As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner [61]
But it's a shame, in a way. Folks seems to get away from the olden right teaching that says to drive the nails down and trim the edges well always Like it was for your own use and comfort you were making it. It's like some folks has the smooth, pretty boards to build a courthouse with and others dont have no more than rough lumber fitten to build a chicken coop. But it's better to build a tight chicken coop than a shoddy courthouse, and when they both build shoddy or build well, neither because it's one or toothier is going to make a man feel the better nor the worse.
So we went up the street, toward the square, and he said, "We better take Cash to the doctor first. We can leave him there and come back for him." That's it. It's because me and him was born close together, and it nigh ten years before Jewel and Dewey Dell and Vardaman begun to come along. I feel kin to them, all right, but I dont know. And me being the oldest, and thinking already the very thing that he done: I dont know.
Pa was looking at me, then at him, mumbling his mouth.
"Go on," I said. "We’ll get it done first."
"She would want us all there," pa says.
"Let's take Cash to the doctor first," Darl said. "She'll Wait. She's already waited nine days."
"You all dont know," pa says. "The somebody you was young with and you growed old in her and she growed old in you, seeing the old coming on and it was the one somebody you could hear say it dont matter and know it was the truth outen the hard world and all a man's grief and trials. You all dont know."
"We got the digging to do, too," I said.
"Armstid and Gillespie both told you to send word ahead," Darl said. "Dont you want to go to Peabody's now, Cash?"
"Go on," I said. "It feels right easy now. It's best to get things done in the right place."
"If it was just dug," pa says. "We forgot our spade, too."
"Yes," Darl said. “I’ll go to the hardware store. We'll have to buy one."
"It'll cost money," pa says.
"Do you begrudge her it?" Darl says.
"Go on and get a spade," Jewel said. "Here. Give me the money."
But pa didn't stop. "I reckon we can get a spade," he said. "I reckon there are Christians here." So Darl set still and we went on, with Jewel squatting on the tail-gate, watching the back of Darl's head. He looked like one of these bull dogs, one of these dogs that dont bark none, squatting against the rope, watching the thing he was waiting to jump at.
He set that way all the time we was in front of Mrs Bundren's house, hearing the music, watching the back of Darl's head with them hard white eyes of hisn.
The music was playing in the house. It was one of them graphophones. It was natural as a music-band.
"Do you want to go to Peabody's?" Darl said. "They can wait here and tell pa, and I’ll drive you to Peabody's and come back for them."
"No," I said. It was better to get her underground, now we was this close, just waiting until pa borrowed the shovel. He drove along the street until we could hear the music.
"Maybe they got one here," he said. He pulled up at Mrs Bundren's. It was like he knowed. Sometimes I think that if a working man could see work as far ahead as a lazy man can see laziness. So he stopped there like he knowed, before that little new house, where the music was. We waited there, hearing it. I believe I could have dickered Suratt down to five dollars on that one of his. It's a comfortable thing, music is. "Maybe they got one here," pa says.
"You want Jewel to go," Darl says, "or do you reckon I better?"
"I reckon I better," pa says. He got down and went up the path and around the house to the back. The music stopped, then it started again.
"He'll get it, too," Darl said.
"Ay," I said. It was just like he knowed, like he could see through the walls and into the next ten minutes.
Only it was more than ten minutes. The music stopped and never commenced again for a good spell, where her and pa was talking at the back. We waited in the wagon.
"You let me take you back to Peabody's," Darl said.
"No," I said. "We'll get her underground."
"If he ever gets back," Jewel said. He begun to cuss. He started to get down from the wagon.