God's Little Acre (13 page)

“Don’t give them no more thought, Will,” he said. “Just sit down in the shade and cool off.”

They went to the side of the house and sat down in the shade. Will was still angry, but he was willing to drop the fight where it was, even if Buck had had the last blow. The sooner he got back to Scottsville the better would he be pleased. He would never have come in the first place if Rosamond and Darling Jill had not begged him so much. Now he wished to get back to the Valley and talk to his friends before the meeting of the local Friday night. The sight of bare land, cultivated and fallow, with never a factory or mill to be seen, made him a little sick in the stomach.

“You ain’t made up your mind to leave so soon, have you, Will?” Ty Ty asked. “I hope you ain’t aiming to do that.”

“Sure, I’m leaving,” Will said. “I can’t be wasting my time digging holes in the ground. I’m no damn doodlebug.”

“I aimed to have you help us till we struck the lode, Will. I need all the help I can get right now. The lode is there, sure as God made little green apples, and I ache to get my hands on it. I’ve been waiting fifteen years, night and day, for just that.”

“You ought to be out making cotton,” Will said shortly. “You can raise more cotton on this land in a year than you can find gold in a lifetime. It’s a waste of everything to dig these holes all over the place.”

“I wish now I had spent a little more time on the cotton. It looks like now that I’m going to be short of money before the lode is struck. If I had twenty or thirty bales of cotton to tide me over the fall and winter, I could devote all the rest of the time to digging. I sure do need a lot of cotton to sell the first of September.”

“Well, it’s too late to plant any more cotton this year. You’re out of luck, if you don’t do something else.”

“There ain’t but one thing I can do, and that’s dig.”

“This house is going to topple over into the hole if you dig much more in it. The house is leaning a little now. It won’t take much to tip it over.”

Ty Ty looked at the pine logs that had been dragged from the woods and propped against the building. The logs were large enough and strong enough to hold the house where it was, but if it were undermined too much, it would surely fall in, and then turn over. When it did that, it would either be lying on one side in the big hole, or else it would be upside down on the bottom of it.

“Will, when the gold-fever strikes a man, he can’t think about nothing else to save his soul. I reckon that’s what’s wrong with me, if anything is. I’ve got the fever so bad I can’t be bothered about planting cotton. I’m bent on getting those little yellow nuggets out of the ground. Come heaven, hell, or high water, I reckon I’ll just have to keep on digging till I strike the lode. I can’t stop to do nothing else now. The gold-fever has water-logged me through and through.”

Will had cooled off. He was no longer restless to get up, and he did not care whether he ever saw Buck and Shaw again to renew the fight. He was willing to let them alone until the next time.

“If you’re hard up for money, why don’t you go up to Augusta and borrow some from Jim Leslie?”

“Do what, Will?” Ty Ty asked.

“Get Jim Leslie to lend you enough to see you through the fall and winter. You can plant a big crop of cotton next spring.”

“Aw, shucks, Will,” Ty Ty said, laughing a little, “there wouldn’t be no sense in that.”

“Why not? He’s got plenty of money, and his wife is as rich as a manure pile.”

“He wouldn’t help me none, Will.”

“How do you know he wouldn’t? You’ve never tried to borrow off of him, have you? Well, how do you know he wouldn’t lend you a little?”

“Jim Leslie won’t speak to me on the street, Will,” he replied sadly, “and if he won’t speak to me on the street, I know durn well he wouldn’t lend me money. Wouldn’t be no sense in trying to ask him. It would be just a big waste of time trying.”

“Hell, he’s your boy, ain’t he? Well, if he’s your boy, he ought to listen to you when you tell him how much hard luck you’re having trying to strike the lode.”

“That wouldn’t make much difference to Jim Leslie now. He left home just on that account. He said he wasn’t going to stay here and be made a fool of digging for nuggets all his life. I don’t reckon he’s changed much since then, either.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Nearly fifteen years ago, I reckon.”

“All that’s worn off of him by this time. He’ll be tickled to death to see you. You’re his daddy, ain’t you?”

“Yes, I reckon. But that won’t make much difference to him. I’ve tried to speak to him on the street, but he won’t look my way at all.”

“I’ll bet he’ll listen to you when you tell him about the hard luck, anyway.”

“Well, this here now lode might turn up, if I could afford to keep digging,” Ty Ty said, rising to his feet.

“Sure, it might,” Will told him. “That’s just what I’ve been trying to make you see.”

“If I had a little money, maybe two or three hundred dollars, this here now lode might could be located. It takes time, and a durn heap of patience to locate gold, Will.”

“Why don’t you go up to Augusta and talk to him about it then? That’s the thing to do.”

Ty Ty started around the house. He stopped at the corner and waited for Will to catch up with him. They went across the yard and down to the barn where Dave and Uncle Felix were. Shaw and Buck were sitting on the stall partition talking to the albino and Uncle Felix.

“Boys,” Ty Ty said, “we’ve got to be up and doing. I’ve made up my mind to go up to Augusta right away. Come and wash up some so we can get started.”

“What for?” Buck asked sourly.

“What for? Why, to see Jim Leslie, son.”

“I reckon I’ll stay here then,” Buck stated.

“Now, boys,” Ty Ty pleaded, “I need you to drive me up there in the car. You know good and well I can’t drive an automobile in the big city. Why, I’d wreck the whole shooting-match up there the first thing off the bat.”

First Buck and then Shaw climbed down off the stall partition and left the barn. Ty Ty walked behind them, telling them over and over his reason for wishing to see Jim Leslie.

Will stuck his head through the feed-rack and looked at Dave.

“How you feeling, fellow?”

“All right,” the boy said.

“Would you like to get out and go home now?”

“I’d rather stay here.”

Will pulled his head out, laughing at the albino. He turned away, walking out the barn towards the house.

“You might just as well cool your heels a while,” he called back. “Darling Jill won’t be here tonight. She’s going up to Augusta with the rest of us.”

He left Dave and Uncle Felix with no other word. On the way to the house he began to feel sorry for Dave. He hoped Ty Ty would turn him free in a few days and let him go back home if he wished to.

Buck was on the back porch washing his face and hands in the basin, but Will did not look in that direction. He went around to the front of the house and sat down on the steps to wait for Ty Ty to get ready to leave. Pluto had gone home that morning to change his shirt and socks, and Will missed him. He said something about getting an early start to canvass for votes, and Will hoped he would come by the house before they left. Pluto might be elected sheriff, if his friends who expected to be appointed deputies worked hard enough for him. But Pluto alone could never gather enough support.

Griselda was the first to come out of the house ready to leave. She smiled at Will, and he winked at her. She was wearing a new floral print afternoon frock with a large hat that had a brim covering her shoulders. Will wondered if he had ever seen a girl so good-looking as Griselda. He hated to think of having to go back to Scottsville without having an opportunity of seeing her alone. He might even have to come back with them that night from Augusta, instead of going to the Valley, just so he could have the chance of being with her.

W
HEN THEY REACHED
Augusta in the early evening, Buck stopped the car at the curb on Broad Street near Sixth. Nothing had been said about stopping downtown, and Ty Ty leaned forward to ask Buck and Shaw why they had stopped. Jim Leslie’s house was on The Hill, several miles away.

“What did you do this for, Buck?”

“I’m getting out here to go to the movies,” Buck answered, not looking around. “I’m not going up there to Jim Leslie’s.”

Shaw got out with him and they stood on the street. They waited to see if anyone else was going with them. After a moment’s hesitation, Darling Jill and Rosamond got out.

“Now, you folks wait a minute,” Ty Ty said excitedly. “You folks are just going to shove it all off on me. Why can’t somebody go with me up there and help convince Jim Leslie how much in need of money I am?”

“I’ll go with you, Pa,” Griselda said.

“You won’t need me,” Will stated, getting out. “I couldn’t talk to him without getting mad and batting him down.”

“Go on with Pa, Will,” Darling Jill urged. “Pa needs you along.”

“Why don’t you go? You’re telling everybody else to go, but you don’t go yourself.”

“Don’t be scared of Jim Leslie, Will,” Griselda said. “He can’t hurt you.”

“Who said I was scared of anybody? Me—scared of him?”

“It’s time to go,” Ty Ty said. “We’ll be sitting here arguing all night if we don’t make up our minds right away.”

Buck and Shaw started up the street towards the brightly lighted theaters. Rosamond ran and caught up with them.

“Oh, I’ll go,” Darling Jill said. “I don’t mind.”

“We three are enough, unless Will wants to go.”

“That’s all right with me,” Will said. “I’ll hang around here till you get back.”

Darling Jill got out of the back seat and sat under the steering wheel. Griselda got in with her, leaving Ty Ty alone in the rear.

“I’ll stick around here somewhere,” Will said, looking up and down the street.

He walked slowly away, keeping close to the curb and glancing up at the windows on the second storeys. The buildings all had iron-grilled balconies, three or four feet wide, and people were sitting in the windows and leaning over the iron railings looking down on the sidewalk.

Somebody further down the street called Will’s name. He walked down there, looking up at the faces overhead.

“There goes Will,” Griselda said hopelessly.

One of the girls overhead was leaning over the railing talking to him. Will walked away looking up at other balconies. The girl who had tried to talk to him cursed and called him all the obscene names she could think of.

Darling Jill giggled and whispered something to Griselda. They spoke in undertones for a while, and Ty Ty was unable to overhear a word they said.

“Let’s be going, girls,” he said. “It’s a sin and a shame to stay here.”

Darling Jill made no effort to start the car. One of the girls above them on the balcony was pointing at Ty Ty. He had already seen them up there, and he refused to look in any direction except down at his feet.

He was biting his tongue with fear that one of the girls up there would speak to him before Darling Jill would start the car.

“Hello, grandpa,” the girl who had pointed said. “Come on up a while and have a good time.”

Ty Ty looked at Darling Jill and Griselda when they turned to see what he was going to do. He was wishing they would only hurry and drive away before the girls on the second-storey balconies could say anything else to him. He would not have minded being spoken to under any other circumstance, but he did not feel free to answer anybody up there while he was with Darling Jill and Griselda. He leaned forward, poking Darling Jill with his finger, urging her to drive away.

“Why don’t you go up there and see what’s going on, Pa?” she asked, giggling again.

“Man alive!” Ty Ty said, blushing through his tanned skin.

“Go on up, Pa,” Griselda urged. “We’ll wait for you. Go on up and have a good time.”

“Man alive!” Ty Ty said again. “I’m way past that age. Wouldn’t be no sense in that.”

The girl who had been watching Ty Ty beckoned to him with her finger, jerking her head and pointing to the stairs that opened on the street. She was a small girl, not much older than sixteen or seventeen, and when she leaned over the iron railing and looked down into the car, Ty Ty could not keep from glancing up and wishing he could go up the stairs to see her. His hands clutched the thin roll of soiled one-dollar bills in his pocket, and perspiration dampened his brow. He knew Darling Jill and Griselda were waiting for him to get out and walk up the stairs, but he did not have the courage to go in their presence.

“Don’t be a tightwad, grandpa,” the girl said out of the corner of her lips. “You’ll never be young but once.”

Ty Ty glanced at the backs of Griselda’s and Darling Jill’s heads. They were watching the girl on the balcony above, and talking about her in undertones.

“Go on up, Pa,” Griselda said. “You’ll have a good time up there. You ought to have a little fun sometimes after working so hard at home in the holes.”

“Now, Griselda,” Ty Ty protested weakly, “I’m way past that now. Don’t tease me so much. It makes me feel like I don’t know what I’m liable to do with myself.”

The girl had left the little iron-grilled balcony. Ty Ty looked up and felt a relief. He leaned forward, prodding Darling Jill with his finger, urging her to drive away. “Wait just another minute,” she said. He could see that they were watching the stairs that opened on the street. Out of the gray darkness of the building the girl suddenly appeared in the glow of the whiteway lights. Ty Ty saw her and sank down in the seat hoping to get out of sight. She walked straight for the automobile, stepping off the curb and into the street beside Ty Ty on the back seat. “I know what’s wrong with you—you’re bashful.” Ty Ty blushed and sank lower. He could see Darling Jill and Griselda watching him in the little mirror on top of the windshield.

“Come on upstairs and jazz a little.”

Darling Jill giggled outright.

Ty Ty said something, but no one could hear what it was. The girl put her foot on the runningboard and reached for Ty Ty’s arm to pull him out. He moved to the middle of the seat, evading her fingers.