Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [32]
“I’m going to tell Tom he ought to give me some money,” Jeeter said. “The folks in Fuller say he’s a powerful rich man now.”
“You better not forget to mention to him that his old Ma sure would like for him to get her a stylish dress to die in. I know he won’t stand back with a little of his money for a little thing like that.”
“I’m going to mention it to him when I see him, but I don’t know how he’ll take it. I expect he’s got a wife and a raft of children to provide for. Maybe he’ll give it to me, though.”
“Reckon Tom has got some children?”
“Maybe some.”
“I sure would like to see them. I know I must have a whole lot of grandchildren somewhere. I’m bound to have, with all them boys and girls off from home. If I could see Tom maybe I wouldn’t mind it so bad that I can’t see the rest of them. I just know I ought to have grandchildren somewhere in the country.”
“Lizzie Belle and Clara has got a raft of children, I reckon. They was always talking about having them. And they say over in Fuller that Lizzie Belle has got a lot of them. I don’t know how other folks know more about such things than I do. Looks like I ought to be the one who knows the most about my children.”
“Maybe you could get Tom to bring his children over here for me to see. You tell him I want to see my grandchildren, and maybe he’ll consent to bring them.”
Ada had talked several times about Tom bringing his children to see her. Every time Jeeter said anything about going over to Burke County where Tom’s cross-tie camp was, she reminded him not to forget to tell Tom what she had said. But from year to year, as Jeeter failed to start, she had become less inclined to talk about the possibility of seeing any of the grandchildren. Jeeter could not get started. He would say he was going the next day, but he always put off the trip at the last minute.
Jeeter made a false start somewhere nearly every day. He was going to Fuller, or he was going to McCoy, or he was going to Augusta; but he never went when he said he would. If he told Ada at night that he was going to McCoy early the next morning, he would decide at the last minute to go to Fuller or Augusta instead. Usually he would have to stop and walk out over the old cotton fields and look at the tall brown broom-sedge, and that made him think about something else. When he did walk out into the sedge, the chances were that he would lie down and take a nap. It was a wonder how he ever got the wood cut that he hauled to Augusta. Sometimes it took him a whole week to cut enough blackjack for a load.
Just then it was the beginning of the new season that was causing him to change his mind so frequently. The smell of the burning broom-sedge and pine undergrowth was in the air every day now. Some of the land was even being broken away off in the distance, and he could detect the aroma of freshly turned earth miles away. The smell of newly turned earth, that others were never conscious of, reached Jeeter’s nostrils with a more pungent odor than any one else could ever detect in the air. That made him want to go out right away and burn over the old cotton fields and plant a crop. Other men were doing that all around him, but even if he succeeded in borrowing a mule, Jeeter did not know where to begin begging for credit to buy seed-cotton and guano. The merchants in Fuller had heard his plea so many times that they knew what he was going to ask for as soon as he walked in the door, and before he could say the first word they were shaking their heads and going back where he could not follow them. He did not know what to do about it.
Jeeter postponed nearly everything a man could think of, but when it came to plowing the land and planting cotton, he was as persistent as any man could be about such things. He started out each day with his enthusiasm at fever pitch, and by night he was still as determined as ever to find a mule he could borrow and a merchant who would give