Tobacco Road (20 page)

While he walked around in the waist-high broom-sedge, Lov was racing down the tobacco road, hatless and out of breath. Lov began shouting to Jeeter as soon as he reached the front yard, and Jeeter ran out of the sedge to meet him and find out what the trouble was.

Lov was dressed in his dirty black overalls, the pair he wore at the chute when he shovelled coal into the scoops. His hat had blown off when he started running to Jeeter’s, and he had not waited to go back and pick it up. Lov’s fiery red hair stood almost straight up; ordinarily, it was falling down over his forehead and getting into his eyes.

He saw the old grandmother lying in the yard and he slowed down to look at her, but he did not linger there. He ran until he was face to face with Jeeter.

“What you doing down here at this time of day, Lov?” Jeeter said. “Why ain’t you working at the chute?”

Lov did not speak for several minutes. He had to wait until he could regain his breath. He sat on the ground, and Jeeter squatted on his heels beside him.

They were not far from the well. Ellie May was standing beside the stand drinking from the bucket when Lov reached Jeeter, but she did not run away immediately. She waited until Lov sat down, so she could hear what he had to tell Jeeter.

“What’s the matter, Lov?” Jeeter asked. “What happened down at the chute that made you run here so fast?”

“Pearl—Pearl—she run off!”

“Run where to?” Jeeter asked calmly, disappointed because it was not something of more interest to him. “Where’d Pearl run to, Lov?”

“She’s gone to Augusta!”

“Gone to Augusta!” Jeeter said, straightening up. “I thought maybe she just went off in the woods somewhere for a spell, like she was always doing. Reckon what she run off to Augusta for?”

“I don’t know,” Lov said, “but I reckon she just up and went. I don’t know what else she done it for. I didn’t hurt her none this morning. I didn’t do nothing to her, except throw her down on the bed. She got loose from me, and I ain’t seen her since.”

“What was you trying to do to her?”

“Nothing. I was only going to tie her up with some plow-lines to see if I could do it. I figured she’d have to stay in the bed if I tied her there. I was going to turn her loose pretty soon.”

“How you know she’s run off to Augusta? Maybe she just went off in the woods somewhere again. Did she tell you she was going to run off to Augusta?”

“She didn’t say nothing to me.”

“Then what makes you think she went up there, instead of going off in the woods somewhere?”

“I didn’t even know she was running off up there till Jones Peabody came by the chute and told me he met her up near Augusta when he was coming back to Fuller with an empty lumber truck. He said he stopped and asked her where she was going to, and if I knowed she’d left home, but she wouldn’t talk to him. He said she looked like she was near about scared to death. He came and told me about it the first thing. He said he knowed I wouldn’t know about it.”

“Pearl, she was just like Lizzie Belle. Lizzie Belle up and went to Augusta just like that!” He snapped his fingers, jerking his head to one side. “I didn’t know nothing about it till I seen her up there on the street once. I asked her what made her run off without saying nothing to her Ma and me about it, but she wouldn’t talk none. I thought all the time that she was staying out in the woods somewhere for a while, but I knowed it was Lizzie Belle the first time I looked at her. She had on some stylish clothes and a hat, but they didn’t fool me. I knowed it was Lizzie Belle, even if she wouldn’t talk to me. She was working in a cotton mill across the river from there, all that time. I knowed then why she up and went there, because Ada told me. Ada said Lizzie Belle wanted to have some stylish clothes and a hat to wear, and she run off up there to work in a cotton mill so she could get them kind of things herself.”

“Pearl never said nothing to me about wanting a stylish dress and a hat,” Lov said. “I make a dollar a day at the chute, and I could have bought her a dress and a hat if she had told me she wanted them. But Pearl never said nothing to me—she never said nothing to nobody. She slept on that durn pallet on the floor and wouldn’t answer my requests when I told her to do something I wanted done.”

“I reckon about the best thing you can do, Lov, is to let her be. She wasn’t satisfied living down here on the tobacco road, and if you was to bring her back, she’d run off again twice as quick. She’s just like Lizzie Belle and Clara and the other gals. I can’t recall all of their names right now, but it was every durn one of them, anyhow. They all wanted some stylish clothes. They wasn’t satisfied with the pretty calico and gingham their Ma sewed for them. Well, Ada ain’t satisfied neither, but she can’t do nothing about it. That’s how the gals took after their Ma. I sort of broke Ada of wanting to go off and do that. She don’t talk no more about buying of stylish clothes and a hat, excepting a dress to die in and be buried in. She talks about getting a stylish dress to die in, but she ain’t going to get it, and she knows she ain’t. She’ll die and be buried in the ground wearing that yellow calico she’s got on now. I broke Ada of wanting to run off, but them gals was more than I could take care of. There was too durn many of them for only one man to break. They just up and went.”

“Maybe she’ll come back,” Lov said. “Reckon she’ll come back, Jeeter?”

“Who—Pearl? Well, I wouldn’t put no trust in it. Lizzie Belle went off and she ain’t never come back. None of the other gals came back, neither.”

“I sort of hate to lose her, for some reason or another. She was a pretty little girl—all them long yellow curls hanging down her back always made me hate the time when she’d grow up and be old. I used to sit on the porch and watch her through the window when she was combing and brushing her hair in the bedroom—”

“That sure ain’t no lie,” Jeeter said. “Pearl had the prettiest yellow hair of any gal I ever saw. It was a plumb shame that she was so bad about wanting to stay by herself all the time, because I used to want to have her around me. I wish Ada had been that pretty. Even when Ada was a young gal, she was that durn ugly it was a sin. I ain’t never seen an uglier woman in the whole country, unless it’s that durn woman preacher Bessie. Them two dirty holes in her face don’t do a man no good to look at.”

“Pearl always took a long time to fix herself up, woman-like. I used to want to tell her there wasn’t no other girl in the whole country who was nowhere as pretty as she was, but she wouldn’t listen to me. And I lived with her so long I sort of got used to seeing her every day, and I don’t know what I’m going to do now when she’s gone to Augusta to stay. I’ll miss them long yellow curls hanging down her back, and that pretty face of hers, too. Aside from that, I don’t know of a prettier sight to see than to look in her pale blue eyes early in the morning before the sun got up so high it threw too much light in them. Early in the morning they was the prettiest things a man could ever want to look at. But they was pretty any time of the day, and sometimes I used to sit and shake all over, for wanting to squeeze her so hard. I don’t reckon I’ll ever forget how pretty her eyes was early in the morning just when the sun was rising.”

“Maybe you would like to take Ellie May down to your house, Lov?” Jeeter suggested. “She ain’t got a man, and it looks like she ain’t never going to get one, unless you take a fancy to her. You and Ellie May was hugging and rubbing of the other the first of the week, around at the front of the house. Maybe you would want to do that some more?”

“Reckon if I was to go up to Augusta and find her, she would let me bring her back home to stay?” Lov said. “Reckon she would, Jeeter?”

“Who—Pearl?” Jeeter said. “No, I wouldn’t recommend that. You’ll lose your time down there at the chute while you was looking for her, and it’s like I said at the start. Pearl is just like Lizzie Belle and Clara and all the rest of the gals. They was plumb crazy for getting stylish clothes. None of them gals of mine liked to wear the calico and gingham Ada sewed.”

“But Pearl—she might get hurt up there in Augusta—

“Lizzie Belle and Clara took care of themselves all right, didn’t they? They didn’t get hurt none. Now, as I was saying about Ellie May. You can take her to your house, Lov. Ellie May would be crazy about going down there to stay all the time. She wouldn’t be never getting down on no durn pallet on the floor, neither.”

“Seeing them long yellow curls hanging down her back used to make me cry sometimes. I’d look at her pretty hair and eyes so long that I thought I’d go crazy if I didn’t touch her and see deep down into her eyes. But she wouldn’t never let me come close to her, and that’s what made the tears fall out of my eyes, I reckon. I been the lonesomest man in the whole country, for the longest time. Pearl was so pretty it was a sin for her to do like she done.”

“Ellie May’s got to get a man somewhere. She can’t stay here all the time. When me and Ada’s dead and gone, there won’t be nobody to watch after her. If she stayed here at the house by herself the niggers would haul off and come here by the dozens. The niggers would get her in no time, if she was here by herself.”

“The last pretty I got for Pearl was some green beads on a long string. I gave them to her and she put them around her neck, and I swear to God if it didn’t make her the prettiest little girl I ever saw or heard about in the whole country.”

“If you want to take Ellie May with you now, I’ll tell her to wash herself up and get ready to go,” Jeeter said.

“I might take Ellie May for a while, and I might not. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Pearl, yet. I wish I could get her to come back.”

“Ellie May’s got—”

“Ellie May’s got that ugly-looking face,” Lov said. “I don’t know as how I would want to look at it all the time.”

“You would sort of get used to it, slow-like,” Jeeter said. “It don’t bother me none now. I got used to looking at the slit and I don’t notice it no more.”

Lov stood up and leaned against the well. He was silent for a long time, looking out over the tall brown broom-sedge. Jeeter watched him, and whittled on a little stick with his pocketknife.

Ellie May was behind another chinaberry tree then. She had moved from one to another while Lov and Jeeter were busy talking. She had at last come closer so she could hear what was being said.

Presently Lov turned around and looked at Ellie May. She jerked her head behind the chinaberry tree before he could see her face.

“I’ve got to be going back to the chute,” he said. “That afternoon freight will be coming along pretty soon now, and it always empties all the scoops. I got to get back and fill them up before the passenger comes. They raise hell about the scoops being empty, because that makes the train have to wait until I can load them up.”

He and Jeeter went around the house to the front yard. Neither of them had thought of Mother Lester again until they saw her lying on the sand. She was procumbent, and her face was mashed on the ground, but she had moved several feet closer to the house.

“What’s wrong with her?” Lov said.

“Dude and Bessie backed the new automobile over her when they left. They was trying to get away before I could hit Bessie again, and they ran over her. I got it in good and heavy for that woman preacher now. I ain’t letting her set foot on my land another time. She treated me bad about riding in the new automobile. She wouldn’t let me go riding with her at all.”

Lov walked over to where the old grandmother lay on the hard white sand. She had stopped bleeding, and she made no sound.

“Looks like she’s dead,” he said. “Is she dead, Jeeter?” Jeeter looked down and moved one of her arms with his foot.

“She ain’t stiff yet, but I don’t reckon she’ll live. You help me tote her out in the field and I’ll dig a ditch to put her in.”

They carried the body by the hands and feet, and put it down in the broom-sedge. Jeeter went to get a shovel from behind the corn-crib.

“You think that over what I said about Ellie May,” Jeeter said. “I’ll send her down to your house in time to cook your supper to-night. Ellie May won’t treat you bad like Pearl done. Ellie May won’t sleep on no durn pallet on the floor.”

Lov started back down the tobacco road towards the coal chute. He shuffled his feet along the road, filling his shoes with sand. He did not look back.

Jeeter went out into the field with the shovel and began digging a grave to put his mother in. He dug in the earth for ten or fifteen minutes, and then called Ellie May. She had been standing in the yard behind a chinaberry tree waiting for Jeeter to tell her to go to Lov’s.

“You wash yourself and go down to Lov’s house and fix up for him,” he told her, leaning wearily on the shovel handle. “He’ll be coming home for supper to-night, and you cook him what he tells you.”

Ellie May dashed into the house before Jeeter could finish giving her his instructions. She could not wait any longer. He dug some more earth out of the ground, making the ditch a little longer.

Ellie May came out of the house in less than five minutes, running towards the road. Jeeter threw down the shovel and ran after her, calling her.

“You come back here in the morning after Lov goes to work and bring some victuals with you, do you hear?” he shouted. “Lov makes a dollar a day at the chute, and he’s got rations for a lot of victuals. Me and your Ma ain’t got nothing up here. We get pretty hungry sometimes. You remember that.”

Ellie May had run all the way across the yard and was racing down the middle of the tobacco road as fast as she could. Before Jeeter could say anything else to her, she was a hundred yards away. He had wanted to tell her to bring him a pair of Lov’s overalls too, the next morning when she brought the cooked food. She looked as if she was in such a great hurry to reach Lov’s house that he let her go. She could make another trip the next day with the overalls.

T
HE TIME FOR SPRING
plowing was over. Throughout the last two weeks of February the weather had been dry and the ground crumbly; there had been no finer season for plowing and planting in six or seven years. Usually at that time rains came every few days and kept the earth continually wet and soggy; but this year the season had begun in the middle of February with clearing skies, and a gentle breeze had been drying the moisture in the ground ever since the winter rains had stopped.