If it takes wet boards for folks to fall, it’s fixing to be lots of falling before this spell is done.
“You couldn’t have holp it,” I say.
I don’t mind the folks falling. It’s the cotton and corn I mind.
Neither does Peabody mind the folks falling. How ’bout it, Doc?
It’s a fact. Washed clean outen the ground it will be. Seems like something is always happening to it.
’Course it does. That’s why it’s worth anything. If nothing didn’t happen and everybody made a big crop, do you reckon it would be worth the raising?
Well, I be durn if I like to see my work washed outen the ground, work I sweat over.
It’s a fact. A fellow wouldn’t mind seeing it washed up if he could just turn on the rain himself.
Who is that man can do that? Where is the colour of his eyes?
Ay. The Lord made it to grow. It’s Hisn to wash up if He sees it fitten so.
“You couldn’t have holp it,” I say.
“It’s them durn women,” he says.
In the house the women begin to sing. We hear the first line commence, beginning to swell as they take hold, and we rise and move toward the door, taking off our hats and throwing our chews away. We do not go in. We stop at the steps, clumped, holding our hats between our lax hands in front or behind, standing with one foot advanced and our heads lowered, looking aside, down at our hats in our hands and at the earth or now and then at the sky and at one another’s grave, composed face.