,” Father said. “Fixit in Miss Caroline’s roomthen, Dilsey.”
“You can say nonsense,” Mother says. “But she must never know. She must never even learn that name. Dilsey, I forbid you ever to speak that name in her hearing. If she could grow up never to know that she had a mother, I would thank God.”
“Dont be a fool,” Father says.
“I have never interfered with the way you brought them up,” Mother says, “But now I cannot stand anymore. We must decide this now, tonight. Either that name is never to be spoken in her hearing, or she must go, or I willgo. Take your choice.”
“Hush,” Father says, “You’re just upset. Fixit in here, Dilsey.”
“En you’s about sick too,” Dilsey says. “You looks like a hant. You git in bed and I’llfixyou a toddy and see kin you sleep. I bet you aint had a fullnight’s sleep since you lef.”
“No,” Mother says, “Dont you know what the doctor says? Why must you encourage him to drink? That’s what’s the matter with him now. Look at me, I suffer too, but I’m not so weak that I must killmyself with whiskey.”
“Fiddlesticks,” Father says, “What do doctors know? They make their livings advising people to do whatever they are not doing at the time, which is the extent of anyone’s knowledge of the degenerate ape. You’llhave a minister in to hold my hand next.” Then Mother cried, and he went out. Went down stairs, and then I heard the sideboard. I woke up and heard himgoing down again. Mother had gone to sleep or something, because the house was quiet at last. He was trying to be quiet too, because I couldn’t hear him, only the bottom of his nightshirt and his bare legs in front of the sideboard.
Dilsey fixed the cradle and undressed her and put her in it. She never had waked up since he brought her in the house.
“She pretty near too big fer hit,” Dilsey says. “Dar now. I gwine spread me a pallet right acrost de hall, so you wont need to git up in de night.”
“I wont sleep,” Mother says. “You go on home. I wont mind. I’ll be happy to give the rest of my life to her, if I can just prevent—”
“Hush, now,” Dilsey says. “We gwine take keer of her. En you go on to bed too,” she says to me, “You got to go to schooltomorrow.”
So I went out, then Mother called me back and cried on me awhile.
“You are my only hope,” she says. “Every night I thank God for you.” While we were waiting there for them to start she says Thank God if he had to be taken too, it is you left me
and not Quentin. Thank God you are not a Compson, because all I have left now is you and Maury and I says, Well I could spare Uncle Maury myself. Well, he kept on patting her hand with his black glove, talking away from her. He took them off when his turn with the shovel came. He got up near the first, where they were holding the umbrellas over them, stamping every now and then and trying to kick the mud off their feet and sticking to the shovels so they’d have to knock it off, making a hollow sound when it fell on it, and when I stepped back around the hack I could see him behind a tombstone, taking another one out of a bottle. I thought he never was going to stop because I had on my new suit too, but it happened that there wasn’t much mud on the wheels yet, only Mother saw it and says I dont know when you’ll ever have another one and Uncle Maury says, “Now, now. Dont you worry at all. You have me to depend on, always.”
And we have. Always. The fourth letter was fromhim. But there wasn’t any need to open it. I could have written it myself, or recited it to her frommemory, adding ten dollars just to be safe. But I had a hunch about that other letter. I just felt that it was about time she was
