The sound and the fury
no whore. Like I say if I was to get married you’d go up like a balloon
and you know it and she says I want you to be happy to have a family of
your own not to slave your life away for us. But I’ll be gone soon and
then you can take a wife but you’ll never find a woman who is worthy of
you and I says yes I could. You’d get right up out of your grave you
know you would. I says no thank you I have all the women I can take care
of now if I married a wife she’d probably turn out to be a hophead or
something. That’s all we lack in this family, I says.
The sun was down beyond the Methodist church now, and the pigeons were
flying back and forth around the steeple, and when the band stopped I
could hear them cooing. It hadn’t been four months since Christmas, and
yet they were almost as thick as ever. I reckon Parson Walthall was
getting a belly full of them now. You’d have thought we were shooting
people, with him making speeches and even holding onto a man’s gun when
they came over. Talking about peace on earth good will toward all and
not a sparrow can fall to earth. But what does he care how thick they
get, he hasn’t got anything to do; what does he care what time it is. He
pays no taxes, he doesn’t have to see his money going every year to have
the courthouse clock cleaned to where it’ll run. They had to pay a man
forty-five dollars to clean it. I counted over a hundred half-hatched
pigeons on the ground. You’d think they’d have sense enough to leave
town. It’s a good thing I dont have any more ties than a pigeon, I’ll
say that.
The band was playing again, a loud fast tune, like they were breaking
up. I reckon they’d be satisfied now. Maybe they’d have enough music to
entertain them while they drove fourteen or fifteen miles home and
unharnessed in the dark and fed the stock and milked. All they’d have to
do would be to whistle the music and tell the jokes to the live stock in
the barn, and then they could count up how much they’d made by not
taking the stock to the show too. They could figure that if a man had
five children and seven mules, he cleared a quarter by taking his family
to the show. Just like that. Earl came back with a couple of packages.
“Here’s some more stuff going out,” he says. “Where’s Uncle Job?”
“Gone to the show, I imagine,” I says. “Unless you watched him.”
“He doesn’t slip off,” he says. “I can depend on him.”
“Meaning me by that,” I says.
He went to the door and looked out, listening.
“That’s a good band,” he says. “It’s about time they were breaking up,
I’d say.”
“Unless they’re going to spend the night there,” I says. The swallows
had begun, and I could hear the sparrows beginning to swarm in the trees
in the courthouse yard. Every once in a while a bunch of them would come
swirling around in sight above the roof, then go away. They are as big a
nuisance as the pigeons, to my notion. You cant even sit in the
courthouse yard for them. First thing you know, bing. Right on your hat.
But it would take a millionaire to afford to shoot them at five cents a
shot. If they’d just put a little poison out there in the square, they’d
get rid of them in a day, because if a merchant cant keep his stock from
running around the square, he’d better try to deal in something besides
chickens, something that dont eat, like plows or onions. And if a man
dont keep his dogs up, he either dont want it or he hasn’t any business
with one. Like I say if all the businesses in a town are run like
country businesses, you’re going to have a country town.
“It wont do you any good if they have broke up,” I says. “They’ll have
to hitch up and take out to get home by midnight as it is.”
“Well,” he says, “They enjoy it. Let them spend a little money on a show
now and then. A hill farmer works pretty hard and gets mighty little for
it.”
“There’s no law making them farm in the hills,” I says, “Or anywhere
else.”
“Where would you and me be, if it wasn’t for the farmers?” he says.
“I’d be home right now,” I says, “Lying down, with an ice pack on my
head.”
“You have these headaches too often,” he says. “Why dont you have your
teeth examined good? Did he go over them all this morning?”
“Did who?” I says.
“You said you went to the dentist this morning.”
“Do you object to my having the headache on your time?” I says. “Is that
it?” They were crossing the alley now, coming up from the show.
“There they come,” he says. “I reckon I better get up front.” He went
on. It’s a curious thing how no matter what’s wrong with you, a man’ll
tell you to have your teeth examined and a woman’ll tell you to get
married. It always takes a man that never made much at any thing to tell
you how to run your business, though. Like these college professors
without a whole pair of socks to their name, telling you how to make a
million in ten years, and a woman that couldn’t even get a husband can
always tell you how to raise a family.
Old man Job came up with the wagon. After a while he got through
wrapping the lines around the whip socket.
“Well,” I says, “Was it a good show?”
“I aint been yit,” he says. “But I kin be arrested in dat tent tonight,
dough.”
“Like hell you haven’t,” I says. “You’ve been away from here since three
oclock. Mr Earl was just back here looking for you.”
“I been tendin to my business,” he says. “Mr Earl knows whar I been.”
“You may can fool him,” I says. “I wont tell on you.”
“Den he’s de onliest man here I’d try to fool,” he says. “Whut I want to
waste my time foolin a man whut I dont keer whether I sees him Sat’dy
night er not? I wont try to fool you,” he says. “You too smart fer me.
Yes, suh,” he says, looking busy as hell, putting five or six little
packages into the wagon, “You’s too smart fer me. Aint a man in dis town
kin keep up wid you fer smartness. You fools a man whut so smart he cant
even keep up wid hisself,” he says, getting in the wagon and unwrapping
the reins.
“Who’s that?” I says.
“Dat’s Mr Jason Compson,” he says. “Git up dar, Dan!”
One of the wheels was just about to come off. I watched to see if he’d
get out of the alley before it did. Just turn any vehicle over to a
nigger, though. I says that old rattletrap’s just an eyesore, yet you’ll
keep it standing there in the carriage house a hundred years just so
that boy can ride to the cemetery once a week. I says he’s not the first
fellow that’ll have to do things he doesn’t want to. I’d make him ride
in that car like a civilised man or stay at home. What does he know
about where he goes or what he goes in, and us keeping a carriage and a
horse so he can take a ride on Sunday afternoon.
A lot Job cared whether the wheel came off or not, long as he wouldn’t
have too far to walk back. Like I say the only place for them is in the
field, where they’d have to work from sunup to sundown. They cant stand
prosperity or an easy job. Let one stay around white people for a while
and he’s not worth killing. They get so they can outguess you about work
before your very eyes, like Roskus the only mistake he ever made was he
got careless one day and died. Shirking and stealing and giving you a
little more lip and a little more lip until some day you have to lay
them out with a scantling or something. Well, it’s Earl’s business. But
I’d hate to have my business advertised over this town by an old
doddering nigger and a wagon that you thought every time it turned a
corner it would come all to pieces.
The sun was all high up in the air now, and inside it was beginning to
get dark. I went up front. The square was empty. Earl was back closing
the safe, and then the clock begun to strike.
“You lock the back door,” he says. I went back and locked it and came
back. “I suppose you’re going to the show tonight,” he says. “I gave you
those passes yesterday, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” I said. “You want them back?”
“No, no,” he says, “I just forgot whether I gave them to you or not. No
sense in wasting them.”
He locked the door and said Goodnight and went on. The sparrows were
still rattling away in the trees, but the square was empty except for a
few cars. There was a ford in front of the drugstore, but I didn’t even
look at it. I know when I’ve had enough of anything. I dont mind trying
to help her, but I know when I’ve had enough. I guess I could teach
Luster to drive it, then they could chase her all day long if they
wanted to, and I could stay home and play with Ben.
I went in and got a couple of cigars. Then I thought I’d have another
headache shot for luck, and I stood and talked with them awhile.
“Well,” Mac says, “I reckon you’ve got your money on the Yankees this
year.”
“What for?” I says.
“The Pennant,” he says. “Not anything in the League can beat them.”
“Like hell there’s not,” I says. “They’re shot,” I says. “You think a
team can be that lucky forever?”
“I dont call it luck,” Mac says.
“I wouldn’t bet on any team that fellow Ruth played on,” I says. “Even
if I knew it was going to win.”
“Yes?” Mac says.
“I can name you a dozen men in either League who’re more valuable than
he is,” I says.
“What have you got against Ruth?” Mac says.
“Nothing,” I says. “I haven’t got any thing against him. I dont even
like to look at his picture.” I went on out. The lights were coming on,
and people going along the streets toward home. Sometimes the sparrows
never got still until full dark. The night they turned on the new lights
around the courthouse it waked them up and they were flying around and
blundering into the lights all night long. They kept it up two or three
nights, then one morning they were all gone. Then after about two months
they all came back again.
I drove on home. There were no lights in the house yet, but they’d all
be looking out the windows, and Dilsey jawing away in the kitchen like
it was her own food she was having to keep hot until I got there. You’d
think to hear her that there wasn’t but one supper in the world, and
that was the one she had to keep back a few minutes on my account. Well
at least I could come home one time without finding Ben and that nigger
hanging on the gate like a bear and a monkey in the same cage. Just let
it come toward sundown and he’d head for the gate like a cow for the
barn, hanging onto it and bobbing his head and sort of moaning to
himself. That’s a hog for punishment for you. If what had happened to
him for fooling with open gates had happened to me, I never would want
to see another one. I often wondered what he’d be thinking about, down
there at the gate, watching the girls going home from school, trying to
want something he couldn’t even remember he didn’t and couldn’t want any
longer. And what he’d think when they’d be undressing him and he’d
happen to take a look at himself and begin to cry like he’d do. But like
I say they never did enough of that. I says I know what you need, you
need what they did to Ben then you’d behave. And if you dont know what
that was I says, ask Dilsey to tell you.
There was a light in Mother’s room. I put the car up and went on into
the kitchen. Luster and Ben were there.
“Where’s Dilsey?” I says. “Putting supper on?”
“She upstairs wid Miss Cahline,” Luster says. “Dey been goin hit. Ever
since Miss Quentin come home. Mammy up there keepin um fum fightin. Is
dat show come, Mr Jason?”
“Yes,” I says.
“I thought I heard de band,” he says. “Wish I could go,” he says. “I
could ef I jes had a quarter.”
Dilsey came in. “You come, is you?” she says. “Whut you been up to dis
evenin? You knows how much work I got to do; whyn’t you git here on
time?”
“Maybe I went to the show,” I says. “Is supper ready?”
“Wish I could go,” Luster said. “I could ef I jes had a quarter.”
“You aint got no business at no show,” Dilsey says. “You go on in de