Stories of Erskine Caldwell

by Erskine Caldwell

  Evans got to the steps before Nancy caught him by the arm. He was about to jerk free of her when Florabelle came to the door.

  “Hello, Evans,” she said. “You look cooler than anybody I’ve seen all week.”

  “Hello,” he said. He stood and glared at both of them for a long time. His gaze settled upon her bosom. “Hello,” he said again.

  He went back to the bench and sat down.

  “Seen Jimmy Barker lately, Evans?” Florabelle said.

  “No.”

  “Frank Littlefield?”

  “No.”

  “Harry?”

  “No.”

  Nancy jumped up and ran to the end of the porch.

  “I’ll bet that’s Harry!” she said.

  Florabelle smoothed out her dress and looked up the road. Evans got up and went down the steps to the yard.

  “Come on, Nancy,” he said. “Let’s go. This is the hottest place in the world. Let’s go somewhere and cool off.”

  He and Nancy got into his car and drove off, leaving Florabelle watching the cloud of dust being blown up by the car coming in the opposite direction.

  She saw it was not Jimmy as soon as the car turned into the yard. It was Frank Littlefield. She had hoped it was Jimmy.

  “Hot, ain’t it?” he said, coming up on the porch and dropping into a chair.

  “It must be the same everywhere,” she said. “Or is it cooler on the other side of the ridge?”

  “It’s cooler than this place. Anywhere is cooler than it is here. Why does your old man live in a hotbox like this, anyway?”

  “Because it’s our farm. We wouldn’t have any place to live if we left here.”

  Frank got up and looked at the thermometer. It was still a hundred and five, but it was moving slowly toward a hundred and six. “If it gets any hotter, people are going to start acting like mad dogs,” he said.

  Florabelle fanned herself, keeping an eye on the road.

  “How about going swimming down at Coulter’s Mill?” Frank said. “That’s what I’d like to do. How about it?”

  Florabelle looked quickly in both directions to see if there were any signs of Jimmy Barker’s coming. She began to wonder what she could do in order to make Frank wait a while longer. If Jimmy came, or Harry Cole, she wanted to get out of going with Frank.

  “How about going swimming, I said!” he shouted. “Can’t you hear anything — are you deaf?”

  “It’s early yet, isn’t it?” she said.

  “What’s the matter with you, anyway?” he shouted. “Trying to stall me? I’ve got to go somewhere and cool off. I’ll start foaming at the mouth if I have to sit here in this heat.”

  “Don’t talk that way, Frank. You know I don’t mean anything like that at all.”

  “If anybody asked me, I’d say you were the worst two-timer that ever lived. I didn’t think I’d ever let myself get two-timed by a wench like you.

  Florabelle’s face flushed, but she tried to hide it from him. She turned away, watching the road at the same time.

  “Well,” Frank said, standing up in front of her, “if you won’t go with me, you can go to hell.”

  He started down the steps. She ran and caught him by the arm in desperation.

  “You wouldn’t talk to me like that, Frank, if it wasn’t for the heat. I know you don’t mean what you say. As soon as it rains and turns cooler, you won’t say things like that.”

  “It’s never going to rain again,” he said, pulling away from her and going toward his car.

  Florabelle was about to run after him when she saw an automobile coming down the road. She was sure it was either Harry or Jimmy Barker.

  Frank started the engine and turned his car around. He almost ran head-on into the other car. Jimmy drove into the yard.

  “What was Frank Littlefield so mad about?” Jimmy asked her.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Florabelle said. “He just couldn’t stand the heat, I suppose.”

  They went up on the porch and sat on the bench.

  “How about taking a little walk?” he asked her. “Just me and you off somewhere in the woods. It would be cooler in the woods.”

  Florabelle laughed.

  “Pa wouldn’t let me do anything like that,” she said, looking shyly up at Jimmy.

  “Go ask your mama, then,” he said.

  Florabelle’s face flushed a little.

  “Pa will be coming back soon,” she said, “and if he didn’t find me here, he’d go looking for me.”

  Jimmy stared at the thermometer hanging on the wall,

  “It’s too hot to stay here. Let’s go somewhere.”

  Florabelle got up and went to him at the steps.

  “If we didn’t stay too long, it might be all right,” she said slowly. “Come on,” he said, pulling her down into the yard.

  They were halfway across the yard when another automobile came racing up the road. It suddenly slowed down and turned into the yard. Frank Littlefield jumped out.

  “Putting me off, weren’t you, just like I said?”

  Before Florabelle could answer, Frank had hit Jimmy on the chin. Jimmy fell over backward, but was up on his feet again in a flash.

  “Come on out behind the barn where I can do a good job,” Frank said. He strode off in that direction, walking sideways and keeping his eyes on Jimmy. “Come on, if you ain’t yellow.”

  Jimmy went after him, trying to catch up. They sparred at each other until they were out of sight behind the barn.

  Florabelle did not know what to do. She stood where she was for a while, then she went to the porch and listened to the sounds that came across the yard.

  First she could hear Frank’s voice, then Jimmy’s. Next she heard them shouting at the same time, and finally she could not distinguish between them any more. After a while there were no sounds that she could hear.

  They had been behind the barn for such a long time that she began to wonder why they did not come back. It seemed to her as if they had been gone at least half an hour. She hoped they would make up and come back to the house before her father came home. She did not know what might happen if he came back and found them fighting out there like that.

  Florabelle waited as long as she could. By that time she knew at least an hour had passed since Jimmy and Frank had disappeared from sight.

  Just as she was getting ready to go and see what had happened to them, her father came up the path. She sank down into a chair when she saw him.

  “That spring won’t last much longer,” he said. “It’ll probably be gone by this time tomorrow. I don’t know what I’m going to do about water when the spring goes dry.”

  He looked at the car nearest him in the yard.

  “Whose is that?” he asked her.

  “It’s Jimmy Barker’s,” she said, trembling with fright.

  “Where’s he at?” he asked her.

  “He and Frank Littlefield went out behind the barn,” she said. She was unable to sit still any longer. “They’ve been out there an awfully long time, Pa.”

  “What did they go out there for?”

  “They had an argument.”

  Without a word Will Tannet walked toward the barn. He picked up a good-sized stick along the way.

  Presently he came around the corner of the barn and motioned to her. She went slowly toward her father. He did not take his eyes from her.

  “What’s the matter, Pa?” she asked when she got closer.

  “Come here and look, and then maybe you can tell me what’s the matter.”

  Florabelle peered cautiously around the corner of the barn. Both Jimmy and Frank were stretched out on the ground, lying motionlessly in the blazing sun. Before she shut her eyes and turned away, she saw the two pitchforks lying between them. She knew without another thought what had happened. She did not remember anything else after that.

  When she opened her eyes, there was a thunder in her ears. It sounded as though the whole world was being broken apart. The s
ky outside was dark, but during the flashes of lightning she could see the outline of the room about her.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Her mother was holding her hand, but she was crying so, she could not answer.

  When Florabelle closed her eyes, she could hear her father’s voice somewhere in the room. She tried to open her eyes again, but they would not open.

  “It hasn’t rained a drop yet,” she heard him say. “With all this thunder and lightning, God would be serving us right if He never let it rain a single drop again.”

  She thought she heard other sounds, but she could not understand anything she heard after that. The thunder and lightning was louder than the screams of her mother and the curses of her father.

  (First published in College Humor)

  Meddlesome Jack

  HOD SHEPPARD WAS in the kitchen eating breakfast when he heard one of the colored boys yell for him. Before he could get up and look out the window to see what the trouble was, Daisy came running into the room from the garden house in the field looking as if she had been scared out of her wits.

  “Hod! Hod!” she screamed at him. “Did you hear it?”

  He shook her loose from him and got up from the table. Daisy fell down on the kitchen floor, holding on to his legs with all her might.

  “Hear what?” he said. “I heard one of the niggers yelling for me. That’s all I heard. What’s the matter with you, Daisy?”

  Just then Sam, the colored boy, called Hod again louder than ever. Both Hod and Daisy ran to the back door and looked out across the field. The only thing out there they could see was the yellow broom sedge and the dead-leafed blackjack.

  “What’s all this fuss and racket about, anyway?” Hod said, looking at Daisy.

  “I heard something, Hod,” she said, trembling.

  “Heard what? What did you hear?”

  “I don’t know what it was, but I heard it.”

  “What did it sound like — wind, or something?”

  “It sounded like — like somebody calling me, Hod.”

  “Somebody calling you?”

  She nodded her head, holding him tightly.

  “Who’s calling you! If I ever find anybody around here calling you out of the house, I’ll butcher him. You’d better not let me see anybody around here after you. I’ll kill him so quick —”

  Sam came running around the corner of the house, his overall jumper flying out behind, and his crinkly hair jumping like a boxful of little black springs let loose. His eyes were turning white.

  “Hey there, you Sam!” Hod yelled at him. “Quit your running around and come back here!”

  “Sam heard him, too,” Daisy said, standing beside Hod and trembling as if she would fall apart. “Sam’s running away from him.”

  “Heard what — heard who! What’s the matter with you, Daisy?”

  Daisy held Hod tighter, looking out across the broom sedge. Hod pushed her away and walked out into the back yard. He stood there only a minute before the sound of Sam’s pounding feet on the hard white sand grew louder and louder. Sam turned the corner of the house a second later, running even faster than he had before. His eyes were all white by that time, and it looked as if his hair had grown several inches since Hod had last seen him.

  Hod reached out and caught Sam’s jumper. There was a ripping sound, and Hod looked down to find that he was holding a piece of Sam’s overall. Sam was around the house out of sight before Hod could yell at him to stop and come back.

  “That nigger is scared of something,” Hod said, looking in the doorway at Daisy.

  “Sam heard him,” Daisy said, trembling.

  Hod ran to Daisy and put both hands on her shoulders and shook her violently.

  “Heard who!” he yelled at her. “If you don’t tell me who it was around here calling you, I’ll choke the life out of you. Who was around here calling you? If I catch him, I’ll kill him so quick —”

  “You’re choking me, Hod!” Daisy screamed. “Let me loose! I don’t know who it was — honest to God, I don’t know who it was, Hod!”

  Hod released her and ran out into the yard. Sam had turned and was running down the road towards the lumber mill a mile away. The town of Folger was down there. Two stores, the post office, the lumber mill, and the bank were scorching day after day in an oval of baked clay and sand. Sam was halfway to Folger by then.

  “So help me!” Daisy screamed. “There he is, Hod!”

  She ran into the kitchen, slamming and bolting the door.

  Out behind the barn Amos Whittle, Sam’s father, was coming through the broom sedge and blackjack with his feet flying behind him so fast that they looked like the paddles on a water mill. He had both hands gripped around the end of a rope, and the rope was being jerked by the biggest, the ugliest, and the meanest-looking jack that Hod had ever seen in his whole life. The jack was loping through the broom sedge like a hoop snake, jerking Amos from side to side as if he had been the cracker on the end of a rawhide whip.

  “Head him, Mr. Hod!” Amos yelled. “Head him! Please, sir, head him!”

  Hod stood looking at Amos and the jack while they loped past him. He turned and watched them with mouth agape while they made a wide circle in the broom sedge and started back towards the house and barn again.

  “Head him, Mr. Hod!” Amos begged. “Please, Mr. Hod, head him!”

  Hod picked up a piece of mule collar and threw it at the jack’s head. The jack stopped dead in his tracks, throwing out his front feet and dragging his hind feet on the hard white sand. The animal had stopped so suddenly that Amos found himself wedged between his two hind legs.

  Hod walked towards them and pulled Amos out, but Amos was up and on his feet before there was any danger of his being kicked.

  “Where’d you get that jack, Amos?” Hod said.

  “I don’t know where I got him, but I sure wish I’d never seen him. I been all night trying to hold him, Mr. Hod. I ain’t slept a wink, and my old woman’s taken to the tall bushes. She and the girls heard him, and they must have thought I don’t know exactly what, because they went off yelling about being scared to hear a sound like that jack makes.”

  The jack walked leisurely over to the barn door and began eating some nubbins that Hod had dropped between the crib and the stalls. One ear stood straight up, and the other one lay flat on his neck. He was the meanest-looking jackass that had ever been in that part of the country. Hod had never seen anything like him before.

  “Get him away from here, Amos,” Hod said. “I don’t want no jack around here.”

  “Mr. Hod,” Amos said, “I wish I could get him away somewhere where I’d never see him again. I sure wish I could accommodate you, Mr. Hod. He’s the troublesomest jack I ever seen.”

  “Where’d you get him, Amos? What are you doing with him, anyway?” Amos glanced at Hod, but only for a moment. He kept both eyes on the jack.

  “I traded that old dollar watch of mine for him yesterday, Mr. Hod, but that jack ain’t worth even four bits to me. I don’t know what them things are made for, anyhow.”

  “I’ll give you fifty cents for him,” Hod said.

  “You will!” Amos shouted. “Lord mercy, Mr. Hod, give it here! I’ll sure be glad to get rid of that jack for four bits. He done drove my wife and grown girls crazy, and I don’t know what mischief he’ll be up to next. If you’ll give me fifty cents for him, I’ll sure be much obliged to you, Mr. Hod. I don’t want to have nothing more to do with that jackass.”

  “I don’t want him around, either,” Hod said, turning to look through the kitchen window, “but I figure on making me some money with him. How old is that jack, Amos?”

  “The man said he was three years old, but I don’t know no way of telling a jack’s age, and I don’t aim to find out.”

  “He looks like he might be three or four. I’m going to buy him from you, Amos. I figure on making me a lot of money out of that jack. I don’t know any other way to make money these days.
I can’t seem to get it out of the ground.”

  “Sure, sure, Mr. Hod. You’re welcome to that jack. You’re mighty much welcome to him. I don’t want to have nothing more to do with no jackass. I wish now I had my watch back, but I reckon it’s stopped running by now, anyhow. It was three years old, and it never did keep accurate time for me. I’ll sure be tickled to get four bits for that jack, Mr. Hod.”

  Hod counted out fifty cents in nickels and dimes and handed the money to Amos.

  “Now, you’ve got to help me halter that jack, Amos,” Hod said. “Get yourself a good piece of stout rope. Plow lines won’t be no good on him.”

  “I don’t know about haltering that Jack, Mr. Hod. Looks like to me he’s never been halterbroke. If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Hod, I’d just as lief go on home now. I’ve got some stovewood to chop, and I got to —”

  “Wait a minute,” Hod said. “I’ll get the rope to halter him with. You go in the house and wake up Shaw. He’s in the bed asleep. You go in there and get him up and tell him to come out here and help us halter the jack. Ain’t no sense in him sleeping all morning. I’m damned tired of seeing him do it. When he comes home, he ought to get out and help do some work about the place.”

  Shaw was Hod’s brother who had been at home seven or eight days on leave from the Navy. He was getting ready to go back to his ship in Norfolk in a day or two. Shaw was two years younger than Hod, and only a few years older than Daisy. Daisy was nineteen then.

  I’d sure like to accommodate you, Mr. Hod,” Amos said, “but the last time you sent me in to wake up Mr. Shaw, Mr. Shaw he jumped out of bed on top of me and near about twisted my neck off. He said for me never to wake him up again as long as I live. Mr. Hod, you’d better go wake up Mr. Shaw your own self.”

  Hod reached down and picked up a piece of stovewood. He walked towards Amos swinging the stick in his hand.

  “I said go in the house and get him up,” Hod told Amos again. “That sailor had better stop coming here to stay in bed half the day and be all the time telling Daisy tales.”