God's Little Acre (3 page)

“Well, it might be God’s fault that He didn’t know when to stop, Pluto, but just the same Darling Jill ain’t the only girl He has made like that. In my time I’ve run across a heap like her. And I wouldn’t have to go a thousand miles from home to cite you one. Now, you take Buck’s wife, there. Pluto, I declare I don’t know what to make of so pretty a girl as Griselda.”

“That’s what you think now, but I don’t see how it can be so, Ty Ty. I’ve seen lots of women a little like her, but I’ve yet to see one that’s as crazy as she is. When I get to be sheriff, I wouldn’t want to have her running loose all the time like she does now. It wouldn’t be good for my political career. I’ve got to keep that in mind.”

“You ain’t elected yet, Pluto.”

“No, not yet, but everything is pointing my way. I’ve got a lot of friends working for me night and day all over the county. If somebody don’t come along and shuffle the deck again, I’ll get the office with no trouble at all.”

“Tell them not to come here to my place, Pluto. I pledge you my vote, and all the votes on the place. Just be sure and don’t let none of your workers come here trying to shake hands with everybody on the farm. I declare, there’s been a hundred candidates here this summer, if there’s been one. I won’t shake with none of them, and I’ve told my boys and Darling Jill and Griselda not to stand for it. Ain’t much use in telling you why I don’t want candidates coming here, Pluto. Some of them are spreading the itch every which way, and it’s going to stick for seven long years. I ain’t saying you got the itch, but a heap of candidates do have. There’s going to be so many cases of it in the county this fall and winter it won’t be safe to go to town till the seven years have passed.”

“There wouldn’t be so many candidates for the few offices open, if it wasn’t for the hard times. Hard times bring out the candidates just like lye does the fleas on a hound’s back.”

Over in the yard beside the house, Buck and Shaw had rolled the car out of the garage and were busy pumping up the tires. Buck’s wife, Griselda, was standing in the shade of the porch talking to them. Darling Jill was not within sight

“I’ve got to be getting along now,” Pluto said. “I’m way behind this afternoon. I’ve got to make calls on all the voters between here and the crossroads between now and sundown. I’ve got to be going.”

Pluto sat against the trunk of the live-oak tree, waiting until he felt like getting up. It was comfortable there, and shady; out in the field, where there was no shade, the sun beat down as steadily as ever. Even the weeds were beginning to curl a little in the steady heat.

“Where are we going to locate that albino you mentioned a while ago, Pluto?”

“You folks drive down below Clark’s Mill and take the right-hand road at the creek. About a mile beyond that fork is where the fellow saw him. He was out in a thicket, on the edge of the swamp, cutting wood, the fellow said. Just get out and start looking. He’s somewhere around there, because he couldn’t get far away in this short time. If I didn’t have so much to do, I’d go with you folks and help the little I could. The sheriff’s race is getting hotter every day now, though, and I’ve got to count votes all the time I can. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t get elected.”

“I reckon we’ll find him all right,” Ty Ty said. “I’ll take the boys along, and they can do most of the walking while I sit and watch for signs. It’ll be a pretty smart deal to take along some plow-lines to rope him with when we locate him. I reckon he’ll try to put up a stiff scrap when I tell him to come along up here. But we’ll get him through, if he’s in the country. We’ve been needing just what he is for the longest time. The darkies said an all-white man can divine a lode, and I reckon they know what they’re talking about. They dig more of the time than me and the boys, and we’re at it from daybreak to sundown most days. If Shaw hadn’t got that notion to quit and go to town just a while ago, we’d be at it now, down in that big hole yonder.”

Pluto made as if to rise, but the effort discouraged him. He sat back again breathing hard, to rest a little longer.

“I wouldn’t be too rough with that albino, Ty Ty,” he advised. “I don’t know what you’re aiming to catch him with, so I can’t say how to go about it, but I sure don’t advise shooting him with a gun. Hurting him would be against the law, and if I was you folks I’d play safe and not hurt him no more than I could help. You need him here to help you too bad to take any chances on running up against the law needlessly, just when you’ve gone and caught what you need most right now. Just catch him as easy as you can, so he won’t get hurt and have scars to show for the handling.”

“He won’t get hurt none,” Ty Ty promised. “I’ll be as gentle with him as I would a newborn babe. I need that albino too bad to be rough with him.”

“I’ve got to be getting along now,” Pluto said, still not moving.

“Ain’t it hot, though?” Ty Ty said, looking out at the heat on the baked earth.

It made Pluto hot to think about it. He closed his eyes, but that made him feel no cooler.

“It’s too hot to be out counting votes today,” Pluto said. “And that’s a fact.”

They sat a while longer, watching Buck and Shaw working over the big automobile in the yard beside the house. Griselda sat on the porch steps and watched them. Darling Jill was still not within sight.

“We’ll be needing all the help we can find after we rope that albino and get him home,” Ty Ty said. “I reckon I’ll have to put Darling Jill and Griselda to digging, too. I wish Rosamond was here. She could help us out a lot. Do you reckon you could come by here in a day or two and dig a little with us, Pluto? It would be a big help, if you would dig some. I can’t say how much I would be obliged to you, for whatever digging you want to do.”

“I’ve got to be out and electioneering, Ty Ty,” Pluto said, shaking his head. “Those other candidates for sheriff are tearing up the patch night and day. I’ve got to keep after the voters every minute I can spare. These voters are queer people, Ty Ty. One will promise to vote for you, and then the first thing you know, he’s promising the next fellow to come along the very same thing. I can’t afford to lose this election. I declare, I wouldn’t have a thing to do for a living, if I lost it. I can’t afford to lose a good job like that when I haven’t a thing to do for a living.”

“How many men running against you, Pluto?”

“For sheriff?”

“That’s what I meant to say.”

“There was eleven in the race when I last heard about it this morning, and by night there’s liable to be two or three more. But the actual candidates are few besides all the workers they’ve got counting votes for them, expecting to be made deputies. Looks like now every time you go up to a voter and ask a man to vote for you it sort of puts a bug in his ear and the first thing you know, he’s out running for some office himself. If these hard times don’t slacken before fall, there’s going to be so many candidates running for county offices that there won’t be a common ordinary voter left.”

Pluto was beginning to wish he had not left the shaded streets in town to come out into the country and bake in the hot sun. He had hoped that he would see Darling Jill, but now that he could not find her, he was thinking of returning to town without calling on the voters along the road.

“If you can get a little time off, Pluto, I wish you would come out this way in a day or two and give us a hand with a shovel. It’ll help us a lot. And while you’re digging, you ought not to forget about the three or four votes here on the place. Votes are things you are in need of right now.”

“I’ll try to come by some time soon, and if I do I’ll try to dig a little for you, if the hole ain’t too deep. I don’t want to get down in something I can’t get out of again. After you get that albino you won’t have to work so hard, anyway. When you catch him, all your troubles are over, Ty Ty, and all you’ll have to do will be to dig down and strike the lode.”

“I wish it was so,” Ty Ty said. “I’ve been digging fifteen years now, and I need a little encouragement.”

“An albino can locate it,” Pluto said. “And that’s a fact.”

“The boys are ready to start,” Ty Ty said, getting up. “We’ve got to be up and on our way before night sets in. I aim to rope that all-white man before daybreak.”

Ty Ty started down the path towards the house where his sons were waiting. He did not look back to see if Pluto had got up, because he was in a big hurry. Pluto got up slowly and followed Ty Ty down the path between the deep holes and the high mounds of earth toward his car where he had left it in the road in front of the house two hours before. He hoped he would see Darling Jill before he left, but she was not within sight.

W
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and Pluto reached the house, they found the boys resting after their work. All the tires were tight and hard, and the radiator was filled to overflowing. Everything seemed to be ready for the trip. While waiting for their father to get ready to start, Shaw sat on the runningboard rolling a cigarette, and Buck sat on the steps beside his wife with his arm around her waist. Griselda was playing with his hair, ruffling it with her hands.

“Here he comes now,” Griselda said, “but that’s no sign he’s ready to leave.”

“Boys,” Ty Ty said, walking over to the sycamore stump and sitting down to rest, “we’ve got to be up and doing. I aim to rope that all-white man before daybreak tomorrow morning. If he’s in the country, we’ll have him roped by then, if we don’t catch him a heap sooner.”

“You’ll have to keep guard over him when you bring him back, won’t you, Pa?” Griselda asked. “The darkies might try to take him off, as soon as they hear that you’ve got a conjur-man on the place.”

“Now you be quiet, Griselda,” Ty Ty said angrily. “You know good and well I don’t take any stock in superstition and conjur and such things. We’re going about this thing scientifically, and no fooling around with conjur. It takes a man of science to strike a lode. You’ve never heard of darkies digging up many nuggets with all their smart talk about conjur. It just can’t be done. I’m running this business scientifically clear from the start. Now you be quiet, Griselda.”

‘The darkies get nuggets somewhere,” Buck said. “I’ve seen plenty of them, and they come out of the ground some way. The darkies would catch an albino if they knew there was one in the county, or anywhere near. They would try to catch him, if they weren’t too scared to go after him.”

Ty Ty turned away, tired of arguing with them. He knew what he was going to do, but he was too exhausted after a hard day’s work out in the big hole to try to convince them of his way of looking at it. He turned around and looked in another direction.

It was late in the afternoon, but the sun looked as if it were a mile high, and it was every bit as hot as it had ever been.

“Sorry I’ve got to rush right off like this, folks,” Pluto said, sitting down on the shaded steps. “There’s a ballot box full of votes between here and the crossroads, and I’ve got to count them all before sundown tonight. It never does pay to put things off. That’s why I’ve got to rush off like this in the heat of the day.”

Shaw and Buck looked at Pluto a moment and at Griselda, and laughed out loud. Pluto would not have noticed them if they had not kept on laughing.

“What’s so funny, Buck?” he asked, looking around him in the yard, and finally down at his overflowing belly.

Griselda began laughing again when she saw him looking down at himself.

Buck nudged her with his elbow, urging her to answer Pluto.

“Mr. Swint,” she said, “it looks like you will have to wait till tomorrow to count some more votes. Darling Jill went off down the road about an hour ago and she hasn’t come back yet. She was driving your car.”

Pluto shook himself like a dog that has been standing in the rain. He made as though to get up, but he could not rise from the steps. He looked across the yard where he had left his car earlier in the afternoon, and it was not there. He could not see it anywhere.

Ty Ty leaned forward to hear what they were talking about.

Pluto had had plenty of time to make some reply, but he had uttered no intelligible sound. He was in a position where he did not know what to say or to do. He merely sat where he was and said nothing.

“Mr. Swint,” Griselda said, “Darling Jill went off in your automobile.”

“It’s gone,” he said weakly. “And that’s a fact.”

“Don’t pay no attention to Darling Jill,” Ty Ty said consolingly. “Pluto, Darling Jill is as crazy as hell sometimes, and about nothing.”

Pluto sank back on the steps, his body spreading on the boards when he relaxed. He took a fresh chew of yellow plug. There was nothing else he could do.

“We ought to be starting, Pa,” Shaw said. “It’s getting late.”

“Why, son,” he said, “I thought you quit work an hour or two ago to go to town. What about that game of pool you were going to shoot?”

“I wasn’t going to town to shoot pool. I’d rather go to the swamp tonight.”

“Well, then, if you didn’t aim to shoot pool in town tonight, what about that woman you would be after?”

Shaw walked away without a reply. When Ty Ty tried to make fun of him, he could only walk away. He could not explain things to his father, and he had long before decided that the best course was to let him go ahead and talk as much as he wished.

“It’s time to get started,” Buck said.

“That ain’t no lie,” Ty Ty said, going down toward the barn.

He came back in a few moments carrying several plowlines over his arm. He tossed the ropes into the back seat of the car and sat down on the stump again.

“Boy,” he said, “I’ve just had a notion. I’m going to send for Rosamond and Will to come over here. We need them to help us dig some, now that we’re going to have that albino to show us where the lode is, and Rosamond and Will ain’t doing much now. The mill over there at Scottsville is shut down again, and Will ain’t doing a thing in the world. He might just as well be over here helping us dig. Rosamond and Griselda can help a lot, and maybe Darling Jill, too. Now mind you, I don’t say I’m asking girls to do work like the rest of us. They can do a lot to help us, though. They can cook food for us and carry water, and some other things. Griselda there, and Rosamond will help all they can, but I ain’t so sure about Darling Jill. I’ll try to persuade her to do something for us out there in the holes. I wouldn’t let a girl on my place work like a man, but I’ll do my durndest trying to make Darling Jill want to help some.”