Stories of Erskine Caldwell (71 page)

“I’ll prove she don’t!”

“How?” Tom wanted to know. “Where?”

“Hell, right here!” Lem was good and mad at Tom for not believing what he told him.

Ozzie sat looking at the boys, with her legs crossed high. The boys were having the time of their lives looking at Ozzie from where they sat. She was a swell-looking girl, all right.

Lem walked over to Ozzie and told her to stand up. The boys crowded around to see what Tom and Lem were up to now.

Lem reached down and lifted the hem of Ozzie’s skirt above her knees. Her stockings ended there, but there was no pink thing to be seen. All the boys could see where Ozzie’s stockings ended. Tom could see, too; but he still did not believe she wore the things Lem said she did. Ozzie covered her face with her hands and peeped at the boys through her fingers.

Tom poked Lem with his thumb, nodding his head. Lem lifted her dress a little higher, looking for something pink. There was not anything yet, except more of her legs showing, Lem was determined to prove to Tom that Ozzie did not wear ten-cents-a-yard cotton mill-end underclothes. He lifted her dress a little higher and a little higher. Nothing appeared that would prove to Tom the things Lem had said on the other end of the porch were true. The boys crowded closer and closer to Ozzie.

Lem was sweating all over. The perspiration popped out on his hands and face and he felt a ticklish sensation running up and down his back. He was beginning to wish he had never started to prove to Tom what he said about Ozzie. But there was no way out of it now. He had to keep it up until he proved that he knew what he was talking about.

Tom poked him again with his thumb.

“By God, Tom, I know what I’m talking about!” he shouted, jerking Ozzie’s dress over the top of her head. “Now look!”

Lem stood there, staring popeyed at Ozzie while she was fighting to get her dress down and cover up her nakedness. The boys were making little whistling sounds and rubbing their eyes to make sure they were seeing right. Ozzie had on nothing at all under her dress. She ran into the house as fast as she could.

Tom took Lem by the arm and they went to the other end of the porch. The boys were out in the yard now, standing around talking and whispering in groups of twos and threes. They had a lot to talk about. She was a swell-looking girl, all right.

“Well, Lem,” Tom said, swallowing hard two or three times, “you sure got mixed up that time, didn’t you?”

“Tom, I swear before God she had a lot of those pink little things on last night.”

“Maybe she wears them some days, and some days she don’t wear nothing at all,” Tom said.

Lem was trying hard to think about it, trying hard to figure out some sort of answer. To save his soul he could not understand why she did not wear the things all the time. He sat down on the edge of the porch, thinking as hard as he could about it.

“Well, she’s a swell-looking girl, Lem. How did you ever find one like that?”

Lem did not bother to answer Tom. He sat on the edge of the porch trying to figure out why Ozzie wore those things one day and took them off the next.

Tom jumped to the ground and stood close to Lem.

“Lem, if I was you I’d keep her just like she is,” he whispered. “Ten-cent mill ends ain’t good enough for a girl like you got in there.”

Tom went out in the yard where the rest of the boys were. They stood around in front of the house talking for two or three hours until the sun went down. Then they began to leave.

(First published in
American Earth
)

U
NCLE
J
EFF WAS
a pretty good all-around carpenter, and he could drive a tenpenny nail into a board without making hammer marks on the wood, but he had been lazy ever since he was a boy, and he did not work at his trade any more than he was compelled to.

“All of those Newsomes are lazy,” people said, “and it’s unfair to single out Jeff for not being an exception.”

Uncle Jeff’s wife, though, never let up scolding him for being so downright lazy. Aunt Annie said he was too lazy to turn over in bed when he got tired sleeping on one side, and that she had to do it for him so he would stop moaning and go back to sleep.

But more than that, she had said a hundred times, if she had said it once, that she was going to leave him if he did not change his ways. Every time that came up, Uncle Jeff put his arm around her and promised to do every single thing she wanted him to do. When he said that, Aunt Annie usually weakened and said she would stay.

“I don’t know what got into me,” Aunt Annie said. “When I was young, I had the chance of marrying some of the finest men in town. I turned them all down for you, Jeff Newsome,”

“Now, Annie,” Uncle Jeff told her, “that’s no way to look at it. You must have had a pretty good reason for marrying me when you did.”

“Maybe I did then,” she said, “but I’ve got more sense now, and I wouldn’t do it again.”

“I’ve tried to be a good husband to you, Annie,” Uncle Jeff said. “I may make mistakes sometimes, but I mean well.”

When Uncle Jeff talked like that, Aunt Annie could not keep back the tears. She had a good cry and did not scold him again for another week or ten days.

The boarders always noticed the difference after Aunt Annie and Uncle Jeff had had one of their talks up in her room. At supper she always picked out the best pieces of meat for Uncle Jeff’s plate, and she gave him an extra large helping of dessert. That period lasted, generally, for two or three days; then she would begin scolding him for little things for another two or three days; and then toward the end she found fault with everything he did or did not do, and Uncle Jeff was in for another bawling out.

During those times when Aunt Annie was not speaking to him, Uncle Jeff told one or two of the boarders that toothache or a sneezing spell had kept her awake all night, and that if she appeared to be out of sorts, just not to pay any attention to it.

That was when Uncle Jeff usually went away from home for a day or two, sometimes three days at a time. He figured that Aunt Annie would appreciate him more when he came back. Sometimes she did, and sometimes she did not.

When Uncle Jeff left home, he caught a ride in a truck or automobile to Savannah and stayed with a friend of his. There was nothing wrong with his doing that, because Emma’s house, where he stayed, was clean and orderly. It did not have a bad reputation like some of the houses had. He had known Emma for a long time, for fifteen or eighteen years at least, and Emma treated him like a favorite brother. She had partitioned off the right wing of the house for private use, and Uncle Jeff was always welcome to sleep in the guest room.

Every time he went to visit Emma, he wondered what would happen if the house were raided while he happened to be there. He was fairly certain that Emma saw to it that things were taken care of in the proper-places, but nonetheless there was always a chance of a slip somewhere, and if that ever did happen, he was just as sure that he would be taken to the police station with Emma and the girls and booked. He did not mind that, but he was thinking what a shock it would be to Annie for her to see his name in the paper that way, and wondering what he would say if it ever happened.

“Another spat, Jeff?” Emma asked him when she opened the door. “It’s been less than two weeks this time, hasn’t it?”

“About the same as usual,” he said. “Annie’s got me worried good and plenty this time about her leaving me, though. She says it like she means it.”

He went inside, and Emma took him through the hall to the dining room where she was eating supper. She brought a plate for him, and she helped him to the baked fish and vegetables.

“Annie won’t leave you, Jeff,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t let her talk upset you. A woman isn’t going to drive a man out, or go away herself, unless it’s something like the world coming to an end. You and Annie won’t fall out that bad.”

After supper they talked awhile in the dining room, and then Uncle Jeff took the evening paper and went upstairs to bed. Emma brought him a cold bottle of beer, and an extra pillow for his head while he was reading, and turned the covers back.

“My husband spoiled me something awful,” Emma said as she was bending over the bed smoothing the sheets. “Before he died he used to let me take care of him like a baby. I’ve never got used to it since.”

Jeff turned around to answer her, thinking she was talking to him, but after he had taken one look at her, he realized she was talking to herself. He watched her while she folded the covers back and smoothed them out several times until she was satisfied with the way they looked. After that she patted and pushed the two pillows around until she had them just right. When she finished, she opened the bottle of beer and poured it into a glass for him. He walked to the window and looked outside.

She had gone as far as the door before he knew she was leaving. He turned around and thanked her for bringing him the bottle of beer.

Emma did not say anything for a moment, and then she came back into the middle of the room.

“I’d hate to have you stop coming here, Jeff,” she began. There was a long pause while she seemed to be thinking what to say next. “But I’ve been wondering about something.”

“What?” he asked.

“How would you like to find a way to make you and Annie stop having these spats — something that would put you back where you were when you got married?”

“How would you do that?” he asked quickly.

“I think I know a way,” she said, looking at him and nodding her head slowly. She put her hand against her face absent-mindedly. “I think I know just what would do it.”

“What is it?” he asked. “How do you go about it?”

“Annie needs jolting, Jeff,” she said. “A good, hard, teeth-rattling jolt.”

“You don’t mean for me to go home and shake her hard, or hit her, do you?”

“No,” she said. “Of course not.”

“How can she be jolted then?”

“I have a pretty good idea in my mind,” she said. “But I’m not going to tell you now. You’re going to stay innocent of the whole thing. This is something just between Annie and me.”

She turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. Uncle Jeff stood staring at the door, wondering what in the world Emma was talking about. He heard her go down the stairs and heard a door slam in the hall on the first floor. After wondering about what she had said for a while, he gave up finally and started undressing. When he was ready to get into bed, he picked up the evening paper and propped up against the pillows Emma had fixed for him. He always liked to read before going to sleep.

It was early in the evening, not much more than nine-thirty, and the house was quiet. Far in the other wing of the building he could hear a radio faintly, and occasionally one of the girls laughed loud enough for him to hear.

Half an hour later the light was out and he was sound asleep.

Suddenly in the middle of the night he sat up in bed, shaking and perspiring. He had had a terrible dream. He jumped out of bed, turned on the light, and looked at the room to see where he was. He did not waste any more time standing there.

Jerking on his clothes the easiest way they would go on, he turned out the light and opened the door cautiously. He could not hear anyone downstairs, and so he tiptoed down the hall and out the private door into the alley. Even when he got there, he did not feel safe. He walked on his toes to the end of the alley and when he got there he stopped and looked carefully in all directions before going any farther. He did not see anyone, and he walked away as fast as he could.

Uncle Jeff did not know what time of night it was until he had got to the edge of the city. When he was outside the light cast by the last street lamp, he took out his watch, struck a match, and looked at the time. It was still early, only a quarter past one. He started walking toward home without any waste of time.

There were not many trucks on the highway at that time of night, and Uncle Jeff was beginning to be afraid he would not get a ride at all. It was a long distance home, sixty-five or seventy miles, and he would never be able to walk it before morning. He looked behind him every few yards to see if there were any sign of a truck or automobile.

While he walked along the dark hard highway toward the north, he began to wonder if it were possible for a person to dream what he had not been able to think of while he was awake. He decided it would not be possible, for him at least, because he was sure that his dream about Emma was going to come true. He was so certain about it that he told himself that his waking up was the best piece of luck he had ever had in his whole life. He was not angry with Emma, because he knew she meant well, but he was just as certain in his own mind that the scheme he thought she had planned would do him ten times more harm than good. He whistled over every step of ground for the next two miles.

Three hours later he stopped and built a fire in the ditch beside the highway to warm his hands and feet. Automobiles passed him, and trucks, too, but none of them had stopped to give him a ride. He did not mind that this time, because he was so glad to be out of Savannah and on his way back home that he did not care if he had to walk every step of the way there.

He huddled over the fire warming himself until the last embers had died out. Then he got up, stretched himself comfortably, and started walking toward home.

It was after daylight before he finally got a ride in a truck, and it was midmorning before he reached the house. He walked around the block once before going in. There was no reason for his doing that this morning, but the habit was more than he could overcome in one day.

Aunt Annie was in the dining room setting the table for dinner when he walked in the front door. He hung his hat on the hat tree the boarders used and walked down the hall. When he passed the dining-room door, he saw Aunt Annie standing by the table looking at him. She did not say a word then.

“Hello, Annie, darling,” Uncle Jeff said. “It’s a fine spring day outside today, isn’t it?”

She did not answer him.