Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [63]
“Why?” Jeeter asked. “What did he do—what did he say? Where’s the money he sent me?”
“Tom didn’t send no money. He don’t appear to be aiming to help you none. He’s a wicked man, Tom is.”
“You ought to have taken me along, Bessie,” Jeeter said. “I know Tom better than I do my own self. He was my special boy all along. Me and Tom got along all right together. The other children was always fighting with me, looks like now. But Tom never did. He was a fine boy when he was growing up.”
Bessie listened to Jeeter talk, but she did not want to stop and argue about going off and leaving him at home. It was all over now. The trip was finished, and they were back.
“Why didn’t you let me go along and see Tom?” he said.
“Tom works about a hundred ox,” Dude said. He was very much impressed by the large number of oxen his brother worked at the cross-tie camp. “I didn’t know there was that many ox in the whole country.”
“When did Tom say he was coming over here to see me?” Jeeter asked.
“Tom said he wasn’t never coming over here again,” Dude said. “He told me to tell you he was going to stay where he was at.”
“That sure don’t sound like Tom talking,” Jeeter said, shaking his head. “Maybe he has to work so hard all the time that he can’t get off.”
“Ain’t that,” Bessie said. “Tom said just what Dude told you. Tom said he ain’t never coming over here again. He don’t want to.”
“That don’t sound like Tom talking. Me and Tom used to get along first-rate concerning everything. Me and him never had no difficulties like I was always having with my other children. They used to throw rocks at me and hit me over the head with sticks, but Tom never did. Tom was always a first-rate boy when I knowed him. Ain’t no reason why he ought to change now, and be just like all the rest of them.”
“I told him how bad off you was, and his Ma, too,” Bessie said. “I told him you didn’t have no meal or meat in the house half the time, and that you can’t farm and raise a crop no more, and Tom says for you and Ada to go to the county poor-farm and stay.”
“You made a mistake by telling Tom I wasn’t going to farm no more. I’m going to raise me a big crop of cotton this year, if I can get hold of some seed-cotton and guano. The rest of what you told him is true and accurate, however. We is hungry pretty much of the time. That ain’t no lie.”
“Well, that’s what he said, anyway. He told me to tell you and Ada to go to the county poor-farm and stay.”
“That sure don’t sound like Tom talking. Tom ain’t never said nothing like that to me before. I can’t see why he wants me and his Ma to go and live at the poor-farm. Looks like he would send me some money instead. I’m his daddy.”
“I don’t reckon that makes no difference to Tom now,” she said. “He’s looking after his own self.”
“I wish I had my young age back again. I wouldn’t beg of no man, not even my own son. But Tom ain’t like he used to be. Looks like he would send me and his old Ma a little bit of money.”
“Tom said to tell you to go to hell, too,” Dude told Jeeter.
Bessie jumped forward, clutching Dude by the neck, and shook him until it looked as if his head would twist off and fall on the ground. She continued to shake him until he succeeded in escaping from her grasp.
“You shouldn’t have told Jeeter that,” she shouted at Dude. “That’s a wicked thing to say. I don’t know nothing more sinful. The devil is trying to take you away from me so I can’t make a preacher out of you.”
“Christ Almighty!” he shouted at her. “You come near about killing me! I didn’t say that—Tom said it. I was just telling him what Tom said. I didn’t say it! You ought to keep off me. I didn’t do nothing to you.”
“Praise the Lord,” Bessie said. “You ain’t never going to make a preacher if you talk like that. I thought you said you was going to stop your cussing. Why don’t you quit it?”
“I ain’t going to say that no more,” Dude pleaded. He remembered that the automobile belonged to her. “I wouldn’t have said it that time if you hadn’t hurt my neck shaking me so hard.”
Jeeter walked around the automobile,