Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [49]
Sometimes in the middle of the night when a storm came up suddenly, Bessie would wake up to find the bed filled with water, every piece of her clothes wet, and more water pouring down through the roof. She had told Ada that she did not want to stay there any more until she could have a new shingle roof put on the house. The building and the land around it belonged to Captain John Harmon; he never came out to the tobacco road any more, and he made no repairs to the buildings. He had told Jeeter and Bessie, and all the other people who lived out there, that they could stay in the houses until the buildings rotted to the ground and that he would never ask for a penny of rent. They understood the arrangement fully; he was not going to make any repairs to the roofs, porches, rotted under-sills, or anything about the buildings. If the houses fell down, he said, it would be too bad for them; but if they stood up, then Jeeter, Bessie, and all the others could remain in them as long as they wanted to stay.
Jeeter and Dude came into the house, stumbling through the darkness. There was a lamp in the house, but no kerosene had been bought that whole winter. The Lesters went to bed at dark, except in summer when it was warm enough to sit on the porch, and they got up at daylight. There was no need for kerosene, anyway. Jeeter sat down on his bed beside Ada and pulled off his heavy shoes. The brogans fell on the floor like bricks dropped waist high.
“We stopped in every house we came to, and got out and visited a while,” Bessie said. “Some of them wanted prayer, and some didn’t. It didn’t make much difference to me, because me and Dude was all excited about riding around. Some of the people wanted to know where I got all the money to buy a brand-new car, and why I married Dude, and I told them. I told them my former husband left me eight hundred dollars, and I said I married Dude because I was going to make a preacher out of him. Of course, that was only one reason why we got married, but I knew that would be enough to tell them.”
“Nobody said things against you, did they, Sister Bessie?” Jeeter asked. “Some people has got a way of talking about people like us.”
“Well, some of them did say a few things about me marrying Dude. They said he was too young to be married to a woman my age, but when they started talking like that, we just got in our new automobile and rode off. A lot of them said it was a sin and a shame for to take my husband’s money and buy an automobile and get married to a young boy like Dude, but while they was doing the talking, me and Dude was doing the riding, wasn’t we, Dude?”
Dude did not answer.
“I reckon Dude has gone to sleep,” Jeeter said. “He worked pretty hard to-day, driving that automobile clear to McCoy and back again.”
Ada sat up in bed.
“Take them overalls off, Jeeter,” she said angrily. “I ain’t never seen the like of it. You know I ain’t going to let you sleep in the bed with them dirty pants on. I have to tell you about it nearly every time. They dirty-up the bed something bad. You ought to know I ain’t going to stand for that.”
“It’s pretty cold again to-night,” Jeeter said. “I get chilly when I don’t sleep with my overalls on. It seems like I can’t do nothing no more like I want to. Sleeping in overalls ain’t going to hurt nothing, noway.”
“You’re the only man I ever knowed of who wanted to sleep in his overalls. Don’t nobody else do like that.”
Jeeter did not answer her. He got up out of bed and climbed out of his overalls and hung them on the foot of the bed. When he got back under the quilts, he was shivering all over.
Bessie could be heard over on the other side of the room stepping around in her stockinged feet getting ready for bed. She had kept her shoes on until she removed her clothes.
Jeeter lifted his head from under the cover and tried to look through the darkness of the room.
“You know, Bessie,” he said, “it sort of makes me feel good like I was before I lost my health to have a woman preacher sleep in my house. It’s a fine feeling I has about you staying here.”
“I’m a woman preacher, all right,