Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [69]
“But Pearl—she might get hurt up there in Augusta—
“Lizzie Belle and Clara took care of themselves all right, didn’t they? They didn’t get hurt none. Now, as I was saying about Ellie May. You can take her to your house, Lov. Ellie May would be crazy about going down there to stay all the time. She wouldn’t be never getting down on no durn pallet on the floor, neither.”
“Seeing them long yellow curls hanging down her back used to make me cry sometimes. I’d look at her pretty hair and eyes so long that I thought I’d go crazy if I didn’t touch her and see deep down into her eyes. But she wouldn’t never let me come close to her, and that’s what made the tears fall out of my eyes, I reckon. I been the lonesomest man in the whole country, for the longest time. Pearl was so pretty it was a sin for her to do like she done.”
“Ellie May’s got to get a man somewhere. She can’t stay here all the time. When me and Ada’s dead and gone, there won’t be nobody to watch after her. If she stayed here at the house by herself the niggers would haul off and come here by the dozens. The niggers would get her in no time, if she was here by herself.”
“The last pretty I got for Pearl was some green beads on a long string. I gave them to her and she put them around her neck, and I swear to God if it didn’t make her the prettiest little girl I ever saw or heard about in the whole country.”
“If you want to take Ellie May with you now, I’ll tell her to wash herself up and get ready to go,” Jeeter said.
“I might take Ellie May for a while, and I might not. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Pearl, yet. I wish I could get her to come back.”
“Ellie May’s got—”
“Ellie May’s got that ugly-looking face,” Lov said. “I don’t know as how I would want to look at it all the time.”
“You would sort of get used to it, slow-like,” Jeeter said. “It don’t bother me none now. I got used to looking at the slit and I don’t notice it no more.”
Lov stood up and leaned against the well. He was silent for a long time, looking out over the tall brown broom-sedge. Jeeter watched him, and whittled on a little stick with his pocketknife.
Ellie May was behind another chinaberry tree then. She had moved from one to another while Lov and Jeeter were busy talking. She had at last come closer so she could hear what was being said.
Presently Lov turned around and looked at Ellie May. She jerked her head behind the chinaberry tree before he could see her face.
“I’ve got to be going back to the chute,” he said. “That afternoon freight will be coming along pretty soon now, and it always empties all the scoops. I got to get back and fill them up before the passenger comes. They raise hell about the scoops being empty, because that makes the train have to wait until I can load them up.”
He and Jeeter went around the house to the front yard. Neither of them had thought of Mother Lester again until they saw her lying on the sand. She was procumbent, and her face was mashed on the ground, but she had moved several feet closer to the house.
“What’s wrong with her?” Lov said.
“Dude and Bessie backed the new automobile over her when they left. They was trying to get away before I could hit Bessie again, and they ran over her. I got it in good and heavy for that woman preacher now. I ain’t letting her set foot on my land another time. She treated me bad about riding in the new automobile. She wouldn’t let me go riding with her at all.”
Lov walked over to where the old grandmother lay on the hard white sand. She had stopped bleeding, and she made no sound.
“Looks like she’s dead,” he said. “Is she dead, Jeeter?” Jeeter looked down and moved one of her arms with his foot.
“She ain’t stiff yet, but I don’t reckon she’ll live. You help me tote her out in