kid then. I believed folks when they said they’d do things. I’ve learned better since. Besides, like I say I guess I dont need any man’s help to get along I can stand on my own feet like I always have. Then all of a sudden I thought of Dilsey and Uncle Maury. I thought how she’d get around Dilsey and that Uncle Maury would do anything for ten dollars. And there I was, couldn’t even get away from the store to protect my own Mother. Like she says, if one of you had to be taken, thank God it was you left me I can depend on you and I says well I dont reckon I’ll ever get far enough from the store to get out of your reach. Somebody’s got to hold on to what little we have left, I reckon.
So as soon as I got home I fixed Dilsey. I told Dilsey she had leprosy and I got the bible and read where a man’s flesh rotted off and I told her that if she ever looked at her or Ben or Quentin they’d catch it too. So I thought I had everything all fixed until that day when I came home and found Ben bellowing. Raising hell and nobody could quiet him. Mother said, Well, get himthe slipper then. Dilsey made out she didn’t hear. Mother said it again and I says I’d go I couldn’t stand that damn noise. Like I say I can stand lots of things I dont expect much from them but if I have to work all day long in a damn store damn if I dont think I deserve a little peace and quiet to eat dinner in. So I says I’d go and Dilsey says quick, “Jason!”
Well, like a flash I knew what was up, but just to make sure I went and got the slipper and
brought it back, and just like I thought, when he saw it you’d thought we were killing him. So I made Dilsey own up, then I told Mother. We had to take her up to bed then, and after things got quieted down a little I put the fear of God into Dilsey. As much as you can into a nigger, that is. That’s the trouble with nigger servants, when they’ve been with you for a long time they get so full of self importance that they’re not worth a damn. Think they run the whole family.
“I like to know whut’s de hurt in lettin dat po chile see her own baby,” Dilsey says. “If Mr Jason was stillhere hit ud be different.”
“Only Mr Jason’s not here,” I says. “I know you wont pay me any mind, but I reckon you’ll do what Mother says. You keep on worrying her like this until you get her into the graveyard too, then you can fill the whole house full of ragtag and bobtail. But what did you want to let that damn idiot see her for?”
“You’s a cold man, Jason, if man you is,” she says. “I thank de Lawd I got mo heart dan dat, even ef hit is black.”
“At least I’m man enough to keep that flour barrel full,” I says. “And if you do that again, you wont be eating out of it either.”
So the next time I told her that if she tried Dilsey again, Mother was going to fire Dilsey and send Ben to Jackson and take Quentin and go away. She looked at me for a while. There wasn’t any street light close and I couldn’t see her face much. But I could feelher looking at me. When we were little when she’d get mad and couldn’t do anything about it her upper lip would begin to jump. Everytime it jumped it would leave a little more of her teeth showing, and all the time she’d be as still as a post, not a muscle moving except her lip jerking higher and higher up her teeth. But she didn’t say anything. She just said,
“Allright. How much?”
“Well, if one look through a hack window was worth a hundred,” I says. So after that she behaved pretty well, only one time she asked to see a statement of the bank account.
“I know they have Mother’s indorsement on them,” she says, “But I want to see the bank statement. I want to see myself where those checks go.”
“That’s in Mother’s private business,” I says. “If you think you have any right to pry into her private affairs I’ll tell her you believe those checks are being misappropriated and you want an audit because you dont trust her.”
She didn’t say anything or move. I could hear her whispering Damn you oh damn you oh damn you.
“Say it out,” I says, “I dont reckon it’s any secret what you and I think of one another. Maybe you want the money back,” I says.
“Listen, Jason,” she says, “Dont lie to me now. About her. I wont ask to see anything. If that isn’t enough, I’ll send more each month. Just promise that she’ll—that she—You can do that. Things for her. Be kind to her. Little things that I cant, they wont let. . . . But you wont. You never had a drop of warm blood in you. Listen,” she says, “If you’ll get Mother to let me have her back, I’llgive you a thousand dollars.”
“You haven’t got a thousand dollars,” I says, “I know you’re lying now.” “Yes I have. I willhave. I can get it.”
“And I know how you’ll get it,” I says, “You’ll get it the same way you got her. And when she gets big enough—” Then I thought she really was going to hit at me, and then I didn’t know what she was going to do. She acted for a minute like some kind of a toy that’s wound up too tight and about to burst allto pieces.
“Oh, I’m crazy,” she says, “I’m insane. I can’t take her. Keep her. What am I thinking of. Jason,” she says, grabbing my arm. Her hands were hot as fever. “You’ll have to promise to take care of her, to—She’s kin to you; your own flesh and blood. Promise, Jason. You have Father’s name:do you think I’d have to ask himtwice? once, even?”
“That’s so,” I says, “He did leave me something. What do you want me to do,” I says, “Buy an apron and a go-cart? I never got you into this,” I says. “I run more risk than you do, because you haven’t got anything at stake. So if you expect—”
“No,” she says, then she begun to laugh and to try to hold it back all at the same time. “No. I have nothing at stake,” she says, making that noise, putting her hands to her mouth, “Nuh-nuh-nothing,” she says.
“Here,” I says, “Stop that!”
“I’mtr-trying to,” she says, holding her hands over her mouth. “Oh God, oh God.” “I’mgoing away fromhere,” I says, “I cant be seen here. You get on out of town now, you
hear?”
“Wait,” she says, catching my arm. “I’ve stopped. I wont again. You promise, Jason?” she says, and me feeling her eyes almost like they were touching my face, “You promise? Mother— that money—if sometimes she needs things—If I send checks for her to you, other ones besides those, you’ll give them to her? You wont tell? You’ll see that she has things like other girls?”
“Sure,” I says, “As long as you behave and do like I tellyou.”
And so when Earl came up front with his hat on he says, “I’m going to step up to Rogers’ and get a snack. We wont have time to go home to dinner, I reckon.”
“What’s the matter we wont have time?” I says.
“With this show in town and all,” he says. “They’re going to give an afternoon performance too, and they’ll all want to get done trading in time to go to it. So we’d better just run up to Rogers’.”
“All right,” I says, “It’s your stomach. If you want to make a slave of yourself to your business, it’s allright with me.”
“I reckon you’llnever be a slave to any business,” he says. “Not unless it’s Jason Compson’s business,” I says.
So when I went back and opened it the only thing that surprised me was it was a money order not a check. Yes, sir. You cant trust a one of them. After all the risk I’d taken, risking Mother finding out about her coming down here once or twice a year sometimes, and me having to tellMother lies about it. That’s gratitude for you. And I wouldn’t put it past her to try to notify the postoffice not to let anyone except her cash it. Giving a kid like that fifty dollars. Why I never saw fifty dollars until I was twenty-one years old, with all the other boys with the afternoon off and all day Saturday and me working in a store. Like I say, how can they expect anybody to control her, with her giving her money behind our backs. She has the same home you had I says, and the same raising. I reckon Mother is a better judge of what she needs than you are, that haven’t even got a home. “If you want to give her money,” I says, “You send it to Mother, dont be giving it to her. If I’ve got to run this risk every few months, you’ll have to do like I say, or it’s out.”
And just about the time I got ready to begin on it because if Earl