Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [68]
“Pearl never said nothing to me about wanting a stylish dress and a hat,” Lov said. “I make a dollar a day at the chute, and I could have bought her a dress and a hat if she had told me she wanted them. But Pearl never said nothing to me—she never said nothing to nobody. She slept on that durn pallet on the floor and wouldn’t answer my requests when I told her to do something I wanted done.”
“I reckon about the best thing you can do, Lov, is to let her be. She wasn’t satisfied living down here on the tobacco road, and if you was to bring her back, she’d run off again twice as quick. She’s just like Lizzie Belle and Clara and the other gals. I can’t recall all of their names right now, but it was every durn one of them, anyhow. They all wanted some stylish clothes. They wasn’t satisfied with the pretty calico and gingham their Ma sewed for them. Well, Ada ain’t satisfied neither, but she can’t do nothing about it. That’s how the gals took after their Ma. I sort of broke Ada of wanting to go off and do that. She don’t talk no more about buying of stylish clothes and a hat, excepting a dress to die in and be buried in. She talks about getting a stylish dress to die in, but she ain’t going to get it, and she knows she ain’t. She’ll die and be buried in the ground wearing that yellow calico she’s got on now. I broke Ada of wanting to run off, but them gals was more than I could take care of. There was too durn many of them for only one man to break. They just up and went.”
“Maybe she’ll come back,” Lov said. “Reckon she’ll come back, Jeeter?”
“Who—Pearl? Well, I wouldn’t put no trust in it. Lizzie Belle went off and she ain’t never come back. None of the other gals came back, neither.”
“I sort of hate to lose her, for some reason or another. She was a pretty little girl—all them long yellow curls hanging down her back always made me hate the time when she’d grow up and be old. I used to sit on the porch and watch her through the window when she was combing and brushing her hair in the bedroom—”
“That sure ain’t no lie,” Jeeter said. “Pearl had the prettiest yellow hair of any gal I ever saw. It was a plumb shame that she was so bad about wanting to stay by herself all the time, because I used to want to have her around me. I wish Ada had been that pretty. Even when Ada was a young gal, she was that durn ugly it was a sin. I ain’t never seen an uglier woman in the whole country, unless it’s that durn woman preacher Bessie. Them two dirty holes in her face don’t do a man no good to look at.”
“Pearl always took a long time to fix herself up, woman-like. I used to want to tell her there wasn’t no other girl in the whole country who was nowhere as pretty as she was, but she wouldn’t listen to me. And I lived with her so long I sort of got used to seeing her every day, and I don’t know what I’m going to do now when she’s gone to Augusta to stay. I’ll miss them long yellow curls hanging down her back, and that pretty face of hers, too. Aside from that, I don’t know of a prettier sight to see than to look in her pale blue eyes early in the morning before the sun got up so high it threw too much light in them. Early in the morning they was the prettiest things a man could ever want to look at. But they was pretty any time of the day, and sometimes I used to sit and shake all over, for wanting to squeeze her so hard. I don’t reckon I’ll ever forget how pretty her eyes was early in the morning just when the sun was rising.”
“Maybe you would like to take Ellie May down to your house, Lov?” Jeeter suggested. “She ain’t got a man, and it looks like she ain’t never going to get one, unless you take a fancy to her. You and Ellie May was hugging and rubbing of the other the first of the week, around at the front of the house. Maybe you would want to do that some more?”
“Reckon if I was to go up to Augusta and find her, she would let me bring her back home to stay?” Lov said. “Reckon she would, Jeeter?”
“Who—Pearl?” Jeeter said. “No, I wouldn