Reivers, The - William Faulkner [42]
"Watch now," Miss Reba said. "Lucius, this is Miss Come." I made my manners again. "See what I mean?" Miss Reba said. "You brought that nephew of yours over here hunting refinement. Here it is, waiting for him. He wont know what it means, let alone why he's doing it. But maybe Lucius could learn him to at least ape it. All right" she said to Boon. "Go get cleaned up."
J, M^ayb^- Corrie>11 ^me help us," Boon said. He was Holding Miss Corrie's hand. "Hi, kiddo," he said again �« -Ar7.TM1??kmg like a shanty-boat swamp rat," Miss Reba said, "I'll keep this damned place respectable on Sunday anyhow."
Minnie showed us where the room and the bathroom were upstairs and gave us soap and a towel apiece and went out. Boon put his grip on the bed and opened it and took out a clean shirt and his other pants. They were his everyday pants but the Sunday ones he had on wouldn't be """"' " '^ere until they were cleaned with naptha ee?" he said. "I told you so. I done the
"\x 1.1-----make you brinS at least a clean shirt."
(My blouse aint muddy," I said.
bathe'" r said" "l had a bath yesterday " said didn't you?" Said "BUt y�°U hCard What Miss Reba
- -aid' "J never **ew �„¢y !adies any-TaSQt trying to make somebody take a bath."
�°""? known Miss Reba a few hours out you done learned something else and one shirt from one grip but he over the open grip, busy, holding the shirt in his hand while he decided where to put the pants, then putting the shirt on the bed and picking up the pants again and moving them about a foot further along the bed, then picking up the shirt again and putting it where the pants were; then he cleared his throat loud and hard and went to the window and opened it and leaned out and spit and closed the window and came back to the bed, not looking at me, talking loud, like somebody that comes upstairs first on Christmas morning and tells you what you're going to get on the Christmas tree that's not the thing you wrote Santa Claus for:
"Dont it beat all how much a fellow can learn and in what a short time, about something he not only never knowed before, he never even had no idea he would ever want to know it, let alone would find it useful to him for the rest of his life—providing he kept it, never let it get away from him. Take you, for instance. Just think. Here it aint but yesterday morning, not even two days back yet, and think how much you have learned: how to drive a automobile, how to go to Memphis across the country without depending on the railroad, even how to get a automobile out of a mudhole. So that when you get big and own a automobile of your own, you will not only already know how to drive it but the road to Memphis too and even how to get it out of a ffludhole."
"Boss says that when I get old enough to own an automobile, there wont be any more mudholes to get into. That all the roads everywhere will be so smooth and hard that automobiles will be foreclosed and reclaimed by the bank or even wear out without ever seeing a mudhole."
"Sure, sure," Boon said, "all right, all right. Say there aint no more need to know how to get out of a mudhole, at least you'll still know how to. Because why? Because you aint give the knowing how away to nobody."
"Who could I give it to?" I said. "Who would want to know how, if there aint any more mudholes?"
"All right, all right," Boon said. "Just listen to me a minute, will you? I ain't talking about mudholes. I'm talking about the things a fellow—boy can learn that he never even thought about before, that forever afterward, when he needs them he will already have them. Because there aint nothing you ever learn that the day wont come when you'll need it or find Use for it—providing you've still got it, aint let it get away from you