In the early spring it was worst. Sometimes I thought that I could not bear it, lying in bed at night, with the wild geese going north and their honking coming faint and high and wild out of the wild darkness, and during the day it would seem as though I couldn’t wait for the last one to go so I could go down to the spring. And so when I looked up that day and saw Anse standing there in his Sunday clothes, turning his hat round and round in his hands, I said:
“If you’ve got any womenfolks, why in the world don’t they make you get your hair cut?”
“I ain’t got none,” he said. Then he said suddenly, driving his eyes at me like two hounds in a strange yard: “That’s what I come to see you about.”
“And make you hold your shoulders up,” I said. “You haven’t got any? But you’ve got a house. They tell me you’ve got a house and a good farm. And you live there alone, doing for yourself, do you?” He just looked at me, turning the hat in his hands. “A new house,” I said. “Are you going to get married?”
And he said again, holding his eyes to mine: “That’s what I come to see you about.”
Later he told me, “I ain’t got no people. So that won’t be no worry to you. I don’t reckon you can say the same.”
“No. I have people. In Jefferson.”
His face fell a little. “Well, I got a little property. I’m forehanded; I got a good honest name. I know how town folks are, but maybe when they talk to me …”
“They might listen,” I said. “But they’ll be hard to talk to.” He was watching my face. “They’re in the cemetery.”