The sound and the fury
hack. I asked if they had paid for it yet and he said No and I said Mrs
Compson forgot something and wanted it again, so they let me take it.
Mink was driving. I bought him a cigar, so we drove around until it
begun to get dark on the back streets where they wouldn’t see him. Then
Mink said he’d have to take the team on back and so I said I’d buy him
another cigar and so we drove into the lane and I went across the yard
to the house. I stopped in the hall until I could hear Mother and Uncle
Maury upstairs, then I went on back to the kitchen. She and Ben were
there with Dilsey. I said Mother wanted her and I took her into the
house. I found Uncle Maury’s raincoat and put it around her and picked
her up and went back to the lane and got in the hack. I told Mink to
drive to the depot. He was afraid to pass the stable, so we had to go
the back way and I saw her standing on the corner under the light and I
told Mink to drive close to the walk and when I said Go on, to give the
team a bat. Then I took the raincoat off of her and held her to the
window and Caddy saw her and sort of jumped forward.
“Hit ’em, Mink!” I says, and Mink gave them a cut and we went past her
like a fire engine. “Now get on that train like you promised,” I says. I
could see her running after us through the back window. “Hit ’em again,”
I says, “Let’s get on home.” When we turned the corner she was still
running.
And so I counted the money again that night and put it away, and I
didn’t feel so bad. I says I reckon that’ll show you. I reckon you’ll
know now that you cant beat me out of a job and get away with it. It
never occurred to me she wouldn’t keep her promise and take that train.
But I didn’t know much about them then; I didn’t have any more sense
than to believe what they said, because the next morning damn if she
didn’t walk right into the store, only she had sense enough to wear the
veil and not speak to anybody. It was Saturday morning, because I was at
the store, and she came right on back to the desk where I was, walking
fast.
“Liar,” she says, “Liar.”
“Are you crazy?” I says. “What do you mean? coming in here like this?”
She started in, but I shut her off. I says, “You already cost me one
job; do you want me to lose this one too? If you’ve got anything to say
to me, I’ll meet you somewhere after dark. What have you got to say to
me?” I says, “Didn’t I do everything I said? I said see her a minute,
didn’t I? Well, didn’t you?” She just stood there looking at me, shaking
like an ague-fit, her hands clenched and kind of jerking. “I did just
what I said I would,” I says, “You’re the one that lied. You promised to
take that train. Didn’t you Didn’t you promise? If you think you can get
that money back, just try it,” I says. “If it’d been a thousand dollars,
you’d still owe me after the risk I took. And if I see or hear you’re
still in town after number 17 runs,” I says, “I’ll tell Mother and Uncle
Maury. Then hold your breath until you see her again.” She just stood
there, looking at me, twisting her hands together.
“Damn you,” she says, “Damn you.”
“Sure,” I says, “That’s all right too. Mind what I say, now. After
number 17, and I tell them.”
After she was gone I felt better. I says I reckon you’ll think twice
before you deprive me of a job that was promised me. I was a 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 him the 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 still here 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 feel her 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,
“All right. 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’ll give you a thousand dollars.”
“You haven’t got a thousand dollars,” I says, “I know you’re lying now.”
“Yes I have. I will have. 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 all to 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 him twice? 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’m tr-trying to,” she says, holding her hands over her mouth. “Oh God,
oh God.”
“I’m going away from here,” 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 tell you.”
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 all right with me.”
“I reckon you’ll never 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 tell
Mother 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
thought I was going to dash up the street and gobble two bits worth of
indigestion on his account he was bad fooled. I may not be sitting with
my feet on a mahogany desk but I am being paid for what I do inside this