Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [44]
There was a silence in the house for a long time. Ellie May and Ada made no sound in the doorway. Jeeter sat on the bed deep in thought until Dude pushed him to his feet. Dude climbed out behind him.
When all of them were out in the yard again, Dude sat in the automobile and blew the horn. The women were busy wiping off the dust that had settled on the hood and fenders. The grandmother, though, did not come close to the car. She took her place behind a chinaberry tree and watched every movement of the others.
Jeeter sat on his heels beside the chimney, and thought over what Sister Bessie had said in the house. He was more convinced than ever that God expected him to fix himself so he would not have any more sinful thoughts about Bessie.
He decided, however, not to carry out his intentions just then. There was plenty of time left yet, he told himself, when he could go ahead and cut himself off, and so long as he did it before he offended God any more, it would be satisfactory. In the meanwhile, he would have time in which to try to convince himself more thoroughly that he should do it.
There was a little fat-back on rinds left in the kitchen, and Ada had baked some cornbread. The bread had been made with meal, salt, water, and grease.
All of them sat down at the table in the kitchen and ate the fat-back and cornbread with full appetite. It was the first time that day that any of them had had food, and it would probably be the last. After the meat plate had been wiped clean of grease, and after the last of the cornbread was eaten, they went out into the yard again to look at the new automobile. The grandmother had hidden a piece of the bread in her apron pocket, and she put it under the mattress of her bed so she would have something to eat the next day in case Jeeter failed to buy some more meal and meat.
Jeeter wanted to take a ride right away. He told Bessie he wanted to go, and that he was ready.
Bessie had other plans, however. She said she and Dude were going to take a little ride that afternoon all alone, so they could talk over their marriage together without any disturbance. She promised Jeeter she would let him ride when they came back.
She and Dude got in, and Dude drove the car out of the yard and into the tobacco road towards the State highway. Jeeter thought they might be going to Augusta, but before he could ask them if they were, they had gone too far to hear him call.
“That Dude is the luckiest man alive,” he told Ellie May. “Now ain’t he?”
Ellie May started down the road through the cloud of dust to see them leave. She heard Jeeter talking to her, but she was too much interested in seeing the new car go down the road and in hearing Dude blow the horn to listen to what Jeeter said.
“Dude, he has got a brand-new car to ride around in, and he’s got married all at the same time,” Jeeter continued. “There’s not many men who get all that in the same day, I tell you. The new car is a fine piece of goods to own. There ain’t nobody else that I know of between here and the river who has got a brand-new automobile. And there ain’t many men who has a wife as fine-looking as Sister Bessie is at her age, neither. Bessie makes a fine woman for a man—any man, I don’t care where you find him. She might be just a little bit more than Dude can take care of though, I fear. It looked to me like she requires a heap of satisfaction, one way and another, for a little woman no bigger than a gal. I don’t know if Dude is that kind or not, but it won’t take long for Bessie to find out. Now, if it was me, there wouldn’t be