Reivers, The - William Faulkner [41]
"Lucius," Boon said. "Make your manners to Miss Reba," he told me. I did so, the way I always did: that I reckon Grandfather's mother taught him and Grandfather taught Father and Mother taught us: what Ned called "drug my foot." When I straightened up. Miss Reba was watching me. She had a curious look on her face.
"I'll be damned," she said. "Minnie, did you see that? Is Miss Corrie—"
"She dressing as fast as she can," the maid said. And that was when I saw it. I mean, Minnie's tooth. I mean, that was how—yes, why—I, you, people, everybody, remembered Minnie. She had beautiful teeth anyhow, like small richly alabaster matched and evenly serrated headstones against the rich chocolate of her face when she smiled or spoke. But she had more. The middle righthand upper one was gold; in her dark face it reigned like a queen among the white dazzle of the others, seeming actually to glow, gleam as with a slow inner fire or lambence of more than gold, until that single tooth appeared even bigger than both of Miss Reba's yellowish diamonds put together. (Later I learned—no matter how—that she had had the gold one taken out and an ordinary white one, like anybody else's, put in; and I grieved. I thought that, had I been of her race and age group, it would have been worth being her husband just to watch that tooth in action across the table every day; a child of eleven, it seemed to me that the very food it masticated must taste different, better.)
Miss Reba turned to Boon again. "What you been doing? wrassling with hogs?"
"We got; in a mudhole back down the road. We drove up. The automobile's outside now."
"I saw it," Miss Reba said. "We all did. Dont tell me it's yours. Just tell me if the police are after it. If they are, get it away from my door. Mr Binford's strict about having police around here too. So am I."
"The automobile's all right," Boon said. "It better be," Miss Reba said. She was looking at me again. She said, "Lucius," not to anybody. "Too bad you didn't get here sooner. Mr Binford likes kids. He still likes them even after he begins to have doubts, and this last week would have raised doubts in anybody that aint a ossified corpse. I mean, he was still willing to give Otis the benefit of the doubt to take him to the zoo right after dinner. Lucius could have gone too. But then on the other hand, maybe not. If Otis is still using up doubts at the same rate he was before they left here, he aint coming back—providing there's some way to get him up close enough to the cage for one of them lions or tigers to reach him—providing a lion or tiger would want him, which they wouldn't if they'd ever spent a week in the same house with him." She was still looking at me. She said, "Lucius," again, not at anybody. Then she said to Minnie: "Go up and tell everybody to stay out of the bathroom for the next half an hour." She said to Boon: "You got a change of clothes with you?"
"Yes," Boon said.
"Then wash yourself off and put them on; this is a decent place: not a joint. Let them use Vera's room, Minnie. Vera's visiting her folks up in Paducah." She said to Boon or maybe to both of us: "Minnie fixed a bed for Otis up ffi the attic. Lucius can sleep with him tonight—"
There were feet on the stairs, then in the hall and in the door. This time it was a big girl. I dont mean fat: just big, like