Great Jehoshaphat and Gully Dirt! Part 7

"For one thing, I've got to lay in a good stock of sardines and soda crackers. Lots more cheese, too, 'cause when cotton ginning starts, men will be flocking in here at dinner time-'specially on days when they have to line up their wagons to wait their turn at the gin. That's when I make my money, Bandershanks."

I wasn't half listening to Papa. I had already lifted the lid of the candy showcase and poked my head inside so I could see all the boxes of good candy.

"Fact is, Bandershanks, fall of the year is the only time folks in the settlement have any cash to speak of. See, when they sell cotton, they can settle up what they owe me. 'Course I have to turn right around, get on Jake, and go to town to straighten up my own debts. Most times, there's not much left. But thank the Good Lord, looks like crops are pretty good this year. I'm expecting to come out even-maybe better."

"Papa, we gonna count candy?"

"Gal! I see what sort of inventory you'd take! Get your head out of that showcase, hon, before you break my lid!"

"I ain't gonna break nothing, Papa."

"It'll be one piece of candy today! That's all. You want an all-day sucker or a gumdrop?"

"I want a jawbreaker!"

"Which color?"

"I can't see 'em."

Papa held me up so I could poke my head farther into the wide gla.s.s case.

"Give me yellow!"

"One yellow jawbreaker coming up!"

"Papa? Lemme have a green one too? Please?"

"Good grannies! Just this one time, now mind you."

Papa started laughing as soon as I popped the hard candy b.a.l.l.s into my mouth.

"You look just like a little fox squirrel toting two big hickory nuts!"

My mouth was so stretched I couldn't answer a word. I could move my tongue, but not my lips. And I wanted to tell Papa the candy tasted so much like lemonade that I didn't mind my cheeks being funny as a squirrel's.

"Want to do a little dusting for me now?"

I nodded my head.

"The feather duster's right over yonder in the corner, hanging on a nail. See it?"

I nodded my head again.

"Start up there at the front window, hon. And while you do that, I'm gonna be back in the back straightening up the sacks of oats and cow feed."

I began brushing up and down on the window panes. A feather broke off the side of the duster and fluttered to the floor. I stooped to pick it up, but I didn't know what to do with it, so I just put it on the windowsill. Then, I looked out the window-down toward Mister Hansen's gin, on past Mister Goode's grist mill, and up the road toward home.

"Pa-" I had to grab both candy b.a.l.l.s out of my mouth. "Papa, yonder comes somebody riding on a little bitty mule with a dog following him."

Papa came over and looked out between the window bars.

"That's Ned Roberts, Bandershanks. I don't reckon you know him. He lives over across the creek on Mister Ward Lawson's place. Or I should say the old Crawford home-place. Ward's just renting it. And that's not a little mule Ned's riding. That's a jack, a donkey. Some folks would call it a 'jacka.s.s.' But you don't say that, Bandershanks. It don't sound pretty."

"Ooh, Papa, look how fat that dog is!"

We watched Ned and his donkey and the bulged-out dog come on up the slope. It took them a long time. They stopped at the edge of the porch, where Ned tied the fuzzy, slow-walking donkey to one corner of Jake's. .h.i.tching rail, but he was careful not to let the donkey stand close to Jake. A good thing, Papa said, for Jake could, and would, kick him.

"I see Ned aims to buy coal oil."

"How come he's got that old wrinkled Irish 'tater sticking on the spout of his can, Papa?"

"To keep his oil from sloshing out when he starts home."

The dog clambered up the steps behind Ned and followed him inside. As soon as she could spread herself out in the middle of the floor, she took a long, deep breath and closed her eyes.

"'Evenin', Mister Jodie."

"'Evening, Ned."

Papa looked back down at the tired, fat dog. "'Pears to me like you're in the dog-raising business, Ned."

"Yes, suh. Sylvie, she gwine t' find puppies pretty soon."

"Is she any 'count?"

"Yes, suh, Mister Jodie. She sho' is. Sylvie 'bout the best c.o.o.n hound I's raised yet. She sho' know how to tree 'possums, too. Folks done a' ready askin' for the puppies. But I saves one for you, Mister Jodie, iffen you wants. .h.i.t."

"I wouldn't mind having two, Ned. 'Course I've got five or six young dogs, but a man can't hardly get too many good dogs.

Well, what can I do for you this evening, Ned?"

"I needs me a nickel worth o' coal oil, Mister Jodie. And I wants to talk with you. I wants you to 'vise me, Mister Jodie."

Ned let his talking go down low. "Hit's Mister Ward. He don't act right. I's uneasy."

"What's he done? Does he want you to move?"

"No, suh. I wish he did. I wish he'd run me off. He don't do that, 'cause ain't n.o.body else gwine t' move on his place."

"You could leave, couldn't you?"

"No, suh. Not 'zactly. You see, I owes Mister Ward a right smart money. And I ain't movin' off owin' a man. That ain't right. 'Tain't right, no more'n it's right for a white man to run off a colored man when the crops is half made. You knows that, Mister Jodie."

"Yeah, I know, Ned. Still, we see a good bit of both. It's like Doctor Elton says: 'Rascals come in all colors, 'specially black and white.'"

Ned didn't say anything.

"Mister Ward drinks considerable, don't he?"

"He sho' do, Mister Jodie. I tell you the big trouble. When Mister Ward's drinkin', he say one thing. Then when his head's clear, he do somethin' else."