Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [51]
“Nobody said things against you, did they, Sister Bessie?” Jeeter asked. “Some people has got a way of talking about people like us.”
“Well, some of them did say a few things about me marrying Dude. They said he was too young to be married to a woman my age, but when they started talking like that, we just got in our new automobile and rode off. A lot of them said it was a sin and a shame for to take my husband’s money and buy an automobile and get married to a young boy like Dude, but while they was doing the talking, me and Dude was doing the riding, wasn’t we, Dude?”
Dude did not answer.
“I reckon Dude has gone to sleep,” Jeeter said. “He worked pretty hard to-day, driving that automobile clear to McCoy and back again.”
Ada sat up in bed.
“Take them overalls off, Jeeter,” she said angrily. “I ain’t never seen the like of it. You know I ain’t going to let you sleep in the bed with them dirty pants on. I have to tell you about it nearly every time. They dirty-up the bed something bad. You ought to know I ain’t going to stand for that.”
“It’s pretty cold again to-night,” Jeeter said. “I get chilly when I don’t sleep with my overalls on. It seems like I can’t do nothing no more like I want to. Sleeping in overalls ain’t going to hurt nothing, noway.”
“You’re the only man I ever knowed of who wanted to sleep in his overalls. Don’t nobody else do like that.”
Jeeter did not answer her. He got up out of bed and climbed out of his overalls and hung them on the foot of the bed. When he got back under the quilts, he was shivering all over.
Bessie could be heard over on the other side of the room stepping around in her stockinged feet getting ready for bed. She had kept her shoes on until she removed her clothes.
Jeeter lifted his head from under the cover and tried to look through the darkness of the room.
“You know, Bessie,” he said, “it sort of makes me feel good like I was before I lost my health to have a woman preacher sleep in my house. It’s a fine feeling I has about you staying here.”
“I’m a woman preacher, all right,” she said, “but I ain’t no different in other ways from the rest of the women-folks. Jeeter, you know that, don’t you?”
Jeeter raised himself on his elbow and strained his eyes to see through the darkness across the room.
“I hope you ain’t leaving us no time soon,” he said. “I’d be powerful pleased to have you sleep here all the time, Bessie.”
Ada thrust her elbow into his ribs with all her strength, and he fell down groaning with pain on the bed beside her.
Bessie could be heard getting into her bed. The corn-shuck mattress crackled, and the slats rattled as she lay down and stretched out her feet. She lay still for several minutes, and then she began to stretch her hands out towards the other side, the impact of her arms making the shucks crackle more than ever.
Suddenly she sat up in bed, throwing the quilts aside.
“Where’s Dude?” she demanded angrily, her voice gruff and unnatural. “Where is you, Dude?”
Not a sound was to be heard in the room. Ada had sat upright, and Jeeter had sprung to a sitting position on the side of the bed. Bessie’s corn-shuck mattress crackled some more, and then the thump of her bare feet on the pine floor could be heard all over the house. Jeeter still did not attempt to speak or to move. He waited to catch every sound in the house.
“You Dude—you Dude!” Bessie cried from the centre of the room, trying to feel her way from bed to bed. “Where is you, Dude—why don’t you answer me? You’d better not try to hide from me, Dude!”
“What’s the matter, Bessie?” Jeeter said.
“Dude ain’t in the bed—I can’t find him nowhere at all.”
Reaching for his overalls, Jeeter jumped to his feet. He began fumbling in his pockets for a match. At last he found one, and bending over, he struck it on the floor.
The flare of the match revealed every