As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner [60]
"Fire or no fire," the man says, "cant no man call me that."
"He thought you said something to him," I say.
"I never said nothing to him. I never see him before."
"Fore God," pa says; "Fore God."
"I know," I say. "He never meant anything. He'll take it back."
"Let him take it back, then."
“Put up your knife, and he will."
The man looks at me. He looks at Jewel. Jewel is quiet now.
“Put up your knife," I say. The man shuts the knife.
"Fore God," pa says. "Fore God."
"Tell him you didn't mean anything, Jewel," I say. "I thought he said something," Jewel says. "Just because he's—"
"Hush," I say. "Tell him you didn't mean it."
"I didn't mean it," Jewel says.
"He better not," the man says. "Calling me a—"
"Do you think he's afraid to call you that?" I say.
The man looks at me. "I never said that," he said.
"Dont think it, neither," Jewel says.
"Shut up," I say. "Come on. Drive on, pa.”
The wagon moves. The man stands watching us. Jewel does not look back. "Jewel would a whipped him," Vardaman says.
We approach the crest, where the street runs, where cars go back and forth; the mules haul the wagon up and onto the crest and the street. Pa stops them. The street runs on ahead, where the square opens and the monument stands before the courthouse. We mount again while the heads turn with that expression which we know; save Jewel. He does not get on, even though the wagon has started again. "Get in, Jewel," I say. "Come on. Let's get away from here." But he does not get in. Instead he sets his foot on the turning hub of the rear wheel, one hand grasping the stanchion, and with the hub turning smoothly under his sole he lifts the other foot and squats there, staring straight ahead, motionless, lean, wooden-backed, as though carved squatting out of the lean wood.
Cash
It wasn't nothing else to do. It was either send him to Jackson, or have Gillespie sue us, because he knowed some way that Darl set fire to it. I dont know how he knowed, but he did. Vardaman see him do it, but he swore he never told nobody but Dewey Dell and that she told him not to tell nobody. But Gillespie knowed it. But he would a suspicioned it sooner or later. He could have done it that night just watching the way Darl acted.
And so pa said, "I reckon there aint nothing else to do," and Jewel said,
"You want to fix him now?"
"Fix him?" pa said.
"Catch him and tie him up," Jewel said. "Goddamn it; do you want to wait until he sets fire to the goddamn team and wagon?"
But there wasn't no use in that. "There aint no use in that," I said. "We can wait till she is underground." A fellow that's going to spend the rest of his life locked up, he ought to be let to have what pleasure he can have before he goes.
"I reckon he ought to be there," pa says. "God knows, it's a trial on me. Seems like it aint no end to bad luck when once it starts."
Sometimes I aint so sho who's got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he aint. Sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-Way. It's like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.
Because Jewel is too hard on him. Of course it was Jewel's horse was traded to get her that nigh to town, and in a sense it was the value of his horse Darl tried to burn up. But I thought more than once before we crossed the river and after, how it would be God's blessing if He did take her outen our hands and get shut of her in some clean way, and it seemed to me that when Jewel worked so to get her outen the river, he was going against God in a way, and then when Darl seen that it looked like one of us would have to do something, I can almost believe he done right in a way. But I dont reckon nothing excuses setting fire to a man's barn and endangering his stock and destroying his property. That's how I reckon a man is crazy. That's how he cant see eye to eye with other folks. And I reckon they aint nothing else to do with him but what the most folks says is right.