own victuals as a man should, and her hale and well as ere a woman in the land until that day. Got to pay for being put to the need of that three dollars. Got to pay for the way for them boys to have to go away to earn it. And now I can see same as second-sight the rain shutting down betwixt us, a-coming up that road like a durn man, like it wasn’t ere a other house to rain on in all the living land.
I have heard men cuss their luck, and right, for they were sinful men. But I do not say it’s a curse on me, because I have done no wrong to be cussed by. I am not religious, I reckon. But peace is my heart: I know it is. I have done things but neither better nor worse than them that pretend otherlike, and I know that Old Marster will care for me as for ere a sparrow that falls. But it seems hard that a man in his need could be so flouted by a road.
Vardaman comes around the house, bloody as a hog to his knees, and that ere fish chopped up with the axe like as not, or maybe throwed away for him to lie about the dogs et it. Well, I reckon I ain’t no call to expect no more of him than of his man-growed brothers. He comes along, watching the house, quiet, and sits on the steps. “Whew,” he says, “I’m pure tired.”
“Go wash them hands,” I say. But couldn’t no woman strove harder than Addie to make them right, man and boy: I’ll say that for her.
“It was full of blood and guts as a hog,” he says. But I just can’t seem to get no heart into anything, with this here weather sapping me, too. “Pa,” he says, “is ma sick some more?”
“Go wash them hands,” I say. But I just can’t seem to get no heart into it.