she’d pick this one time to look at it close. Well, it would have to do. I couldn’t waste any more time now.
I went back to the store. “Forgot some papers Mother wants to go to the bank,” I says. I went back to the desk and fixed the check. Trying to hurry and all, I says to myself it’s a good thing her eyes are giving out, with that little whore in the house, a Christian forbearing woman like Mother. I says you know just as well as I do what she’s going to grow up into but I says that’s your business, if you want to keep her and raise her in your house just because of Father. Then she would begin to cry and say it was her own flesh and blood so I just says All right. Have it your way. I can stand it if you can.
I fixed the letter up again and glued it back and went out. “Try not to be gone any longer than you can help,” Earlsays.
“Allright,” I says. I went to the telegraph office. The smart boys were allthere. “Any of you boys made a million yet?” I says.
“Who can do anything, with a market like that?” Doc says.
“What’s it doing?” I says. I went in and looked. It was three points under the opening. “You boys are not going to let a little thing like the cotton market beat you, are you?” I says. “I thought you were too smart for that.”
“Smart, hell,” Doc says. “It was down twelve points at twelve o’clock. Cleaned me out.” “Twelve points?” I says. “Why the hell didn’t somebody let me know? Why didn’t you let
me know?” I says to the operator.
“I take it as it comes in,” he says. “I’mnot running a bucket shop.”
“You’re smart, aren’t you?” I says. “Seems to me, with the money I spend with you, you could take time to call me up. Or maybe your damn company’s in a conspiracy with those damn eastern sharks.”
He didn’t say anything. He made like he was busy.
“You’re getting a little too big for your pants,” I says. “First thing you know you’ll be working for a living.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Doc says. “You’re stillthree points to the good.”
“Yes,” I says, “If I happened to be selling. I haven’t mentioned that yet, I think. You boys allcleaned out?”
“I got caught twice,” Doc says. “I switched just in time.”
“Well,” I. O. Snopes says, “I’ve picked hit; I reckon taint no more than fair fer hit to pick me once in a while.”
So I left thembuying and selling among themselves at a nickel a point. I found a nigger and sent him for my car and stood on the corner and waited. I couldn’t see Earl looking up and down the street, with one eye on the clock, because I couldn’t see the door from here. After about a week he got back with it.
“Where the hell have you been?” I says, “Riding around where the wenches could see you?”
“I come straight as I could,” he says, “I had to drive clean around the square, wid all dem wagons.”
I never found a nigger yet that didn’t have an airtight alibifor whatever he did. But just turn one loose in a car and he’s bound to show off. I got in and went on around the square. I caught a glimpse of Earlin the door across the square.
I went straight to the kitchen and told Dilsey to hurry up with dinner. “Quentin aint come yit,” she says.
“What of that?” I says. “You’ll be telling me next that Luster’s not quite ready to eat yet. Quentin knows when meals are served in this house. Hurry up with it, now.”
Mother was in her room. I gave her the letter. She opened it and took the check out and sat holding it in her hand. I went and got the shovel fromthe corner and gave her a match. “Come on,” I says, “Get it over with. You’llbe crying in a minute.”
She took the match, but she didn’t strike it. She sat there, looking at the check. Just like I said it would be.
“I hate to do it,” she says, “To increase your burden by adding Quentin. . . .” “I guess we’llget along,” I says. “Come on. Get it over with.”
But she just sat there, holding the check.
“This one is on a different bank,” she says. “They have been on an Indianapolis bank.” “Yes,” I says. “Women are allowed to do that too.”
“Do what?” she says.
“Keep money in two different banks,” I says.
“Oh,” she says. She looked at the check a while. “I’mglad to know she’s so . . . she has so much . . . God sees that I amdoing right,” she says.
“Come on,” I says, “Finish it. Get the fun over.” “Fun?” she says, “When I think—”
“I thought you were burning this two hundred dollars a month for fun,” I says. “Come on, now. Want me to strike the match?”
“I could bring myself to accept them,” she says, “For my childrens’ sake. I have no pride.” “You’d never be satisfied,” I says, “You know you wouldn’t. You’ve settled that once, let it
stay settled. We can get along.”
“I leave everything to you,” she says. “But sometimes I become afraid that in doing this I am depriving you all of what is rightfully yours. Perhaps I shall be punished for it. If you want me to, I willsmother my pride and accept them.”
“What would be the good in beginning now, when you’ve been destroying themfor fifteen years?” I says. “If you keep on doing it, you have lost nothing, but if you’d begin to take them
now, you’ll have lost fifty thousand dollars. We’ve got along so far, haven’t we?” I says. “I haven’t seen you in the poorhouse yet.”
“Yes,” she says, “We Bascombs need nobody’s charity. Certainly not that of a fallen woman.”
She struck the match and lit the check and put it in the shovel, and then the envelope, and watched themburn.
“You dont know what it is,” she says, “Thank God you will never know what a mother feels.”
“There are lots of women in this world no better than her,” I says.
“But they are not my daughters,” she says. “It’s not myself,” she says, “I’d gladly take her back, sins and all, because she is my flesh and blood. It’s for Quentin’s sake.”
Well, I could have said it wasn’t much chance of anybody hurting Quentin much, but like I say I dont expect much but I do want to eat and sleep without a couple of women squabbling and crying in the house.
“And yours,” she says. “I know how you feeltoward her.” “Let her come back,” I says, “far as I’mconcerned.”
“No,” she says. “I owe that to your father’s memory.”
“When he was trying all the time to persuade you to let her come home when Herbert threw her out?” I says.
“You dont understand,” she says. “I know you dont intend to make it more difficult for me. But it’s my place to suffer for my children,” she says. “I can bear it.”
“Seems to me you go to a lot of unnecessary trouble doing it,” I says. The paper burned out. I carried it to the grate and put it in. “It just seems a shame to me to burn up good money,” I says.
“Let me never see the day when my children will have to accept that, the wages of sin,” she says. “I’d rather see even you dead in your coffin first.”
“Have it your way,” I says. “Are we going to have dinner soon?” I says, “Because if we’re not, I’ll have to go on back. We’re pretty busy today.” She got up. “I’ve told her once,” I says. “It seems she’s waiting on Quentin or Luster or somebody. Here, I’ll call her. Wait.” But she went to the head of the stairs and called.
“Quentin aint come yit,” Dilsey says.
“Well, I’ll have to get on back,” I says. “I can get a sandwich downtown. I dont want to interfere with Dilsey’s arrangements,” I says. Well, that got her started again, with Dilsey hobbling and mumbling back and forth, saying,
“Allright, allright, Ise puttin hit on fast as I kin.”
“I try to please you all,” Mother says, “I try to make things as easy for you as I can.” “I’mnot complaining, amI?” I says. “Have I said a word except I had to go back to work?” “I know,” she says, “I know you haven’t had the chance the others had, that you’ve had to
bury yourself in a little country store. I wanted you to get ahead. I knew your father would never realise that you were the only one who had any business sense, and then when everything else failed I believed that when she married, and Herbert . . . after his promise . . .” “Well, he was probably lying too,” I says. “He may not have even had a bank. And if he
had, I dont reckon he’d have to come allthe way to Mississippito get a man for it.”
We ate awhile. I could hear Ben in the kitchen, where Luster was feeding him. Like I say, if we’ve got to feed another mouth and she wont take that money, why not send him down to Jackson. He’ll be happier there, with people like him. I says God knows there’s little enough
roomfor pride in this family, but it dont take much pride to not like to see a thirty year old man playing around the yard with a nigger boy, running up