Страница 9 из 71
"That's what I tell you." Roskus said. "They aint no luck going be on no place where one of they own chillen's name aint never spoke."
"Hush." Dilsey said. "Do you want to get him started."
"Raising a child not to know its own mammy's name." Roskus said.
"Dont you bother your head about her." Dilsey said. "I raised all of them and I reckon I can raise one more. Hush, now. Let him get to sleep if he will."
"Saying a name." Frony said. "He dont know nobody's name."
"You just say it and see if he dont." Dilsey said. "You say it to him while he sleeping and I bet he hear you.
"He know lot more than folks thinks." Roskus said. "He knowed they time was coming, like that pointer done. He could tell you when hisn coming, if he could talk. Or yours. Or mine."
"You take Luster outen that bed, mammy." Frony said. "That boy conjure him."
"Hush your mouth." Dilsey said. "Aint you got no better sense than that. What you want to listen to Roskus for, anyway. Get in, Benjy."
Dilsey pushed me and I got in the bed, where Luster already was. He was asleep. Dilsey took a long piece of wood and laid it between Luster and me. "Stay on your side now." Dilsey said. "Luster little, and you dont want to hurt him."
16.1
You cant go yet, T.P. said. Wait.
We looked around the corner of the house and watched the carriages go away.
"Now." T.P. said. He took Quentin up and we ran down to the corner of the fence and watched them pass. "There he go." T.P. said. "See that one with the glass in it. Look at him. He laying in there. See him."
19.8
Come on, Luster said, I going to take this here ball down home, where I wont lose it. Naw, sir, you cant have it. If them men sees you with it, they'll say you stole it. Hush up, now. You cant have it. What business you got with it. You cant play no ball.
1.5
Frony and T.P. were playing in the dirt by the door. T.P. had lightning bugs in a bottle.
"How did you all get back out." Frony said.
"We've got company." Caddy said. "Father said for us to mind me tonight. I expect you and T.P. will have to mind me too."
"I'm not going to mind you." Jason said. "Frony and T.P. dont have to either.""They will if I say so." Caddy said. "Maybe I wont say for them to."
"T.P. dont mind nobody." Frony said. "Is they started the funeral yet."
"What's a funeral." Jason said.
"Didn't mammy tell you not to tell them." Versh said.
"Where they moans." Frony said. "They moaned two days on Sis Beulah Clay."
18.1
They moaned at Dilsey's house. Dilsey was moaning. When Dilsey moaned Luster said, Hush, and we hushed, and then I began to cry and Blue howled under the kitchen steps. Then Dilsey stopped and we stopped.
1.6
"Oh." Caddy said. "That's niggers. White folks dont have funerals."
"Mammy said us not to tell them, Frony." Versh said.
"Tell them what." Caddy said.
18.2
Dilsey moaned, and when it got to the place I began to cry and Blue howled under the steps. Luster, Frony said in the window. Take them down to the barn. I cant get no cooking done with all that racket. That hound too. Get them outen here.
I aint going down there, Luster said. I might meet pappy down there. I seen him last night, waving his arms in the barn.
1.7
"I like to know why not." Frony said. "White folks dies too. Your grandmammy dead as any nigger can get, I reckon."
"Dogs are dead." Caddy said. "And when Nancy fell in the ditch and Roskus shot her and the buzzards came and undressed her."
15.3
The bones rounded out of the ditch, where the dark vines were in the black ditch, into the moonlight, like some of the shapes had stopped. Then they all stopped and it was dark, and when I stopped to start again I could hear Mother, and feet walking fast away, and I could smell it. Then the room came, but my eyes went shut. I didn't stop. I could smell it. T.P. unpi
"Hush." he said. "Shhhhhhhh."
But I could smell it. T.P. pulled me up and he put on my clothes fast.
"Hush, Benjy." he said. "We going down to our house. You want to go down to our house, where Frony is. Hush. Shhhhh."
He laced my shoes and put my cap on and we went out. There was a light in the hall. Across the hall we could hear Mother.
"Shhhhhh, Benjy." T.P. said. "We'll be out in a minute." A door opened and I could smell it more than ever, and a head came out. It wasn't Father. Father was sick there.
"Can you take him out of the house."
"That's where we going." T.P. said. Dilsey came up the stairs.
"Hush." she said. "Hush. Take him down home, T.P. Frony fixing him a bed. You all look after him, now. Hush, Benjy. Go on with T.P."
She went where we could hear Mother.
"Better keep him there." It wasn't Father. He shut the door, but I could still smell it.
We went down stairs. The stairs went down into the dark and T.P. took my hand, and we went out the door, out of the dark. Dan was sitting in the back yard, howling.
"He smell it." T.P. said. "Is that the way you found it out."
We went down the steps, where our shadows were.
"I forgot your coat." T.P. said. "You ought to had it. But I aint going back."
Dan howled.
"Hush now." T.P. said. Our shadows moved, but Dan's shadow didn't move except to howl when he did.
"I cant take you down home, bellering like you is." T.P. said. "You was bad enough before you got that bullfrog voice. Come on."
We went along the brick walk, with our shadows. The pig pen smelled like pigs. The cow stood in the lot, chewing at us. Dan howled.
"You going to wake the whole town up." T.P. said. "Cant you hush." We saw Fancy, eating by the branch. The moon shone on the water when we got there.
"Naw, sir." T.P. said. "This too close. We cant stop here. Come on. Now, just look at you. Got your whole leg wet. Come on, here." Dan howled.
The ditch came up out of the buzzing grass. The bones rounded out of the black vines.
"Now." T.P. said. "BelIer your head off if you want to. You got the whole night and a twenty acre pasture to belIer in."
T.P. lay down in the ditch and I sat down, watching the bones where the buzzards ate Nancy, flapping hlack and slow and heavy out of the ditch.