Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [8]
“By God and by Jesus, Lov,” Jeeter said, “I’m wanting turnips. I could come near about chewing up a whole croker sack full between now and bedtime to-night.”
Chapter III
JEETER’S REITERATED AND insistent plea for turnips was having less and less effect upon Lov. He was not aware that any one was talking to him. He was interested only in Ellie May now.
“Ellie May’s straining for Lov, ain’t she?” Dude said, nudging Jeeter with his foot. “She’s liable to bust a gut if she don’t look out.”
The inner-tube Jeeter was attempting to patch again was on the verge of falling into pieces. The tires themselves were in a condition even more rotten. And the Ford car, fourteen years old that year, appeared as if it would never stand together long enough for Jeeter to put the tire back on the wheel, much less last until it could be loaded with blackjack for a trip to Augusta. The touring-car’s top had been missing for seven or eight years, and the one remaining fender was linked to the body with a piece of rusty baling wire. All the springs and horsehair had disappeared from the upholstery; the children had taken the seats apart to find out what was on the inside, and nobody had made an attempt to put them together again.
The appearance of the automobile had not been improved by the dropping off of the radiator in the road somewhere several years before, and a rusty lard-can with a hole punched in the bottom was wired to the water pipe on top of the engine in its place. The lard-can failed to fill the need for a radiator, but it was much better than nothing. When Jeeter got ready to go somewhere, he filled the lard pail to overflowing, jumped in, and drove until the water splashed out and the engine locked up with heat. He would get out then and look for a creek so he could fill the pail again. The whole car was like that. Chickens had roosted on it, when there were chickens at the Lesters’ to roost, and it was speckled like a guinea-hen. Now that there were no chickens on the place, no one had ever taken the trouble to wash it off. Jeeter had never thought of doing such a thing, and neither had any of the others.
Ellie May had dragged herself from one end of the yard to the opposite side. She was now within reach of Lov where he sat by his sack of turnips. She was bolder, too, than she had ever been before, and she had Lov looking at her and undisturbed by the sight of her harelip. Ellie May’s upper lip had an opening a quarter of an inch wide that divided one side of her mouth into unequal parts; the slit came to an abrupt end almost under her left nostril. The upper gum was low, and because her gums were always fiery red, the opening in her lip made her look as if her mouth were bleeding profusely. Jeeter had been saying for fifteen years that he was going to have Ellie May’s lip sewed together, but he had not yet got around to doing it.
Dude picked up a piece of rotted weatherboard that had been knocked from the house and threw it at his father. He did not take his gaze from Ellie May and Lov, however. Their actions, and Ellie May’s behavior, held him spellbound.
“What you want now, Dude?” Jeeter said. “What’s the matter with you—chunking weatherboarding at me like that?”
“Ellie May’s horsing,” Dude said.
Jeeter glanced across the yard where Lov and Ellie May were sitting close together. The trunk of a china-berry tree partly obscured his view of all that was taking place, but he could see that she was sitting on Lov’s outstretched legs, astride his knees, and that he was offering her a turnip from the sack beside him.
“Ellie May’s horsing, ain’t she, Pa?” Dude said.
“I reckon I done the wrong thing by marrying Pearl to Lov,” Jeeter said. “Pearl just ain’t made up to be Lov’s woman. She don’t take no interest in Lov’s wants, and she don’t give a cuss what nobody thinks about it. She ain’t the kind of gal to be a wife to Lov. She’s queer. I reckon somehow she wants to be going to Augusta, like the other gals