Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [54]
It took them about half an hour to pile on as much wood as the back seat would hold. After that, Jeeter began binding it to the body with baling wire so none of it would drop off along the road while they were riding to Augusta. The ends of the blackjack protruded in all directions, sticking out several feet on each side and behind. Others had been jabbed straight into the upholstery, and they appeared to be the only ones that did not need fastening. The rusty baling wire broke nearly every time Jeeter attempted to fasten it to the door-handles, and he would have to stop and splice the ends, twisting them until they would hold. The task of loading the blackjack and tying it on to the car took nearly two hours, and even then several pieces of wood fell off when one of them touched the car or leaned against it.
With the wood in place, Dude drove back across the field towards the house, going no faster than a man’s walk, but even then the wood persisted in falling off. Jeeter and Bessie came behind, picking up the sticks and carrying them to the house.
Ada and Ellie May were in the yard when they got there. The grandmother waited behind a chinaberry tree to see what they were going to do. Ada stood squarely in front of the car, waiting to find out where she was going to sit. The grandmother went to the corner of the house and stood there, all except her face hidden from view.
“Where is I going to sit and ride?” Ada said. “I don’t see no sitting place for nobody much, with all that wood you got loaded.”
Jeeter waited several minutes, hoping that Bessie would undertake to answer Ada. When she did not, Jeeter got in and sat down beside Dude.
“There ain’t no room for you,” he said.
“Why ain’t there no room for me, if there’s room for you and Dude and that hussy, there?”
“Sister Bessie ain’t no hussy,” Jeeter said. “She ain’t nothing like that. She’s a woman preacher.”
“Being a woman preacher don’t keep her from being a hussy. That could help to make her a bigger one. Something acts that way, because she is a big old hussy.”
“What make you say that about Bessie?” he said.
“Last night she was walking all around the room with none of her clothes on. If I hadn’t made you put on your overalls when I did, there ain’t no telling what she might have done. She’s a hussy.”
“Now, Ada,” he said, “you ought not to talk like that about Bessie. She’s a woman preacher, and she’s married to Dude, too.”
“That don’t make no difference. She’s a hussy, all the same. She always fools around with the men-folks. She don’t never stay in the house and help clean it up like I has to do. She’s taking after the men-folks because she’s a hussy. When she goes preaching, she always does the preaching to the men-folks and don’t pay no attention to the women-folks at all.”
“I ain’t got nothing to say against Sister Bessie. She’s a woman preacher, and what she does is the Lord’s doings. He instructs her what to do.”
“Ada is peeved because I married Dude and came here to stay,” Bessie said to Jeeter. “She don’t like it because I’m going to stay in the room.”
“You shut your mouth now, Ada,” Jeeter said, “and let us be going. I got to sell this load of wood in Augusta to-day.”
Dude started the car, and Bessie got in and sat on the edge of the seat beside Jeeter. There was barely enough room for all three of them.
Ada ran towards them, trying to jump on the running-board, but Dude speeded up the car and she could not