Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [61]
Dude was anxious to go back home, because he would have the opportunity of blowing the horn when they went around the long curves on the highway.
Bessie bought the gasoline and Jeeter paid for it out of the money they had left. No trouble with the engine developed, and they sailed along at a fast rate of speed for nearly ten miles.
“Let’s stop a minute,” Jeeter said.
Dude stopped the car without question and they all got out. Jeeter began untying the plow-lines and untwisting the baling wire around the load of blackjack.
“What you going to do now?” Bessie asked him, watching him begin throwing off the sticks.
“I’m going to throw off the whole durn load and set fire to it,” he said. “It’s bad luck to carry something to town to sell and then tote it back home. It ain’t a safe thing to do, to take it back home. I’m going to pitch it all off.”
Dude and Bessie helped him, and in a few minutes the blackjack was piled in the ditch beside the road.
“And I ain’t going to let nobody else have the use of it, neither,” he said. “If the rich people in Augusta won’t buy my wood, I ain’t going to let it lay here so they can come out and take it off for nothing.”
He gathered a handful of dead leaves, thrust them under the pile, and struck a match to them. The leaves blazed up, and a coil of smoke boiled into the air. Jeeter fanned the blaze with his hat and waited for the wood to catch on fire and burn.
“That was an unlucky trip to Augusta,” he said. “I don’t know when I’ve ever had such luck befall me before. All the other times I’ve been able to sell my wood for something, if it was only a quarter or so. But this time nobody wanted it for nothing, seems like.”
“I want to go back some time and spend another night at that hotel,” Bessie said, giggling. “I had the best time last night. It made me feel good, staying there. They sure know how to treat women real nice.”
They waited for the blackjack to burn so they could leave for home. The leaves had burned to charred ashes, and the flame had gone out. The scrub oak would not catch on fire.
Jeeter scraped up a larger pile of leaves, set it on fire, and began tossing the sticks on it. The fire burned briskly for several minutes, and then went out under the weight of the green wood.
Jeeter stood looking at it, sadly. He did not know how to make it burn. Then Dude drew some gasoline from the tank and poured it on the pile. A great blaze sprang up ten or twelve feet into the air. Before long that too died down, leaving a pile of blackened sticks in the ditch.
“Well, I reckon that’s all I can do to that damn-blasted blackjack,” Jeeter said, getting into the car. “It looks like there ain’t no way to get rid of the durn wood. It won’t sell and it won’t burn. I reckon the devil got into it.”
They drove off in a swirl of yellow dust, and were soon nearing the tobacco road. Dude drove slowly through the deep white sand, blowing the horn all the way home.
Chapter XVII
THE NEXT AUTOMOBILE TRIP Jeeter had planned after the return from Augusta was a journey over into Burke County to see Tom. From the things Jeeter had heard repeated by various men who had been in that section of the country, he knew Tom was a successful cross-tie contractor. Those men who had had business that took them close to the cross-tie camp came back to Fuller and told Jeeter that Tom was making more money than anybody else they knew. Jeeter was almost as proud of Tom as he was of Dude.
Very little else was known about Tom Lester. That was one of the reasons why Jeeter wanted to go over there. He wanted to find out how much money Tom was making, first of all, and then he wanted to ask Tom to give him a little money every week.
Bessie and Dude were not thinking of staying at home either while the new car was in running order. The trip to Augusta had not caused them to lose any of their enthusiasm for automobile travel any more than