TULL

ANSE keeps on rubbing his knees. His overalls are faded; on one knee a serge patch cut out of a pair of Sunday pants, wore iron-slick. “No man mislikes it more than me,” he says.

“A fellow’s got to guess ahead now and then,” I say. “But, come long and short, it won’t be no harm done neither way.”

“She’ll want to get started right off,” he says. “It’s far enough to Jefferson at best.”

“But the roads is good now,” I say. It’s fixing to rain to-night, too. His folks buries at New Hope, too, not three miles away. But it’s just like him to marry a woman born a day’s hard ride away and have her die on him.

He looks out over the land, rubbing his knees. “No man so mislikes it,” he says.

“They’ll get back in plenty of time,” I say. “I wouldn’t worry none.”

“It means three dollars,” he says.

“Might be it won’t be no need for them to rush back, noways,” I say. “I hope it.”

“She’s a-going,” he says. “Her mind is set on it.” It’s a hard life on women, for a fact. Some women. I mind my mammy lived to be seventy and more. Worked every day, rain or shine; never a sick day since her last chap was born until one day she kind of looked around her and then she went and taken that lace-trimmed nightgown she had had forty-five years and never wore out of the chest and put it on and laid down on the bed and pulled the covers up and shut her eyes. “You all will have to look out for pa the best you can,” she said. “I’m tired.”

Anse rubs his hands on his knees. “The Lord giveth,” he says. We can hear Cash a-hammering and sawing beyond the corner.

It’s true. Never a truer breath was ever breathed. “The Lord giveth,” I say.

That boy comes up the hill. He is carrying a fish nigh long as he is. He slings it to the ground and grunts “Hah” and spits over his shoulder like a man. Durn nigh long as he is.

“What’s that?” I say. “A hog? Where’d you get it?”

“Down to the bridge,” he says. He turns it over, the under-side caked over with dust where it is wet, the eye coated over, humped under the dirt.

“Are you aiming to leave it laying there?” Anse says.

“I aim to show it to ma,” Vardaman says. He looks toward the door. We can hear the talking, coming out on the draught. Cash, too, knocking and hammering at the boards. “There’s company in there,” he says.

“Just my folks,” I say. “They’d enjoy to see it, too.”

He says nothing, watching the door. Then he looks down at the fish laying in the dust. He turns it over with his foot and prods at the eye-bump with his toe, gouging at it. Anse is looking out over the land. Vardaman looks at Anse’s face, then at the door. He turns, going toward the corner of the house, when Anse calls him without looking around.

“You clean that fish,” Anse says.

Vardaman stops. “Why can’t Dewey Dell clean it?” he says.

“You clean that fish,” Anse says.

“Aw, pa,” Vardaman says.

“You clean it,” Anse says. He don’t look around. Vardaman comes back and picks up the fish. It slides out of his hands, smearing wet dirt on to him, and flops down, dirtying itself again, gap-mouthed, goggle-eyed, hiding into the dust like it was ashamed of being dead, like it was in a hurry to get back hid again. Vardaman cusses it. He cusses it like a grown man, standing a-straddle of it. Anse don’t look around. Vardaman picks it up again. He goes on around the house, toting it in both arms like an armful of wood, it overlapping him on both ends, head and tail. Durn nigh big as he is.

Anse’s wrists dangle out of his sleeves: I never see him with a shirt on that looked like it was his in all my life. They all looked like Jewel might have give him his old ones. Not Jewel, though. He’s long-armed, even if he is spindling. Except for the lack of sweat. You could tell they ain’t been nobody else’s but Anse’s that way without no mistake. His eyes look like pieces of burnt-out cinder fixed in his face, looking out over the land.

When the shadow touches the steps he says “It’s five o’clock.”

Just as I get up Cora comes to the door and says it’s time to get on. Anse reaches for his shoes. “Now, Mr. Bundren,” Cora says, “don’t you get up now.” He puts his shoes on, stomping into them, like he does everything, like he is hoping all the time he really can’t do it and can quit trying to. When we go up the hall we can hear them clumping on the floor like they was iron shoes. He comes toward the door where she is, blinking his eyes, kind of looking ahead of hisself before he sees, like he is hoping to find her setting up, in a chair maybe or maybe sweeping, and looks into the door in that surprised way like he looks in and finds her still in bed every time and Dewey Dell still a-fanning her with the fan. He stands there, like he don’t aim to move again nor nothing else.

“Well, I reckon we better get on,” Cora says. “I got to feed the chickens.” It’s fixing to rain, too. Clouds like that don’t lie, and the cotton making every day the Lord sends. That’ll be something else for him. Cash is still trimming at the boards. “If there’s ere a thing we can do,” Cora says.

“Anse’ll let us know,” I say.

Anse don’t look at us. He looks around, blinking, in that surprised way, like he had wore hisself down being surprised and was even surprised at that. If Cash just works that careful on my barn.

“I told Anse it likely won’t be no need,” I say. “I so hope it.”

“Her mind is set on it,” he says. “I reckon she’s bound to go.”

“It comes to all of us,” Cora says. “Let the Lord comfort you.”

“About that corn,” I say. I tell him again I will help him out if he gets into a tight, with her sick and all. Like most folks around here, I done holp him so much already I can’t quit now.

“I aimed to get to it to-day,” he says. “Seems like I can’t get my mind on nothing.”

“Maybe she’ll hold out till you are laid by,” I say.

“If God wills it,” he says.

“Let Him comfort you,” Cora says.

If Cash just works that careful on my barn. He looks up when we pass. “Don’t reckon I’ll get to you this week,” he says.

“ ’Tain’t no rush,” I say. “Whenever you get around to it.”

We get into the wagon. Cora sets the cake-box on her lap. It’s fixing to rain, sho.

“I don’t know what he’ll do,” Cora says. “I just don’t know.”

“Poor Anse,” I say. “She kept him at work for thirty-odd years. I reckon she is tired.”

“And I reckon she’ll be behind him for thirty years more,” Kate says. “Or if it ain’t her, he’ll get another one before cotton-picking.”

“I reckon Cash and Darl can get married now,” Eula says.

“That poor boy,” Cora says. “The poor little tyke.”

“What about Jewel?” Kate says.

“He can, too,” Eula says.

“Humph,” Kate says. “I reckon he will. I reckon so. I reckon there’s more gals than one around here that don’t want to see Jewel tied down. Well, they needn’t to worry.”

“Why, Kate!” Cora says. The wagon begins to rattle. “The poor little tyke,” Cora says.

It’s fixing to rain this night. Yes, sir. A rattling wagon is mighty dry weather, for a Birdsell. But that’ll be cured. It will for a fact.

“She ought to taken them cakes after she said she would,” Kate says.