Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [31]
Ada herself looked as if she might die before Jeeter did. Her teeth had all dropped out; she had dipped snuff since she was eight years old. Her teeth had not lasted very long after she was married. Her one concern, besides the constant desire for more snuff, was with her own death. The thought that she might not have a stylish dress when she died was bothering her night and day. She did not trust Jeeter any too much to furnish it when the time came; that was the reason she kept the old dress put away to be used in case a more up-to-date one was not bought for her.
“If I could find out where my daughters was living, maybe they would help me get a stylish dress to die in,” she had said. “Lizzie Belle used to love her old Ma a lot. I know she’d help me get one if I could find out where she is at. And Clara might help some, too. She used to tell me how pretty I looked when I combed my hair of mornings and put on a clean apron and sunbonnet. I don’t know if the others would want to help none or not. It’s been such a long time since I saw the rest of them I’ve just about forgot what they was like. Seems like I can’t recall all their names even, sometimes.”
“Lizzie Belle might be making a lot of money over in the mills,” Jeeter had said. “Maybe if we was to find her and ask her about it, she might come some time and bring us a little money. I know Bailey would bring us some snuff and rations if I knowed where to find him. Bailey was just about the best of all the boys. He was good to me even when he was just a little boy. He was never stealing all the molasses we had saving for supper, like the rest of them. I expect maybe he’s got to be a pretty big merchant somewheres by now. He always said he was going to make a lot of money so he wouldn’t have to go barefooted in the winter-time like Tom and Clara did when they went away.”
Ada talked to Jeeter whenever the subject was that of their children away from home. It seemed as if she were not interested enough in other things to talk about them any more. She answered Jeeter’s questions most of the time, and she scolded him when there was nothing in the house to eat. The rest of the time she had very little to say. But whenever Bailey’s name, or Lizzie Belle’s, or Clara’s, or Walker’s, or any of the children’s was mentioned, she lost the hollow look in her eyes and wanted to talk about them for the rest of the day. None of the children who had left home had ever been back to visit, nor had they ever sent a message. Because Ada and Jeeter had never received one, they believed that all of the children were alive. There was no way of knowing whether they were dead or not.
“I’m going over to Burke County and see Tom,” Jeeter had told Ada. “I’ve made up my mind that I’ll go over there and see him before I die. Everybody in Fuller tells me he’s hauling cross-ties out of the camp by the wagon load day and night. They say he’s got a whopping big cross-tie camp over there. From what people say about him, I reckon he’s a powerful rich man now. He sure ought to give me some money. Though it sometimes looks like a rich man will never help the poor; whereas the poor people will give away everything they has to help somebody who ain’t got nothing. That’s how it looks to me. Don’t seem like it ought to be that way, but I reckon the rich ain’t got no time to fool with us poor folks.”
“When you see Tom, tell him that his old Ma would like powerful much to see him. You tell him that I said he was near about the best of the whole seventeen. Clara and Lizzie Belle was about the best, I reckon; but Tom and Bailey led the boys when it came to being good children. You tell Tom I said he was the best of them, and maybe he’ll send me some money for a stylish dress.”
“Pearl is the prettiest,” Jeeter said. “Ain’t none of the other gals got pretty yellow hair like she has. Nor them pale blue eyes, neither. She’s the first Lester I ever saw who had yellow hair. It’s funny about her having it, ain’t it, Ada?”
“Pearl is my