"Good Country People"
by Flannery O'Connor
Besides the neutral expression that she wore when she was alone, Mrs. Freeman
had two others, forward and reverse, that she used for all her human dealings. Her
forward expression was steady and driving like the advance of a heavy truck. Her
eyes never swerved to left or right but turned as the story turned as if they followed a yellow line down the center of it. She seldom used the other expression because it was not often necessary for her to
retract a statement, but when she did, her face came to a complete stop, there was an almost imperceptible movement of her
black eyes, during which they seemed to be receding, and then the observer would see that Mrs. Freeman, though she might stand
there as real as several grain sacks thrown on top of each other, was no longer there in spirit. As for getting anything across to her when this was the case, Mrs. Hopewell had given it up. She might talk her head off. Mrs. Freeman could never be brought
to admit herself wrong to any point. She would stand there and if she could be
brought to say anything, it was something like, Well, I wouldnt of said it was and I wouldnt of said it wasnt or letting her
gaze range over the top kitchen shelf where there was an assortment of dusty bottles, she might remark, I see you aint ate
many of them figs you put up last summer.
They
carried on their most important business in the kitchen at breakfast. Every morning
Mrs. Hopewell got up at seven oclock and lit her gas heater and Joys. Joy was
her daughter, a large blonds girl who had an artificial leg. Mrs. Hopewell thought
of her as a child though she was thirty-two years old and highly educated. Joy
would get up while her mother was eating and lumber into the bathroom and slam the door, and before long, Mrs. Freeman would
arrive at the back door. Joy would hear her mother call, Come on in, and then
they would talk for a while in low voices that were indistinguishable in the bathroom.
By the time Joy came in, they had usually finished the weather report and were on one or the other of Mrs. Freemans
daughters, Glynese or Carramae. Joy called them Glycerin and Caramel. Glynese, a redhead, was eighteen and had many admirers; Carramae, a blonde, was only fifteen but already
married and pregnant. She could not keep anything on her stomach. Every morning Mrs. Freeman told Mrs. Hopewell how many times she had vomited since the last report.
Mrs.
Hopewell liked to tell people that Glynese and Carramae were two of the finest girls she knew and that Mrs. Freeman was a
lady and that she was never ashamed to take her anywhere or introduce her to anybody they might meet. Then she would tell how she had happened to hire the Freemans in the first place and how they were a godsend
to her and how she had had them four years. The reason for her keeping them so
long was that they were not trash. They were good country people. She had telephoned the man whose name they had given as reference and he had told her that Mr. Freeman
was a good farmer but that his wife was the nosiest woman ever to walk the earth. Shes
got to be into everything, the man said. If she dont get there before the dust
settles, you can bet shes dead, thats all. Shell want to know all your business. I can stand him real good, he had said, but me nor my wife neither could have stood
that woman one more minute on this place. That had put Mrs. Hopewell off for
a few days.
She
had hired them in the end because there were no other applicants but she had made up her mind beforehand exactly how she would
handle the woman. Since she was the type who had to be into everything, then,
Mrs. Hopewell had decided, she would not only let her be into everything, she would see to it that she was into everything
she would give her the responsibility of everything, she would put her in charge. Mrs.
Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other peoples in such a constructive way that she had kept
them four years.
Nothing
is perfect. This was one of Mrs. Hopewells favorite sayings. Another was: that is life!
And still another, the most important, was: well, other people have their
opinions too. She would make these statements, usually at the table, in a tone
of gentle insistence as if no one held them but her, and the large hulking Joy, whose constant outrage had obliterated every
expression from her face, would stare just a little to the side of her, her eyes icy blue, with the look of someone who had
achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it.
When
Mrs. Hopewell said to Mrs. Freeman that life was like that, Mrs. Freeman would say, I always said so myself. Nothing had been arrived at by anyone that had not first been arrived at by her. She was quicker than Mr. Freeman. When Mrs. Hopewell said
to her after they had been on the place for a while, You know, youre the wheel behind the wheel, and winked, Mrs. Freeman
had said, I know it. Ive always been quick.
Its some that are quicker than others.
Everybody
is different, Mrs. Hopewell said.
Yes,
most people is, Mrs. Freeman said.
It
takes all kinds to make the world.
I always said it did myself.
The girl was used to this kind of dialogue for breakfast and more of it for
dinner; sometimes they had it for supper too. When they had no guest they ate
in the kitchen because that was easier. Mrs. Freeman always managed to arrive
at some point during the meal and to watch them finish it. She would stand in
the doorway if it were summer but in the winter she would stand with one elbow on top of the refrigerator and look down at
them, or she would stand by the gas heater, lifting the back of her skirt slightly.
Occasionally she would stand against the wall and roll her head from side to side.
At no time was she in any hurry to leave. All this was very trying on
Mrs. Hopewell but she was a woman of great patience. She realized that nothing
is perfect and that in the Freemans she had good country people and that if, in this day and age, you get good country people,
you had better hang onto them.
She had had plenty of experience with trash.
Before the Freemans she had averaged one tenant family a year. The wives
of these farmers were not the kind you would want to be around you for very long. Mrs.
Hopewell, who had divorced her husband long ago, needed someone to walk over the fields with her; and when Joy had to be impressed
for these services, her remarks were usually so ugly and her face so glum that Mrs. Hopewell would say, If you cant come pleasantly,
I dont want you at all, to which the girl, standing square and rigid-shouldered with her neck thrust slightly forward, would
reply, If you want me, here I am LIKE I AM.
Mrs. Hopewell excused this attitude because of the leg (which had been shot
off in a hunting accident when Joy was ten). It was hard for Mrs. Hopewell to
realize that her child was thirty-two now and that for more than twenty years she had had only one leg. She thought of her still as a child because it tore her heart to think instead of the poor stout girl in
her thirties who had never danced a step or had any normal good times. Her
name was really Joy but as soon as she was twenty-one and away from home, she had had it legally changed. Mrs. Hopewell was certain that she had thought and thought until she had hit upon the ugliest name in any
language. Then she had gone and had the beautiful name, Joy, changed without
telling her mother until after she had done it. Her legal name was Hulga.
When Mrs. Hopewell thought the name, Hulga, she thought of the broad blank hull
of a battleship. She would not use it.
She continued to call her Joy to which the girl responded but in a purely mechanical way.
Hulga had learned to tolerate Mrs. Freeman who saved her from taking walks with
her mother. Even Glynese and Carramae were useful when they occupied attention
that might otherwise have been directed at her. At first she had thought she
could not stand Mrs. Freeman for she had found it was not possible to be rude to her.
Mrs. Freeman would take on strange resentments and for days together she would be sullen but the source of her displeasure
was always obscure; a direct attack, a positive leer, blatant ugliness to her face these never touched her. And without warning one day, she began calling her Hulga.
She did not call her that in front of Mrs. Hopewell who would have been incensed
but when she and the girl happened to be out of the house together, she would say something and add the name Hulga to the
end of it, and the big spectacled Joy-Hulga would scowl and redden as if her privacy had been intruded upon. She considered the name her personal affair. She had arrived
at it first purely on the basis of its ugly sound and then the full genius of its fitness had struck her. She had a vision of the name working like the ugly sweating Vulcan who stayed in the furnace and to whom,
presumably, the goddess had to come when called. She saw it as the name of her
highest creative act. One of her major triumphs was that her mother had not been
able to turn her dust into Joy, but the greater one was that she had been able to turn it herself into Hulga. However, Mrs. Freemans relish for using the name only irritated her.
It was as if Mrs. Freemans beady steel-pointed eyes had penetrated far enough behind her face to reach some secret
fact. Something about her seemed to fascinate Mrs. Freeman and then one day Hulga
realized that it was the artificial leg. Mrs. Freeman had a special fondness
for the details of secret infections, hidden deformities, assaults upon children. Of
diseases, she preferred the lingering or incurable. Hulga had heard Mrs. Hopewell
give her the details of the hunting accident, how the leg had been literally blasted off, how she had never lost consciousness. Mrs. Freeman could listen to it any time as if it had happened an hour ago.
When Hulga stumped into the kitchen in the morning (she could walk without making
the awful noise but she made it Mrs. Hopewell was certain because it was ugly-sounding), she glanced at them and did not speak. Mrs. Hopewell would be in her red kimono with her hair tied around her head in rags. She would be sitting at the table, finishing her breakfast and Mrs. Freeman would
be hanging by her elbow outward from the refrigerator, looking down at the table. Hulga
always put her eggs on the stove to boil and then stood over them with her arms folded, and Mrs. Hopewell would look at her
a kind of indirect gaze divided between her and Mrs. Freeman and would think that if she would only keep herself up a little,
she wouldnt be so bad looking. There was nothing wrong with her face that a pleasant
expression wouldnt help. Mrs. Hopewell said that people who looked on the bright
side of things would be beautiful even if they were not.
Whenever she looked at Joy this way, she could not help but feel that it would
have been better if the child had not taken the Ph.D. It had certainly not brought
her out any and now that she had it, there was no more excuse for her to go to school again.
Mrs. Hopewell thought it was nice for girls to go to school to have a good time but Joy had gone through. Anyhow, she would not have been strong enough to go again. The
doctors had told Mrs. Hopewell that with the best of care, Joy might see forty-five.
She had a weak heart. Joy had made it plain that if it had not been for
this condition, she would be far from these red hills and good country people. She
would be in a university lecturing to people who knew what she was talking about. And
Mrs. Hopewell could very well picture here there, looking like a scarecrow and lecturing to more of the same. Here she went about all day in a six-year-old skirt and a yellow sweat shirt with a faded cowboy on a horse
embossed on it. She thought this was funny; Mrs. Hopewell thought it was idiotic
and showed simply that she was still a child. She was brilliant but she didnt
have a grain of sense. It seemed to Mrs. Hopewell that every year she grew less
like other people and more like herself bloated, rude, and squint-eyed. And she
said such strange things! To her own mother she had said without warning, without
excuse, standing up in the middle of a meal with her face purple and her mouth half full Woman! Do you ever look inside? Do you ever look inside and see what
you are not? God! she had cried sinking down again and staring at her
plate, Malebranche was right: we are not our own light. We
are not our own light! Mrs. Hopewell had no idea to this day what brought that
on. She had only made the remark, hoping Joy would take it in, that a smile never
hurt anyone.
The girl had taken the Ph.D. in philosophy and this left Mrs. Hopewell at a
complete loss. You could say, My daughter is a nurse, or My daughter is a school
teacher, or even, My daughter is a chemical engineer. You could not say, My daughter
is a philosopher. That was something that had ended with the Greeks and Romans. All day Joy sat on her neck in a deep chair, reading.
Sometimes she went for walks but she didnt like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men. She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity.
One day Mrs. Hopewell had picked up one of the books the girl had just put down
and opening it at random, she read, Science, on the other hand, has to assert its soberness and seriousness afresh and declare
that it is concerned solely with what-is. Nothing how can it be for science anything
but a horror and a phantasm? If science is right, then one thing stands firm: science wishes to know nothing of nothing. Such
is after all the strictly scientific approach to Nothing. We know it by wishing
to know nothing of Nothing. These words had been underlined with a blue pencil
and they worked on Mrs. Hopewell like some evil incantation in gibberish. She
shut the book quickly and went out of the room as if she were having a chill.
This morning when the girl came in, Mrs. Freeman was on Carramae. She thrown up four times after supper, she said, and was up twict in the night after three oclock. Yesterday she didnt do nothing but ramble in the bureau drawer. All she did. Stand up there and see what she could run up
on.
Shes got to eat, Mrs. Hopewell muttered, sipping her coffee, while she watched
Joys back at the stove. She was wondering what the child had said to the Bible
salesman. She could not imagine what kind of a conversation she could possibly
have had with him.
He was a tall gaunt hatless youth who had called yesterday to sell them a Bible. He had appeared at the door, carrying a large black suitcase that weighted him so
heavily on one side that he had to brace himself against the door facing. He
seemed on the point of collapse but he said in a cheerful voice, Good morning, Mrs. Cedars! and set the suitcase down on the
mat. He was not a bad-looking young man though he had on a bright blue suit and
yellow socks that were not pulled up far enough. He had prominent face bones
and a streak of sticky-looking brown hair falling across his forehead.
Im Mrs. Hopewell, she said.
Oh! he said, pretending to look puzzled but with his eyes sparkling, I saw it
said The Cedars on the mailbox so I thought you was Mrs. Cedars! and he burst out in a pleasant laugh. He picked up the satchel and under cover of a pant, he fell forward into her hall. It was rather as if the suitcase had moved first, jerking him after it.
Mrs. Hopewell! he said and grabbed her hand. I hope you are well! and
he laughed again and then all at once his face sobered completely. He paused
and gave her a straight earnest look and said, Lady, Ive come to speak of serious things.
Well, come in, she muttered, none too pleased because her dinner was almost
ready. He came into the parlor and sat down on the edge of a straight chair and
put the suitcase between his feet and glanced around the room as if he were sizing her up by it. Her silver gleamed on the two sideboards; she decided he had never been in a room as elegant as this.
Mrs. Hopewell, he began, using her name in a way that sounded almost intimate,
I know you believe in Chrustian service.
Well, yes, she murmured.
I know, he said and paused, looking very wise with his head cocked on one side,
that youre a good woman. Friends have told me.
Mrs. Hopewell never liked to be taken for a fool. What are you selling? she asked.
Bibles, the young man said and his eye raced around the room before he added,
I see you have no family Bible in your parlor, I see that is the one lack you got!
Mrs. Hopewell could not say, My daughter is an atheist and wont let me keep
the Bible in the parlor. She said, stiffening slightly, I keep my Bible by my
bedside. This was not the truth. It
was in the attic somewhere.
Lady, he said, the word of God ought to be in the parlor.
Well, I think thats a matter of taste, she began, I think
Lady, he said, for a Chrustian, the word of God ought to be in every room in
the house besides in his heart. I know youre a Chrustian because I can see it
in every line of your face.
She stood up and said, Well, young man, I dont want to buy a Bible and I smell
my dinner burning.
He didnt get up. He began to twist
his hands and looking down at them, he said softly, Well lady, Ill tell you the truth not many people want to buy one nowadays
and besides, I know Im real simple. I dont know how to say a thing but to say
it. Im just a country boy. He glanced
up into her unfriendly face. People like you dont like to fool with country people
like me!
Why! she cried, good country people are the salt of the earth! Besides, we all have different ways of doing, it takes all kinds to make the world go round. Thats life!
You said a mouthful, he said.
Why, I think there arent enough good country people in the world! she said,
stirred. I think thats whats wrong with it!
His face had brightened. I didnt
intraduce myself, he said. Im Manley Pointer from out in the country around Willohobie,
not even from a place, just from near a place.
You wait a minute, she said. I
have to see about my dinner. She went out to the kitchen and found Joy standing
near the door where she had been listening.
Get rid of the salt of the earth, she said, and lets eat.
Mrs. Hopewell gave her a pained look and turned the heat down under the vegetables. I cant be rude to anybody, she murmured and went back into the parlor.
He had opened the suitcase and was sitting with a Bible on each knee.
I appreciate your honesty, he said. You
dont see any more real honest people unless you go way out in the country.
I know, she said, real genuine folks!
Through the crack in the door she heard a groan.
I guess a lot of boys come telling you theyre working their way through college,
he said, but Im not going to tell you that. Somehow, he said, I dont want to
go to college. I want to devote my life to Chrustian service. See, he said, lowering his voice, I got this heart condition. I
may not live long. When you know its something wrong with you and you may not
live long, well then, lady He paused, with his mouth open, and stared at her.
He and Joy had the same condition! She
knew that her eyes were filling with tears but she collected herself quickly and murmured, Wont you stay for dinner? Wed love to have you! and was sorry the instant she heard herself say it.
Yes mam, he said in an abashed voice.
I would sher love to do that!
Joy had given him one look on being introduced to him and then throughout the
meal had not glanced at him again. He had addressed several remarks to her, which
she had pretended not to hear. Mrs. Hopewell could not understand deliberate
rudeness, although she lived with it, and she felt she had always to overflow with hospitality to make up for Joys lack of
courtesy. She urged him to talk about himself and he did. He said he was the seventh child of twelve and that his father had been crushed under a tree when he himself
was eight years old. He had been crushed very badly, in fact, almost cut in two
and was practically not recognizable. His mother had got along the best she could
by hard working and she had always seen that her children went to Sunday School and that they read the Bible every evening. He was now nineteen years old and he had been selling Bibles for four months. In that time he had sold seventy-seven Bibles and had the promise of two more sales. He wanted to become a missionary because he thought that was the way you could do
most for people. He who losest his life shall find it, he said simply and he
was so sincere, so genuine and earnest that Mrs. Hopewell would not for the world have smiled.
He prevented his peas from sliding onto the table by blocking them with a piece of bread which he later cleaned his
plate with. She could see Joy observing sidewise how he handled his knife and
fork and she saw too that every few minutes, the boy would dart a keen appraising glance at the girl as if he were trying
to attract her attention.
After dinner Joy cleared the dishes off the table and disappeared and Mrs. Hopewell
was left to talk with him. He told her again about his childhood and his fathers
accident and about various things that had happened to him. Every five minutes
or so she would stifle a yawn. He sat for two hours until finally she told him
she must go because she had an appointment in town. He packed his Bibles and
thanked her and prepared to leave, but in the doorway he stopped and wring her hand and said that not on any of his trips
had he met a lady as nice as her and he asked if he could come again. She had
said she would always be happy to see him.
Joy had been standing in the road, apparently looking at something in the distance,
when he came down the steps toward her, bent to the side with his heavy valise. He
stopped where she was standing and confronted her directly. Mrs. Hopewell could
not hear what he said but she trembled to think what Joy would say to him. She
could see that after a minute Joy said something and that then the boy began to speak again, making an excited gesture with
his free hand. After a minute Joy said something else at which the boy began
to speak once more. Then to her amazement, Mrs. Hopewell saw the two of them
walk off together, toward the gate. Joy had walked all the way to the gate with
him and Mrs. Hopewell could not imagine what they had said to each other, and she had not yet dared to ask.
Mrs. Freeman was insisting upon her attention.
She had moved from the refrigerator to the heater so that Mrs. Hopewell had to turn and face her in order to seem to
be listening. Glynese gone out with Harvey Hill again last night, she said. She had this sty.
Hill, Mrs. Hopewell said absently, is that the one who works in the garage?
Nome, hes the one that goes to chiropractor school, Mrs. Freeman said. She had this sty. Been had it two days. So she says when he brought her in the other night he says, Lemme get rid of that
sty for you, and she says, How? and he says, You just lay yourself down acrost the seat of that car and Ill show you. So she
done it and he popped her neck. Kept on a-popping it several times until he made
him quit. This morning, Mrs. Freeman said, she aint got no sty. She aint got no traces of a sty.
I never heard of that before, Mrs. Hopewell said.
He ast her to marry him before the Ordinary, Mrs. Freeman went on, and she told him she wasnt going to be married in no office.
Well, Glynese is a fine girl, Mrs. Hopewell said. Glynese and Carramae are both fine girls.
Carramae said when her and Lyman was married Lyman said it sure felt sacred
to him. She said he said he wouldnt take five hundred dollars for being married
by a preacher.
How much would he take? the girl asked from the stove.
He said he wouldnt take five hundred dollars, Mrs. Freeman repeated.
Well we all have work to do, Mrs. Hopewell said.
Lyman said it just felt more sacred to him, Mrs. Freeman said. The doctor wants Carramae to eat prunes. Says instead of medicine. Says them cramps is coming from pressure. You
know where I think it is?
Shell be better in a few weeks, Mrs. Hopewell said.
In the tube, Mrs. Freeman said. Else
she wouldnt be as sick as she is.
Hulga had cracked her two eggs into a saucer and was bringing them to the table
along with a cup of coffee that she had filled too full. She sat down carefully
and began to eat, meaning to keep Mrs. Freeman there by questions if for any reason she showed an inclination to leave. She could perceive her mothers eye on her. The
first round-about question would be about the Bible salesman and she did not wish to bring it on. How did he pop her neck? she asked.
Mrs. Freeman went into a description of how he had popped her neck. She said he owned a 55 Mercury but that Glynese said she would rather marry a man with only a 36 Plymouth
who would be married by a preacher. The girl asked what if he had a 32 Plymouth
and Mrs. Freeman said what Glynese had said was a 36 Plymouth.
Mrs. Hopewell said there were not many girls with Glyneses common sense. She said what she admired in those girls was their common sense. She said that reminded her that they had had a nice visitor yesterday, a young man selling Bibles. Lord, she said, he bored me to death but he was so sincere and genuine I couldnt be
rude to him. He was just good country people, you know, she said, just the salt
of the earth.
I seen him walk up, Mrs. Freeman said, and then later I seen him walk off, and
Hulga could feel the slight shift in her voice, the slight insinuation, that he had not walked off alone, had he? Her face remained expressionless but the color rose into her neck and she seemed to swallow it down with
the next spoonful of egg. Mrs. Freeman was looking at her as if they had a secret
together.
Well, it takes all kinds of people to make the world go round, Mrs. Hopewell
said. Its very good we arent all alike.
Some people are more alike than others, Mrs. Freeman said.
Hulga got up and stumped, with about twice the noise that was necessary, into
her room and locked the door. She was to meet the Bible salesman at ten oclock
at the gate. She had thought about it half the night. She had started thinking of it as a great joke and then she had begun to see profound implications in it. She had lain in bed imagining dialogues for them that were insane on the surface but
that reached below the depths that no Bible salesman would be aware of. Their
conversation yesterday had been of this kind.
He had stopped in front of her and had simply stood there. His face was bony and sweaty and bright, with a little pointed nose in the center of it, and his look was
different from what it had been at the dinner table. He was gazing at her with
open curiosity, with fascination, like a child watching a new fantastic animal at the zoo, and he was breathing as if he had
run a great distance to reach her. His gaze seemed somehow familiar but she could
not think where she had been regarded with it before. For almost a minute he
didnt say anything. Then on what seemed an insuck of breath, he whispered, You
ever ate a chicken that was two days old?
The girl looked at him stonily. He
might have just put this question up for consideration at the meeting of a philosophical association. Yes, she presently replied as if she had considered it from all angles.
It must have been mighty small! he said triumphantly and shook all over with
little nervous giggles, getting very red in the face, and subsiding finally into his gaze of complete admiration, while the
girls expression remained exactly the same.
How old are you? he asked softly.
She waited some time before she answered.
Then in a flat voice she said, Seventeen.
His smiles came in succession like waves breaking on the surface of a little
lake. I see you got a wooden leg, he said. I
think youre real brave. I think youre real sweet.
The girl stood blank and solid and silent.
Walk to the gate with me, he said. Youre
a brave sweet little thing and I liked you the minute I seen you walk in the door.
Hulga began to move forward.
Whats your name? he asked, smiling down on the top of her head.
Hulga, she said.
Hulga, he murmured, Hulga. Hulga. I never heard of anybody name Hulga before.
Youre shy, arent you, Hulga? he asked.
She nodded, watching his large red hand on the handle of the giant valise.
I like girls that wear glasses, he said.
I think a lot. Im not like these people that a serious thought dont ever
enter their heads. Its because I may die.
I may die too, she said suddenly and looked up at him. His eyes were very small and brown, glittering feverishly.
Listen, he said, dont you think some people was meant to meet on account of
what all they got in common and all? Like they both think serious thoughts and
all? He shifted the valise to his other hand so that the hand nearest her was
free. He caught hold of her elbow and shook it a little. I dont work on Saturday, he said. I like to walk in the woods
and see what Mother Nature is wearing. Oer the hills and far away. Picnics and things. Couldnt we go on a picnic tomorrow? Say yes, Hulga, he said and gave her a dying look as if he felt his insides about
to drop out of him. He had even seemed to sway slightly toward her.
During the night she had imagined that she seduced him. She imagined that the two of them walked on the place until they came to the storage barn beyond the two
back fields and there, she imagined, that things came to such a pass that she very easily seduced him and that then, of course,
she had to reckon with his remorse. True genius can get an idea across even to
an inferior mind. She imagined that she took his remorse in hand and changed
it into a deeper understanding of life. She took all his shame away and turned
it into something useful.
She set off for the gate at exactly ten oclock, escaping without drawing Mrs.
Hopewells attention. She didnt take anything to eat, forgetting that food is
usually taken on a picnic. She wore a pair of slacks and a dirty white shirt,
and as an afterthought, she had put some Vapex on the collar of it since she did not own any perfume. When she reached the
gate no one was there.
She looked up and down the empty highway and had the furious feeling that she
had been tricked, that he only meant to make her walk to the gate after the idea of him.
Then suddenly he stood up, very tall, from behind a bush on the opposite embankment.
Smiling, he lifted his hat which was new and wide-brimmed. He had not
worn it yesterday and she wondered if he had bought it for the occasion. It was
toast-colored with a red and white band around it and was slightly too large for him.
He stepped from behind the bush still carrying the black valise. He had
on the same suit and the same yellow socks sucked down in his shoes from walking. He
crossed the highway and said, I knew youd come!
The girl wondered acidly how he had known this.
She pointed to the valise and asked, Why did you bring your Bibles?
He took her elbow, smiling down on her as if he could not stop. You can never tell when youll need the word of God, Hulga, he said.
She had a moment in which she doubted that this was actually happening and then they began to climb the embankment. They went down into the pasture toward the woods.
The boy walked lightly by her side, bouncing on his toes. The valise did
not seem to be heavy today; he even swung it. They crossed half the pasture without
saying anything and then, putting his hand easily on the small of her back, he asked softly, Where does your wooden leg join
on?
She turned an ugly red and glared at him and for an instant the boy looked abashed. I didnt mean you no harm, he said. I
only meant youre so brave and all. I guess God takes care of you.
No, she said, looking forward and walking fast, I dont even believe in God.
At this he stopped and whistled. No!
he exclaimed as if he were too astonished to say anything else.
She walked on and in a second he was bouncing at her side, fanning with his
hat. Thats very unusual for a girl, he remarked, watching her out of the corner
of his eye. When they reached the edge of the wood, he put his hand on her back
again and drew her against him without a word and kissed her heavily.
The kiss, which had more pressure than feeling behind it, produced that extra
surge of adrenalin in the girl that enables one to carry a packed trunk out of a burning house, but in her, the power went
at once to the brain. Even before he released her, her mind, clear and detached
and ironic anyway, was regarding him from a great distance, with amusement but with pity.
She had never been kissed before and she was pleased to discover that it was an unexceptional experience and all a
matter of the minds control. Some people might enjoy drain water if they were
told it was vodka. When the boy, looking expectant but uncertain, pushed her
gently away, she turned and walked on, saying nothing as if such business, for her, were common enough.
He came along panting at her side, trying to help her when he saw a root that
she might trip over. He caught and held back the long swaying blades of thorn
vine until she had passed beyond them. She led the way and he came breathing
heavily behind her. Then they came out on a sunlit hillside, sloping softly into
another one a little smaller. Beyond, they could see the rusted top of the old
barn where the extra hay was stored.
The hill was sprinkled with small pink weeds.
Then you aint saved? he asked suddenly, stopping.
The girl smiled. It was the first
time she had smiled at him at all. In my economy, she said, Im saved and you
are damned but I told you I didnt believe in God.
Nothing seemed to destroy the boys look of admiration. He gazed at her now as if the fantastic animal at the zoo had put its paw through the bars and given him
a loving poke. She thought he looked as if he wanted to kiss her again and she
walked on before he had the chance.
Aint there somewheres we can sit down sometime? he murmured, his voice softening
toward the end of the sentence.
In that barn, she said.
They made for it rapidly as if it might slide away like a train. It was a large two-story barn, cook and dark inside. The boy
pointed up the ladder that led into the loft and said, Its too bad we cant go up there.
Why cant we? she asked.
Yer leg, he said reverently.
The girl gave him a contemptuous look and putting both hands on the ladder,
she climbed it while he stood below, apparently awestruck. She pulled herself
expertly through the opening and then looked down at him and said, Well, come on if your coming, and he began to climb the
ladder, awkwardly bringing the suitcase with him.
We wont need the Bible, she observed.
You never can tell, he said, panting.
After he had got into the loft, he was a few seconds catching his breath. She
had sat down in a pile of straw. A wide sheath of sunlight, filled with dust
particles, slanted over her. She lay back against a bale, her face turned away,
looking out the front opening of the barn where hay was thrown from a wagon into the loft.
The two pink-speckled hillsides lay back against a dark ridge of woods. The
sky was cloudless and cold blue. The boy dropped down by her side and put one
arm under her and the other over her and began methodically kissing her face, making little noises like a fish. He did not remove his hat but it was pushed far enough back not to interfere. When her glasses got in his way, he took them off of her and slipped them into his pocket.
The girl at first did not return any of the kisses but presently she began to
and after she had put several on his cheek, she reached his lips and remained there, kissing him again and again as if she
were trying to draw all the breath out of him. His breath was clear and sweet
like a childs and the kisses were sticky like a childs. He mumbled about loving
her and about knowing when he first seen her that he loved her, but the mumbling was like the sleepy fretting of a child being
put to sleep by his mother. Her mind, throughout this, never stopped or lost
itself for a second to her feelings. You aint said you loved me none, he whispered
finally, pulling back from her. You got to say that.
She looked away from him off into the hollow sky and then down at a black ridge
and then down farther into what appeared to be two green swelling lakes. She
didnt realize he had taken her glasses but this landscape could not seem exceptional to her for she seldom paid any close
attention to her surroundings.
You got to say it, he repeated. You
got to say you love me.
She was always careful how she committed herself. In a sense, she began, if you use the word loosely, you might say that.
But its not a word I use. I dont have illusions. Im one of those people who see through to nothing.
The boy was frowning. You got to
say it. I said it and you got to say it, he said.
The girl looked at him almost tenderly.
You poor baby, she murmured. Its just as well you dont understand, and
she pulled him by the neck, face-down, against her. We are all damned, she said,
but some of us have taken off our blindfolds and see that theres nothing to see. Its
a kind of salvation.
The boys astonished eyes looked blankly through the ends of her hair. Okay, he almost whined, but do you love me or dontcher?
Yes, she said and added, in a sense. But
I must tell you something. There mustnt be anything dishonest between us. She lifted his head and looked him in the eye.
I am thirty years old, she said. I have a number of degrees.
The boys look was irritated but dogged.
I dont care, he said. I dont care a thing about what all you done. I just want to know if you love me or dontcher? and he caught her to him and wildly
planted her face with kisses until she said, Yes, yes.
Okay then, he said, letting her go. Prove
it.
She smiled, looking dreamily out on the shifty landscape. She had seduced him without even making up her mind to try. How?
she asked, feeling that he should be delayed a little.
He leaned over and put his lips to her ear.
Show me where your wooden leg joins on, he whispered.
The girl uttered a sharp little cry and her face instantly drained of color. The obscenity of the suggestion was not what shocked her. As a child she had sometimes been subject to feelings of shame but education had removed the last traces
of that as a good surgeon scrapes for cancer; she would no more have felt it over what he was asking than she would have believed
in his Bible. But she was as sensitive about the artificial leg as a peacock
about his tail. No one ever touched it but her.
She took care of it as someone else would his soul, in private and almost with her own eyes turned away. No, she said.
I known it, he muttered, sitting up. Youre
just playing me for a sucker.
On no no! she cried. It joins on
at the knee. Only at the knee. Why
do you want to see it?
The boy gave her a long penetrating look.
Because, he said, its what makes you different. You aint like anybody
else.
She sat staring at him. There was
nothing about her face or her round freezing-blue eyes to indicate that this had moved her; but she felt as if her heart had
stopped and left her mind to pump her blood. She decided that for the first time
in her life she was face to face with real innocence. This boy, with an instinct
that came from beyond wisdom, had touched the truth about her. When after a minute,
she said in a hoarse high voice, All right, it was like surrendering to him completely.
It was like losing her own life and finding it again, miraculously, in his.
Very gently, he began to roll the slack leg up.
The artificial limb, in a white sock and brown flat shoe, was bound in a heavy material like canvas and ended in an
ugly jointure where it was attached to the stump. The boys face and his voice
were entirely reverent as he uncovered it and said, Now show me how to take it off and on.
She took it off for him and put it back on again and then he took it off himself,
handling it as tenderly as if it were a real one. See! he said with a delighted
childs face. Now I can do it myself!
Put it back on, she said. She was
thinking that she would run away with him and that every night he would take the leg off and every morning put it back on
again. Put it back on, she said.
Not yet, he murmured, setting it on its foot out of her reach. Leave it off for awhile. You got me instead.
She gave a little cry of alarm but he pushed her down and began to kiss her
again. Without the leg she felt entirely dependent on him. Her brain seemed to have stopped thinking altogether and to be about some other function that it was not
very good at. Different expressions raced back and forth over her face. Every now and then the boy, his eyes like two steel spikes, would glance behind him
where the leg stood. Finally she pushed him off and said, Put it back on me now.
Wait, he said. He leaned the other
way and pulled the valise toward him and opened it. It had a pale blue spotted
lining and there were only two Bibles in it. He took one of these out and opened
the cover of it. It was hollow and contained a pocket flask of whiskey, a pack
of cards, and a small blue box with printing on it. He laid these out in front
of her one at a time in an evenly-spaced row, like one presenting offerings at the shrine of a goddess. He put the blue box in her hand. THIS PRODUCT TO BE USED ONLY
FOR THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE, she read, and dropped it. The boy was unscrewing
the top of the flask. He stopped and pointed, with a smile, to the deck of cards. It was not an ordinary deck but one with an obscene picture on the back of each card. Take a swig, he said, offering her the bottle first.
He held it in front of her, but like one mesmerized, she did not move.
Her voice when she spoke had an almost pleading sound. Arent you, she murmured, arent you just good country people?
The boy cocked his head. He looked
as if he were just beginning to understand that she might be trying to insult him. Yeah,
he said, curling his lip slightly, but it aint held me back none. Im as good
as you any day in the week.
Give me my leg, she said.
He pushed it farther away with his foot.
Come on now, lets begin to have us a good time, he said coaxingly. We
aint got to know one another good yet.
Give me my leg! she screamed and tried to lunge for it but he pushed her down
easily.
Whats the matter with you all of a sudden? he asked, frowning as he screwed
the top on the flask and put it quickly back inside the Bible. You just a while
ago said you didnt believe in nothing. I thought you was some girl!
Her face was almost purple. Youre
a Christian! she hissed. Youre a fine Christian!
Youre just like them all say one thing and do another. Youre a perfect
Christian, youre
The boys mouth was set angrily. I
hope you dont think, he said in a lofty indignant tone, that I believe in that crap!
I may sell Bibles but I know which end is up and I wasnt born yesterday and I know where Im going!
Give me my leg! she screeched. He
jumped up so quickly that she barely saw him sweep the cards and the blue box back into the Bible and throw the Bible into
the valise. She saw him grab the leg and then she saw it for an instant slanted
forlornly across the inside of the suitcase with a Bible at either side of its opposite ends.
He slammed the lid shut and snatched up the valise and swung it down the hole and then stepped through himself. When all of him had passed but his head, he turned and regarded her with a look that
no longer had any admiration in it. Ive gotten a lot of interesting things, he
said. One time I got a womans glass eye this way.
And you neednt to think youll catch me because Pointer aint really my name. I
use a different name at every house I call at and dont stay nowhere long. And
Ill tell you another thing, Hulga, he said, using the name as if he didnt think much of it, you aint so smart. I been believing in nothing ever since I was born! and then the toast-colored hat disappeared down the
hole and the girl was left, sitting on the straw in the dusty sunlight. When
she turned her churning face toward the opening, she saw his blue figure struggling successfully over the green speckled lake.
Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman, who were in the back pasture, digging up onions,
saw him emerge a little later from the woods and head across the meadow toward the highway.
Why, that looks like that nice dull young man that tried to sell me a Bible yesterday, Mrs. Hopewell said, squinting. He must have been selling them to the Negroes back in there. He was so simple, she said, but I guess the world would be better off if we were all that simple.
Mrs. Freemans gaze drove forward and just touched him before he disappeared
under the hill. Then she returned her attention to the evil-smelling onion shoot
she was lifting from the ground. Some cant be that simple, she said. I know I never could.