The Oxford Book of American Short Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

  "You said we would have some fun," Caddy said.

  There was something about Nancy's house; something you could smell besides Nancy and the house. Jason smelled it, even. "I dont want to stay here," he said. "I want to go home."

  "Go home, then," Caddy said.

  "I dont want to go by myself," Jason said.

  "We're going to have some fun," Nancy said.

  "How?" Caddy said.

  Nancy stood by the door. She was looking at us, only it was like she had emptied her eyes, like she had quit using them. "What do you want to do?" she said.

  "Tell us a story," Caddy said. "Can you tell a story?"

  "Yes," Nancy said.

  "Tell it," Caddy said. We looked at Nancy. "You dont know any stories."

  "Yes," Nancy said. "Yes, I do."

  She came and sat in a chair before the hearth. There was a little fire there. Nancy built it up, when it was already hot inside. She built up a good blaze. She told a story. She talked like her eyes looked, like her eyes watching us and her voice talking to us did not belong to her. Like she was living somewhere else, waiting somewhere else. She was outside the cabin. Her voice was inside and the shape of her, the Nancy that could stoop under a barbed wire fence with a bundle of clothes balanced on her head as though without weight, like a balloon, was there. But that was all. "And so this here queen come walking up to the ditch, where that bad man was hiding. She was walking up to the ditch, and she say, 'If I can just get past this here ditch,' was what she say ..."

  "What ditch?" Caddy said. "A ditch like that one out there? Why did a queen want to go into a ditch?"

  "To get to her house," Nancy said. She looked at us. "She had to cross the ditch to get into her house quick and bar the door. "

  "Why did she want to go home and bar the door?" Caddy said.

  IV

  Nancy looked at us. She quit talking. She looked at us. Jason's legs stuck straight out of his pants where he sat on Nancy's lap. "I dont think that's a good story," he said. "I want to go home."

  "Maybe we had better," Caddy said. She got up from the floor. "I bet they are looking for us right now." She went toward the door.

  "No," Nancy said. "Dont open it." She got up quick and passed Caddy. She didn't touch the door, the wooden bar.

  "Why not?" Caddy said.

  "Come back to the lamp," Nancy said. "We'll have fun. You dont have to go."

  "We ought to go," Caddy said. "Unless we have a lot of fun." She and Nancy came back to the fire, the lamp.

  "I want to go home," Jason said. "I'm going to tell."

  "I know another story," Nancy said. She stood close to the lamp. She looked at Caddy, like when your eyes look up at a stick balanced on your nose. She had to look down to see Caddy, but her eyes looked like that, like when you are balancing a stick.

  "I wont listen to it," Jason said. "I'll bang on the floor."

  "It's a good one," Nancy said. "It's better than the other one."

  "What's it about?" Caddy said. Nancy was standing by the lamp. Her hand was on the lamp, against the light, long and brown.

  "Your hand is on that hot globe," Caddy said. "Dont it feel hot to your hand?"

  Nancy looked at her hand on the lamp chimney. She took her hand away, slow. She stood there, looking at Caddy, wringing her long hand as though it were tied to her wrist with a string.

  "Let's do something else," Caddy said.

  "I want to go home," Jason said.

  "I got some popcorn," Nancy said. She looked at Caddy and then at Jason and then at me and then at Caddy again. "I got some popcorn."

  "I dont like popcorn," Jason said. "I'd rather have candy."

  Nancy looked at Jason. "You can hold the popper." She was still wringing her hand; it was long and limp and brown.

  "All right," Jason said. "I'll stay a while if I can do that. Caddy cant hold it. I'll want to go home again if Caddy holds the popper."

  Nancy built up the fire. "Look at Nancy putting her hands in the fire," Caddy said. "What's the matter with you, Nancy?"

  "I got popcorn," Nancy said. "I got some." She took the popper from under the bed. It was broken. Jason began to cry.

  "Now we cant have any popcorn," he said.

  "We ought to go home, anyway," Caddy said. "Come on, Quentin."

  "Wait," Nancy said; "wait. I can fix it. Dont you want to help me fix it?"

  "I dont think I want any," Caddy said. "It's too late now."

  "You help me, Jason," Nancy said. "Dont you want to help me?"

  "No," Jason said. "I want to go home."

  "Hush," Nancy said; "hush. Watch. Watch me. I can fix it so Jason can hold it and pop the corn." She got a piece of wire and fixed the popper.

  "It wont hold good," Caddy said.

  "Yes, it will," Nancy said. "Yawl watch. Yawl help me shell some corn."

  The popcorn was under the bed too. We shelled it into the popper and Nancy helped Jason hold the popper over the fire.

  "It's not popping," Jason said. "I want to go home."

  "You wait," Nancy said. "It'll begin to pop. We'll have fun then." She was sitting close to the fire. The lamp was turned up so high it was beginning to smoke.

  "Why dont you turn it down some?" I said.

  "It's all right," Nancy said. "I'll clean it. Yawl wait. The popcorn will start in a minute."

  "I dont believe it's going to start," Caddy said. "We ought to start home, anyway. They'll be worried."

  "No," Nancy said. "It's going to pop. Dilsey will tell um yawl with me. I been working for yawl long time. They won't mind if yawl at my house. You wait, now. It'll start popping any minute now. "

  Then Jason got some smoke in his eyes and he began to cry. He dropped the popper into the fire. Nancy got a wet rag and wiped Jason's face, but he didn't stop crying.

  "Hush," she said. "Hush." But he didn't hush. Caddy took the popper out of the fire.

  "It's burned up," she said. "You'll have to get some more popcorn, Nancy."

  "Did you put all of it in?" Nancy said.

  "Yes," Caddy said. Nancy looked at Caddy. Then she took the popper and opened it and poured the cinders into her apron and began to sort the grains, her hands long and brown, and we watching her.

  "Haven't you got any more?" Caddy said.

  "Yes," Nancy said; "yes. Look. This here ain't burnt. All we need to do is—"

  "I want to go home," Jason said. "I'm going to tell."

  "Hush," Caddy said. We all listened. Nancy's head was already turned toward the barred door, her eyes filled with red lamplight. "Somebody is coming," Caddy said.

  Then Nancy began to make that sound again, not loud, sitting there above the fire, her long hands dangling between her knees; all of a sudden water began to come out on her face in big drops, running down her face, carrying in each one a little turning ball of firelight like a spark until it dropped off her chin. "She's not crying," I said.

  "I aint crying," Nancy said. Her eyes were closed. "I aint crying. Who is it?"

  "I dont know," Caddy said. She went to the door and looked out. "We've got to go now," she said. "Here comes father."

  "I'm going to tell," Jason said. "Yawl made me come."

  The water still ran down Nancy's face. She turned in her chair. "Listen. Tell him. Tell him we going to have fun. Tell him I take good care of yawl until in the morning. Tell him to let me come home with yawl and sleep on the floor. Tell him I won't need no pallet. We'll have fun. You member last time how we had so much fun?"

  "I didn't have fun," Jason said. "You hurt me. You put smoke in my eyes. I'm going to tell."

  V

  Father came in. He looked at us. Nancy did not get up.

  "Tell him," she said.

  "Caddy made us come down here," Jason said. "I didn't want to."

  Father came to the fire. Nancy looked up at him. "Cant you go to Aunt Rachel's and stay?" he said. Nancy looked up at father, her hands between her knees. "He's not here," father said. "I would have seen him.
There's not a soul in sight."

  "He in the ditch," Nancy said. "He waiting in the ditch yonder."

  "Nonsense," father said. He looked at Nancy. "Do you know he's there?"

  "I got the sign," Nancy said.

  "What sign?"

  "I got it. It was on the table when I come in. It was a hogbone, with blood meat still on it, laying by the lamp. He's out there. When yawl walk out that door, I gone."

  "Gone where, Nancy?" Caddy said.

  "I'm not a tattletale," Jason said.

  "Nonsense," father said.

  "He out there," Nancy said. "He looking through that window this minute, waiting for yawl to go. Then I gone."

  "Nonsense," father said. "Lock up your house and we'll take you on to Aunt Rachel's."

  "Twont do no good," Nancy said. She didn't look at father now, but he looked down at her, at her long, limp, moving hands. "Putting it off wont do no good."

  "Then what do you want to do?" father said.

  "I dont know," Nancy said. "I cant do nothing. Just put it off. And that dont do no good. I reckon it belong to me. I reckon what I going to get aint no more than mine."

  "Get what?" Caddy said. "What's yours?"

  "Nothing," father said. "You all must get to bed."

  "Caddy made me come," Jason said.

  "Go on to Aunt Rachel's," father said.

  "It wont do no good," Nancy said. She sat before the fire, her elbows on her knees, her long hands between her knees. "When even your own kitchen wouldn't do no good. When even if I was sleeping on the floor in the room with your chilien, and the next morning there I am, and blood—"

  "Hush," father said. "Lock the door and put out the lamp and go to bed."

  "I scared of the dark," Nancy said. "I scared for it to happen in the dark."

  "You mean you're going to sit right here with the lamp lighted?" father said. Then Nancy began to make the sound again, sitting before the fire, her long hands between her knees. "Ah, damnation," father said. "Come along, chilien. It's past bedtime."

  "When yawl go home, I gone," Nancy said. She talked quieter now, and her face looked quiet, like her hands. "Anyway, I got my coffin money saved up with Mr Lovelady." Mr Lovelady was a short, dirty man who collected the Negro insurance, coming around to the cabins or the kitchens every Saturday morning, to collect fifteen cents. He and his wife lived at the hotel. One morning his wife committed suicide. They had a child, a little girl. He and the child went away. After a week or two he came back alone. We would see him going along the lanes and the back streets on Saturday mornings.

  "Nonsense," father said. "You'll be the first thing I'll see in the kitchen tomorrow morning."

  "You'll see what you'll see, I reckon," Nancy said. "But it will take the Lord to say what that will be."

  VI

  We left her sitting before the fire.

  "Come and put the bar up," father said. But she didn't move. She didn't look at us again, sitting quietly there between the lamp and the fire. From some distance down the lane we could look back and see her through the open door.

  "What, Father?" Caddy said. "What's going to happen?"

  "Nothing," father said. Jason was on father's back, so Jason was the tallest of all of us. We went down into the ditch. I looked at it, quiet. I couldn't see much where the moonlight and the shadows tangled.

  "If Jesus is hid here, he can see us, cant he?" Caddy said.

  "He's not there," father said. "He went away a long time ago."

  "You made me come," Jason said, high; against the sky it looked like father had two heads, a little one and a big one. "I didn't want to."

  We went up out of the ditch. We could still see Nancy's house and the open door, but we couldn't see Nancy now, sitting before the fire with the door open, because she was tired. "I just done got tired," she said. "I just a nigger. It aint no fault of mine."

  But we could hear her, because she began just after we came up out of the ditch, the sound that was not singing and not unsing-ing. "Who will do our washing now, Father?" I said.

  "I'm not a nigger," Jason said, high and close above father's head.

  "You're worse," Caddy said, "you are a tattletale. If something was to jump out, you'd be scairder than a nigger. "

  "I wouldn't," Jason said.

  "You'd cry," Caddy said. "Caddy," father said. "I wouldn't!" Jason said. "Scarry cat," Caddy said. "Candace!" father said.

  ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891-1960)

  Zora Neale Hurston was born, significantly, in Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated, self-governing, all-black town in the United States. Her father, a Baptist preacher, was three times elected mayor of Eatonville; her mother, who died when Hurston was a small child, nonetheless had a strong influence upon her, encouraging her independence.

  Zora Neale Hurston published her most important work in the 1930's. During this time she was teaching, studying anthropology at Barnard, and working with the Federal Theatre Project in New York and with the Federal Writers' Project in Florida. She married twice and divorced twice. Her collection of folklore Mules and Men (1935) and her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) established her as an important African-American writer, but, like much black writing of the era, the works were allowed to go out of print and have only recently been reissued.

  Hurston is rightly celebrated as a feminist as well as a superbly gifted black writer. Her independence—her "conservatism," as other black critics called it—brought her under attack during the 1940's and 1950s, after her publication of her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road (1942); when she published her last novel, Seraph on the Suwanee (1948), she had already become relatively isolated from the black literary community. This early story, "Sweat," originally published in 1926, is here taken from I Love Myself When I Am Laughing . . . And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader (1979). Its skillful employment of dialect and of an "outside" narrating language gives perspective to this ballad-like tale of revenge.

  Sweat

  I

  IT was eleven o'clock of a Spring night in Florida. It was Sunday. Any other night, Delia Jones would have been in bed for two hours by this time. But she was a washwoman, and Monday morning meant a great deal to her. So she collected the soiled clothes on Saturday when she returned the clean things. Sunday night after church, she sorted and put the white things to soak. It saved her almost a half-day's start. A great hamper in the bedroom held the clothes that she brought home. It was so much neater than a number of bundles lying around.

  She squatted on the kitchen floor beside the great pile of clothes, sorting them into small heaps according to color, and humming a song in a mournful key, but wondering through it all where Sykes, her husband, had gone with her horse and buckboard.

  Just then something long, round, limp and black fell upon her shoulders and slithered to the floor beside her. A great terror took hold of her. It softened her knees and dried her mouth so that it was a full minute before she could cry out or move. Then she saw that it was the big bull whip her husband liked to carry when he drove.

  She lifted her eyes to the door and saw him standing there bent over with laughter at her fright. She screamed at him.

  "Sykes, what you throw dat whip on me like dat? You know it would skeer me—looks just like a snake, an' you knows how skeered Ah is of snakes."

  "Course Ah knowed it! That's how come Ah done it." He slapped his leg with his hand and almost rolled on the ground in his mirth. "If you such a big fool dat you got to have a fit over a earth worm or a string, Ah don't keer how bad Ah skeer you."

  "You ain't got no business doing it. Gawd knows it's a sin. Some day Ah'm gointuh drop dead from some of yo' foolishness. 'Nother thing, where you been wid mah rig? Ah feeds dat pony. He ain't fuh you to be drivin' wid no bull whip."

  "You sho' is one aggravatin' nigger woman!" he declared and stepped into the room. She resumed her work and did not answer him at once. "Ah done tole you time and again to keep
them white folks' clothes outa dis house."

  He picked up the whip and glared at her. Delia went on with her work. She went out into the yard and returned with a galvanized tub and set it on the washbench. She saw that Sykes had kicked all of the clothes together again, and now stood in her way truculently, his whole manner hoping, praying, for an argument. But she walked calmly around him and commenced to re-sort the things.

  "Next time, Ah'm gointer kick'em outdoors," he threatened as he struck a match along the leg of his corduroy breeches.

  Delia never looked up from her work, and her thin, stooped shoulders sagged further.

  "Ah ain't for no fuss t'night Sykes. Ah just come from taking sacrament at the church house."

  He snorted scornfully. "Yeah, you just come from de church house on a Sunday night, but heah you is gone to work on them clothes. You ain't nothing but a hypocrite. One of them amen-corner Christians—sing, whoop, and shout, then come home and wash white folks' clothes on the Sabbath."

  He stepped roughly upon the whitest pile of tilings, kicking them helter-skelter as he crossed the room. His wife gave a little scream of dismay, and quickly gathered them together again.

  "Sykes, you quit grindin' dirt into these clothes! How can Ah git through by Sat'day if Ah don't start on Sunday?"

  "Ah don't keer if you never git through. Anyhow, Ah done promised Gawd and a couple of other men, Ah ain't gointer have it in mah house. Don't gimme no lip neither, else Ah'll throw 'em out and put mah fist up side yo' head to boot."

  Delia's habitual meekness seemed to slip from her shoulders like a blown scarf. She was on her feet; her poor little body, her bare knuckly hands bravely defying the strapping hulk before her.

  "Looka heah, Sykes, you done gone too fur. Ah been married to you fur fifteen years, and Ah been takin' in washin' fur fifteen years. Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and sweat, cry and sweat, pray and sweat!"

  "What's that got to do with me?" he asked brutally.

  "What's it got to do with you, Sykes? Mah tub of suds is filled yo' belly with vittles more times than yo' hands is filled it. Mah sweat is done paid for this house and Ah reckon Ah kin keep on sweatin' in it."