Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [61]
Jeeter took a seat on the porch and sat down to wait for them to return. He was glum and silent the rest of the morning. When Ada told him to come into the kitchen at dinner time and eat some cheese and crackers, Jeeter did not move from his chair. Ada went back into the house without urging him to eat. There was so little food, she was glad he was not coming. The cheese and crackers that had been brought back from Augusta provided barely enough of a meal for one or two persons; and as he would not leave the porch, there would be more for her and Ellie May. It did not matter about the grandmother, because she was going to be given the cheese rinds and cracker crumbs that were left when they had finished. Jeeter always ate so fast that there was never time for anybody else to get his full share at any meal. Jeeter ate as if it were the last time he would ever taste food again.
Ada and Ellie May sat down to eat their meal, leaving Jeeter alone.
Late that afternoon when Bessie and Dude returned home, Jeeter was still waiting for them on the porch. He got up as they approached, and followed the car to its place beside the chimney. He was as angry as ever, but he had forgotten about it momentarily. He was anxious to know if they had found Tom.
“Did you see Tom?” he asked Bessie. “What was he doing? Did he send me some money?”
Ada came out to listen. The grandmother took her accustomed position behind a chinaberry tree, looking and listening. Ellie May came closer.
“Tom ain’t at all like he used to be when I knowed him better,” Bessie said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s come over Tom.”
“Why?” Jeeter asked. “What did he do—what did he say? Where’s the money he sent me?”
“Tom didn’t send no money. He don’t appear to be aiming to help you none. He’s a wicked man, Tom is.”
“You ought to have taken me along, Bessie,” Jeeter said. “I know Tom better than I do my own self. He was my special boy all along. Me and Tom got along all right together. The other children was always fighting with me, looks like now. But Tom never did. He was a fine boy when he was growing up.”
Bessie listened to Jeeter talk, but she did not want to stop and argue about going off and leaving him at home. It was all over now. The trip was finished, and they were back.
“Why didn’t you let me go along and see Tom?” he said.
“Tom works about a hundred ox,” Dude said. He was very much impressed by the large number of oxen his brother worked at the cross-tie camp. “I didn’t know there was that many ox in the whole country.”
“When did Tom say he was coming over here to see me?” Jeeter asked.
“Tom said he wasn’t never coming over here again,” Dude said. “He told me to tell you he was going to stay where he was at.”
“That sure don’t sound like Tom talking,” Jeeter said, shaking his head. “Maybe he has to work so hard all the time that he can’t get off.”
“Ain’t that,” Bessie said. “Tom said just what Dude told you. Tom said he ain’t never coming over here again. He don’t want to.”
“That don’t sound like Tom talking. Me and Tom used to get along first-rate concerning everything. Me and him never had no difficulties like I was always having with my other children. They used to throw rocks at me and hit me over the head with sticks, but Tom never did. Tom was always a first-rate boy when I knowed him. Ain’t no reason why he ought to change now, and be just like all the rest of them.”
“I told him how bad off you was, and his Ma, too,” Bessie said. “I told him you didn’t have no meal or meat in the house half the time, and that you can’t farm and raise a crop no more, and Tom says for you and Ada to go to the county poor-farm and stay.”
“You made a mistake by telling Tom I wasn’t going to farm no more. I’m going to raise me a big crop of cotton this year, if I can get hold of some seed-cotton and guano. The rest of what you told him is true and accurate, however. We is hungry pretty much of the time. That ain’t no lie.”
“Well, that’s what he said, anyway. He told me to tell you and Ada to go to the county poor-farm and stay.”
“That sure don’t sound like Tom talking. Tom ain