Tobacco Road Part 10

They walked up the narrow stairway and found themselves in a small, dusty room. It was the lobby. Half a dozen straight-backed chairs and a table were in the dimly lighted room. The man who ran the hotel took them to the table and told them to sign their names on the register. Jeeter told him they would have to make their marks.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Jeeter."

"Jeeter what?"

"Jeeter Lester, from out near Fuller."

"What's the boy's name?"

"Dude's name is Dude, the same as mine."

"Dude Lester?"

"That's right."

"And what's her name?" he asked, looking up at Bessie.

Bessie smiled at him, and he looked at her legs. She hunched her left shoulder forward and hung her head downward. He looked her over again.

"Her name is Mrs. Dude," Jeeter said.

The man looked at Dude and then at Bessie, and smiled. He was holding the pen for them to touch while he made the cross-marks opposite their names.

Jeeter gave him the money, and they were taken up another stairway to the third floor. The halls were dark, and the rooms shadowy and unventilated. He opened a door and told them to walk in.

"Is this where we sleep?" Jeeter asked him.

"This is the place. It's the only room I got left, too. We're pretty full to-night."

"This sure is a fine place," Jeeter said. "I didn't know hotels was such fine places before. I wish Lov was here to see me now."

There was only one bed in the room; it was large, fiat, and high off the floor.

"I reckon we can crowd in the bed some way," Jeeter said. "I'll sleep in the middle."

"There's plenty of room for all of you," the man said, "but maybe I can find another bed for one of you."

He went out and shut the door.

Jeeter sat down on the bed and unlaced his brogans. The dusty shoes fell with heavy thuds on the bare floor. Dude sat in the chair and looked at the room, the walls, and ceiling. The yellow plaster had dropped off in many places, and more hung loose, ready to fall the next time there was a vibration.

"We might as well go to bed," Jeeter said. "Ain't no sense in sitting up."

He hung his black felt hat on the bed-post and lay down. Bessie was standing before the wash-stand mirror taking down her hair.

"Ada ought to see me now," Jeeter said. "I ain't never slept the night in a hotel in all my days. I bet Ada won't believe I'm telling the truth when I tell her."

"You ain't got no business sleeping in bed with me and Bessie," Dude said. "You ought to get out on the floor."

"Now, Dude, you wouldn't begrudge me one night's sleeping, would you? Why, Bessie, there, is all willing, ain't you, Bessie?"

"You hush your mouth, Jeeter!" she said. "You make me feel so foolish when you say that!"

"It's only me and you, Dude," he said. "It's not like it was somebody else. I been wanting to sleep with you and Bessie for the longest time."

Some one knocked on the door and, before they could answer it, the man walked in.

"What did you say your name was?" he asked Bessie.

He walked over to the washstand where she stood, and waited close beside her.

"Mrs. Dude--" Jeeter said. "I told you that already once."

"I know--but what's her first name? You know what I mean--her girl's name."

Bessie put her dress over herself before she told him.

"Bessie," she said. "What do you want to know that for?"

"That's all right, Bessie," he said. "That's all I wanted to know." He went out and shut the door.

"These city folks has got the queerest ways," Jeeter said. "You don't never know what they is going to -ask you next."

Dude took off his shoes and coat and waited for Bessie to get into bed. She had sat down on the floor to take off her shoes and stockings.

Jeeter sat up in bed and waited for her to finish. A door nearby was slammed so hard that pieces of yellow plaster dropped off the ceiling to the bed and floor.

Suddenly some one knocked on the door again, and it was opened immediately. This time it was a man whom they had not seen before.

"Come on down the hail, Bessie," he said. He waited outside until Bessie got up from the floor and went to the door.

"Me?" she said. "What you want with me?"

"Come on down to this other room, Bessie. It's too crowded up here."

"They must have found another bed for us," Jeeter said. "I reckon they found out that there was more beds empty than they thought there was."

He and Dude watched Bessie gather up her clothes and leave the room. She carried her dress, shoes, and stockings in one hand, and her hat in the other. After the door was closed, the building became quiet again.

"These city people has queer ways, don't they, Dude?" Jeeter said, turning over and closing his eyes. "They ain't like us folks out around Fuller."

"Why didn't you go to the other bed?" Dude said. "Why did the man tell Bessie to go?"

"You never can tell about the queer ways of city folks, Dude. They do the durndest things sometimes."

They both lay awake for the next half hour, but neither of them said anything. The light was still burning, but they did not try to turn it off.

A board in the hall floor squeaked, and Bessie came in carrying her clothes in her hands.

"Don't you like the place they provided you with in the other room?" Jeeter asked, sitting up. "What made you come back, Bessie?"

"I reckon I must have got in the wrong bed by mistake or something," she said. "Somebody else was in it."

Dude rubbed his eyes in the glare of the electric light, and looked at Bessie.

"Bessie is sure a pretty woman preacher, ain't she?" Jeeter said, looking at her.

"I didn't have time to dress again," she said. "I had to leave right away, and there wasn't no time to put my clothes on."

"That man ought to know what he was doing at the start. Ain't no sense in making people change beds all night long. He ought to let folks stay in one bed all the time and let us sleep some."

"Men sure is queer in a hotel," Bessie said. "They say the queerest things and do the queerest things I ever saw. I'm glad we stayed here, because I been having a good time to-night. It ain't like it is out on the tobacco road."

There was a tapping on the door again, and a man opened it. He looked at Bessie, and beckoned her to the door.

"Come here, Bessie," he said, "there's a room down at the other end of the hail for you."

He waited outside the partly opened door.

"I went to one room just a little while ago, and there was a man in the bed."

"Well, that's all right. Down at this other room is another bed for you. Come on, I'll go with you and show you how to get there."

"By G.o.d and by Jesus," Jeeter said. "I never heard of the likes of it in all my life. The men here is going to wear Beanie out, running her from one bed to another all night long. I don't reckon I'll ever come to this kind of a hotel again. I can't get no peace and sleep."

Bessie picked up her clothes and went out. The door was closed, and they heard her and the man walking down the hail.

"I reckon she's fixed up this time so she won't have to change beds again," Jeeter said. "I can't stay awake no longer to find out."

Dude went to sleep, too, in a few minutes.

At daybreak, Jeeter was up and dressed, and Dude got up a few minutes later. They sat in the room for the next half hour waiting for Bessie. At last Jeeter got up and went to the door and looked up the hall and down it.

"I reckon we'll have to go hunt Sister Bessie," he said. "Maybe she got lost and can't find this room. It was dark out there last night, and things look different in the daytime up here in the city."

They opened the door and walked to the end of the hail. All the doors were closed, and Jeeter did not know which one to open. The first two he opened were not occupied, but the next one was. He turned the k.n.o.b and went inside. There were two people asleep in the bed, but the woman was not Bessie. Jeeter backed out of the room and closed the door. Dude tried the next room. The door of that one was unlocked, too, and Jeeter had to go across the room and look at the woman's face before he was satisfied she was not Bessie. In the other rooms they entered they failed to find Bessie, and Jeeter did not know what to do. The last room they entered had only a single bed and he was about to close the door, when the girl opened her eyes and sat up. Jeeter stood looking at her, not knowing what else to do. When the girl was fully awake, she smiled and called Jeeter to her.

"What you want?" he said.

"Why did you come in here?" she said.

"I'm looking for Bessie, and I reckon I'd better go hunt for her some more. I'm liable to disgrace myself if I stay here looking at you."

She called Jeeter again, but he turned his back and ran out of the room. Dude caught up with his father.

"By G.o.d and by Jesus, Dude," Jeeter said. "I never saw so many pretty girls and women in all my days. This hotel is just jammed with them. I'd surer lose my religion if I stayed here much longer. I've got to get out in the street right now."

At the foot of the stairs they saw the man who had rented them the room the night before. He was reading the morning paper.

'We're ready to leave now," Jeeter said, "but we can't find Sister Bessie."

"The woman who came in with you last night?"

"She's the one, Sister Bessie, her name is."

"I'll get her," he said, and started up the stairs.

"What's wrong with her nose? I didn't notice it last night, but I saw it this morning. It gives me the creeps to look at it."

"She was born like that," Jeeter said. "Bessie ain't much to look at in the face, but she's a right smart piece to live with. Dude, here, he knows, because he's married to her."

"She's got the unG.o.dliest-looking nose I ever saw," the man said, going up the stairs. "I hope I never get fooled like that again in the dark."

In about five minutes both he and Bessie came down the stairs. The man was in front and Bessie behind.

Out in the street, where they had left the car, Jeeter found the bag of crackers and cheese, and he began eating them hungrily. Dude took a handful of crackers and put them into his mouth. A few doors away was a Store with a Coca-Cola sign on it, and all of them went in and got a drink.

"You don't look like you slept none too much last night," Jeeter said. "Couldn't you go to sleep, Bessie?"

She yawned and rubbed her face with the palms of her hands. She had dressed hurriedly, and had not combed her hair. It hung matted and stringy over her face.

"I reckon the hotel was pretty full last night," she said. "Every once in a while somebody came and called me to another room. Every room I went to there was somebody sleeping in the bed. Looked like n.o.body knowed where my bed was. They was always telling me to sleep in a new one. I didn't sleep none, except about an hour just a while ago. There sure is a lot of men staying there."

Jeeter led them outside the store and they got into the automobile and drove off towards the residential part of the city. Bessie yawned, and tried to take a nap on. the front seat.

Selling the load of blackjack was no easier than it had been the afternoon before. n.o.body wanted to buy wood, at least not the kind Jeeter had for sale.

By three o'clock that afternoon all of them were thoroughly tired of trying to find somebody to take the wood.

Sister Bessie wanted to go back home,, and so did Jeeter. Bessie was sleepy and tired. Jeeter began swearing every time he saw a man walking along the street. His opinion of the citizens of Augusta was even less than it had been before he started the trip. He cursed every dollar in the city.

Dude was anxious to go back home, because he would have the opportunity of blowing the horn when they went around the long curves on the highway.

Bessie bought the gasoline and Jeeter paid for it out of the money they had left. No trouble with the engine developed, and they sailed along at a fast rate of speed for nearly ten miles.

"Let's stop a minute," Jeeter said.

Dude stopped the car without question and they all got out. Jeeter began untying the plow-lines and untwisting the baling wire around the load of blackjack.

"What you going to do now?" Bessie asked him, watching him begin throwing off the sticks.

"I'm going to throw off the whole durn load and set fire to it," he said. "It's bad luck to carry something to town to sell and then tote it back home. It ain't a safe thing to do, to take it back home. I'm going to pitch it all off."

Dude and Bessie helped him, and in a few minutes the blackjack was piled in the ditch beside the road.

"And I ain't going to let n.o.body else have the use of it, neither," he said. "If the rich people in Augusta won't buy my wood, I ain't going to let it lay here so they can come and take it off for nothing."