Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [19]
“And Sister Ada has got the pleurisy again pretty bad. You ought to do something for her this time, sure enough. The last time didn’t help her none too much. She can’t do all her household work when she’s got the pleurisy so bad. If You’ll make her well of it, she’ll quit the devil for all time. Won’t you, Sister Ada?”
“Yes, Lord!”
“And old Mother Lester has got a misery in her sides. She’s in pain all the time with it. She’s kneeling down right now, but she is in such pain she can’t do it many more times.
“You ought to bless Ellie May, too. Ellie May has got that slit in her lip that makes her an awful sight to look at. If You was to make—”
“Don’t forget to pray for Pearl, Sister Bessie,” Jeeter said. “Pearl needs praying for something awful.”
“What has Pearl done sinful, Brother Jeeter?”
“Well, that was what Lov wanted to speak to me about to-day. He says Pearl won’t talk to him, and she won’t let him touch her. When night comes, she gets down and sleeps on a durn pallet on the floor. Lov has got to sleep in the bed by himself, and can’t get her to take no interest in him. That’s a pretty bad thing for a wife to do, and God ought to make her quit it. Lov is due some rights. A woman ain’t got no business sleeping on a durn pallet on the floor, noway.”
“Maybe she knows best, Brother Jeeter,” Bessie said. “Maybe Pearl is going to have a little baby, and that’s her way of telling Brother Lov about it.”
“No, it ain’t that, Sister Bessie. Lov says he ain’t never slept with her yet. He says he ain’t never touched her yet, neither. That’s what’s worrying him so durn much. He wants her to sleep in the bed with him and stop getting down on that durn pallet on the floor every night like she does. Pearl needs praying for to make her quit that sleeping down there on the floor.”
“Brother Jeeter, little girls like Pearl don’t know how to live married lives like we grown-up women do. So maybe if I was to talk to her myself instead of getting God to do it, she would change her ways. I expect I know more about what to tell her than He does, because I been a married woman up to the past summer when my former husband died. I expect I know all about it. God wouldn’t know what to tell her.”
“That might help some, but if I was the praying kind myself, I reckon I’d sort of tell God about it and maybe He would do some good. Maybe He’s run across gals like that before, though I don’t believe there’s another durn gal in the whole country who’s as contrary-minded about sleeping in the bed as Pearl is.”
Dude picked up the baseball and began tossing it on the roof of the porch, and catching it when it rolled down into the yard. The ball knocked loose the rotten shingles, and pieces of them showered the yard. Ellie May sat waiting to hear some more prayer when Bessie and Jeeter got through talking about Pearl.
“Maybe it wouldn’t hurt none if I was to mention it,” Bessie said.
“That’s right,” Jeeter said. “You speak to the Lord about it, too. Both of you together ought to get something done about it.”
“Now, Lord, I’ve got something special to pray about. I don’t ask favors unless they is things I want pretty bad, so this time I’m asking for a favor for Pearl. I want You to make her stop sleeping on a pallet on the floor while Brother Lov has to sleep by himself in the bed. Make Pearl get in the bed, Lord, and make her stay there where she belongs. She ain’t got no right to sleep on a pallet on the floor when Lov’s got a bed for her. Now, You make her stop acting like she’s been, and put her in the bed when night comes. I was a good wife to my former husband. I never slept on no pallet on the floor. Sister Ada here don’t do nothing like that. And when I marry another man, I ain’t going to do that, neither. I’m going to get in the bed just as big as my new husband does. So You tell Pearl to quit that. We women knows what we ought to do, and Pearl just ain’t old enough to know better. You got to tell her to quit doing that. If it was