“Uuh huuh! Ah knowed you would going tuh crawl up in dat holler! But Ah aims tuh smoke yuh right out. ’Tain’t no nature at all, it’s caution, Sam.”
“ ’Tain’t no sich uh thing! Nature tells yuh not tuh fool wid no red-hot stove, and you don’t do it neither.”
“Listen, Sam, if it was nature, nobody wouldn’t have tuh look out for babies touchin’ stoves, would they? ’Cause dey just naturally wouldn’t touch it. But dey sho will. So it’s caution.”
“Naw it ain’t, it’s nature, cause nature makes caution. It’s de strongest thing dat God ever made, now. Fact is it’s de onliest thing God ever made. He made nature and nature made everything else.”
“Naw nature didn’t neither. A whole heap of things ain’t even been made yit.”
“Tell me somethin’ you know of dat nature ain’t made.”
“She ain’t made it so you kin ride uh butt-headed cow and hold on tuh de horns.”
“Yeah, but dat ain’t yo’ point.”
“Yeah it is too.”
“Naw it ain’t neither.”
“Well what is mah point?”
“You ain’t got none, so far.”
“Yeah he is too,” Walter cut in. “De red-hot stove is his point.”
“He know mighty much, but he ain’t proved it yit.”
“Sam, Ah say it’s caution, not nature dat keeps folks off uh red-hot stove.”
“How is de son gointuh be before his paw? Nature is de first of everything. Ever since self was self, nature been keepin’ folks off of red-hot stoves. Dat caution you talkin’ ’bout ain’t nothin’ but uh humbug. He’s uh inseck dat nothin’ he got belongs to him. He got eyes, lak somethin’ else; wings lak somethin’ else—everything! Even his hum is de sound of somebody else.”
“Man, whut you talkin’ ’bout? Caution is de greatest thing in de world. If it wasn’t for caution—”
“Show me somethin’ dat caution ever made! Look whut nature took and done. Nature got so high in uh black hen she got tuh lay uh white egg. Now you tell me, how come, whut got intuh man dat he got tuh have hair round his mouth? Nature!”
“Dat ain’t—”
The porch was boiling now. Starks left the store to Hezekiah Potts, the delivery boy, and come took a seat in his high chair.
“Look at dat great big ole scoundrel-beast up dere at Hall’s fillin’ station—uh great big old scoundrel. He eats up all de folks outa de house and den eat de house.”
“Aw ’tain’t no sich a varmint nowhere dat kin eat no house! Dat’s uh lie. Ah wuz dere yiste’ddy and Ah ain’t seen nothin’ lak dat. Where is he?”
“Ah didn’t see him but Ah reckon he is in de back-yard some place. But dey got his picture out front dere. They was nailin’ it up when Ah come pass dere dis evenin’.”
“Well all right now, if he eats up houses how come he don’t eat up de fillin’ station?”
“Dat’s ’cause dey got him tied up so he can’t. Dey got uh great big picture tellin’ how many gallons of dat Sinclair high-compression gas he drink at one time and how he’s more’n uh million years old.”
“ ’Tain’t nothin’ no million years old!”
“De picture is right up dere where anybody kin see it. Dey can’t make de picture till dey see de thing, kin dey?”
“How dey goin’ to tell he’s uh million years old? Nobody wasn’t born dat fur back.”
“By de rings on his tail Ah reckon. Man, dese white folks got ways for tellin’ anything dey wants tuh know.”
“Well, where he been at all dis time, then?”
“Dey caught him over dere in Egypt. Seem lak he used tuh hang round dere and eat up dem Pharaohs’ tombstones. Dey got de picture of him doin’ it. Nature is high in uh varmint lak dat. Nature and salt. Dat’s whut makes up strong man lak Big John de Conquer. He was uh man wid salt in him. He could give uh flavor to anything.”
“Yeah, but he was uh man dat wuz more’n man. ’Tain’t no mo’ lak him. He wouldn’t dig potatoes, and he wouldn’t rake hay: He wouldn’t take a whipping, and he wouldn’t run away.”
“Oh yeah, somebody else could if dey tried hard enough. Me mahself, Ah got salt in me. If Ah like man flesh, Ah could eat some man every day, some of ’em is so trashy they’d let me eat ’em.”
“Lawd, Ah loves to talk about Big John. Less we tell lies on Ole John.”
But here come Bootsie, and Teadi and Big ’oman down the street making out they are pretty by the way they walk. They have got that fresh, new taste about them like young mustard greens in the spring, and the young men on the porch are just bound to tell them about it and buy them some treats.
“Heah come mah order right now,” Charlie Jones announces and scrambles off the porch to meet them. But he has plenty of competition. A pushing, shoving show of gallantry. They all beg the girls to just buy anything they can think of. Please let them pay for it. Joe is begged to wrap up all the candy in the store and order more. All the peanuts and soda water—everything!
“Gal, Ah’m crazy ’bout you,” Charlie goes on to the entertainment of everybody. “Ah’ll do anything in the world except work for you and give you mah money.”
The girls and everybody else help laugh. They know it’s not courtship. It’s acting-out courtship and everybody is in the play. The three girls hold the center of the stage till Daisy Blunt comes walking down the street in the moonlight.
Daisy is walking a drum tune. You can almost hear it by looking at the way she walks. She is black and she knows that white clothes look good on her, so she wears them for dress up. She’s got those big black eyes with plenty shiny white in them that makes them shine like brand new money and she knows what God gave women eyelashes for, too. Her hair is not what you might call straight. It’s negro hair, but it’s got a kind of white flavor. Like the piece of string out of a ham. It’s not ham at all, but it’s been around ham and got the flavor. It was spread down thick and heavy over her shoulders and looked just right under a big white hat.
“Lawd, Lawd, Lawd,” that same Charlie Jones exclaims rushing over to Daisy. “It must be uh recess in heben if St. Peter is lettin’ his angels out lak dis. You got three men already layin’ at de point uh death ’bout yuh, and heah’s uhnother fool dat’s willin’ tuh make time on yo’ gang.”
All the rest of the single men have crowded around Daisy by this time. She is parading and blushing at the same time.
“If you know anybody dat’s ’bout tuh die ’bout me, yuh know more’n Ah do,” Daisy bridled. “Wisht Ah knowed who it is.”
“Now, Daisy, you know Jim, and Dave and Lum is ’bout tuh kill one ’nother ’bout you. Don’t stand up here and tell dat big ole got-dat-wrong.”
“Dey a mighty hush-mouf about it if dey is. Dey ain’t never told me nothin’.”
“Unhunh, you talked too fast. Heah, Jim and Dave is right upon de porch and Lum is inside de store.”
A big burst of laughter at Daisy’s discomfiture. The boys had to act out their rivalry too. Only this time, everybody knew they meant some of it. But all the same the porch enjoyed the play and helped out whenever extras were needed.
David said, “Jim don’t love Daisy. He don’t love yuh lak Ah do.”
Jim bellowed indignantly, “Who don’t love Daisy? Ah know you ain’t talkin’ ’bout me.”
Dave: “Well all right, less prove dis thing right now. We’ll prove right now who love dis gal de best. How much time is you willin’ tuh make fuh Daisy?”
Jim: “Twenty yeahs!”
Dave: “See? Ah told yuh dat nigger didn’t love yuh. Me, Ah’ll beg de Judge tuh hang me, and wouldn’t take nothin’ less than life.”
There was a big long laugh from the porch. Then Jim had to demand a test.
“Dave, how much would you be willin’ tuh do for Daisy if she was to turn fool enough tuh marry yuh?”
“Me and Daisy done talked dat over, but if you just got tuh know, Ah’d buy Daisy uh passenger train and give it tuh her.”
&nb
sp; “Humph! Is dat all? Ah’d buy her uh steamship and then Ah’d hire some mens tuh run it fur her.”
“Daisy, don’t let Jim fool you wid his talk. He don’t aim tuh do nothin’ fuh yuh. Uh lil ole steamship! Daisy, Ah’ll take uh job cleanin’ out de Atlantic Ocean fuh you any time you say you so desire.” There was a great laugh and then they hushed to listen.
“Daisy,” Jim began, “you know mah heart and all de ranges uh mah mind. And you know if Ah wuz ridin’ up in uh earoplane way up in de sky and Ah looked down and seen you walkin’ and knowed you’d have tuh walk ten miles tuh git home, Ah’d step backward offa dat earoplane just to walk home wid you.”
There was one of those big blow-out laughs and Janie was wallowing in it. Then Jody ruined it all for her.
Mrs. Bogle came walking down the street towards the porch. Mrs. Bogle who was many times a grandmother, but had a blushing air of coquetry about her that cloaked her sunken cheeks. You saw a fluttering fan before her face and magnolia blooms and sleepy lakes under the moonlight when she walked. There was no obvious reason for it, it was just so. Her first husband had been a coachman but “studied jury” to win her. He had finally become a preacher to hold her till his death. Her second husband worked in Fohnes orange grove—but tried to preach when he caught her eye. He never got any further than a class leader, but that was something to offer her. It proved his love and pride. She was a wind on the ocean. She moved men, but the helm determined the port. Now, this night she mounted the steps and the men noticed her until she passed inside the door.
“I god, Janie,” Starks said impatiently, “why don’t you go on and see whut Mrs. Bogle want? Whut you waitin’ on?”
Janie wanted to hear the rest of the play-acting and how it ended, but she got up sullenly and went inside. She came back to the porch with her bristles sticking out all over her and with dissatisfaction written all over her face. Joe saw it and lifted his own hackles a bit.
Jim Weston had secretly borrowed a dime and soon he was loudly beseeching Daisy to have a treat on him. Finally she consented to take a pickled pig foot on him. Janie was getting up a large order when they came in, so Lum waited on them. That is, he went back to the keg but came back without the pig foot.
“Mist’ Starks, de pig feets is all gone!” he called out.
“Aw naw dey ain’t, Lum. Ah bought uh whole new kag of ’em wid dat last order from Jacksonville. It come in yistiddy.”
Joe came and helped Lum look but he couldn’t find the new keg either, so he went to the nail over his desk that he used for a file to search for the order.
“Janie, where’s dat last bill uh ladin’?”
“It’s right dere on de nail, ain’t it?”
“Naw it ain’t neither. You ain’t put it where Ah told yuh tuh. If you’d git yo’ mind out de streets and keep it on yo’ business maybe you could git somethin’ straight sometimes.”
“Aw, look around dere, Jody. Dat bill ain’t apt tuh be gone off nowheres. If it ain’t hangin’ on de nail, it’s on yo’ desk. You bound tuh find it if you look.”
“Wid you heah, Ah oughtn’t tuh hafta do all dat lookin’ and searchin’. Ah done told you time and time agin tuh stick all dem papers on dat nail! All you got tuh do is mind me. How come you can’t do lak Ah tell yuh?”
“You sho loves to tell me whut to do, but Ah can’t tell you nothin’ Ah see!”
“Dat’s ’cause you need tellin’,” he rejoined hotly. “It would be pitiful if Ah didn’t. Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves.”
“Ah knows uh few things, and womenfolks thinks sometimes too!”
“Aw naw they don’t. They just think they’s thinkin’. When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don’t understand one.”
Times and scenes like that put Janie to thinking about the inside state of her marriage. Time came when she fought back with her tongue as best she could, but it didn’t do her any good. It just made Joe do more. He wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it.
So gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush. The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again. So she put something in there to represent the spirit like a Virgin Mary image in a church. The bed was no longer a daisy-field for her and Joe to play in. It was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy and tired.
She wasn’t petal-open anymore with him. She was twenty-four and seven years married when she knew. She found that out one day when he slapped her face in the kitchen. It happened over one of those dinners that chasten all women sometimes. They plan and they fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorchy, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans. Janie was a good cook, and Joe had looked forward to his dinner as a refuge from other things. So when the bread didn’t rise, and the fish wasn’t quite done at the bone, and the rice was scorched, he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store.
Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over. In a way she turned her back upon the image where it lay and looked further. She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be. She found that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about. Things packed up and put away in parts of her heart where he could never find them. She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.
She bathed and put on a fresh dress and head kerchief and went on to the store before Jody had time to send for her. That was a bow to the outside of things.
Jody was on the porch and the porch was full of Eatonville as usual at this time of the day. He was baiting Mrs. Tony Robbins as he always did when she came to the store. Janie could see Jody watching her out of the corner of his eye while he joked roughly with Mrs. Robbins. He wanted to be friendly with her again. His big, big laugh was as much for her as for the baiting. He was longing for peace but on his own terms.
“I god, Mrs. Robbins, whut make you come heah and worry me when you see Ah’m readin’ mah newspaper?” Mayor Starks lowered the paper in pretended annoyance.
Mrs. Robbins struck her pity-pose and assumed the voice.
“ ’Cause Ah’m hongry, Mist’ Starks. ’Deed Ah is. Me and mah chillun is hongry. Tony don’t fee-eed me!”
This was what the porch was waiting for. They burst into a laugh.
“Mrs. Robbins, how can you make out you’se hongry when Tony comes in here every Satitday and buys groceries lak a man? Three weeks’ shame on yuh!”
“If he buy all dat you talkin’ ’bout, Mist’ Starks, God knows whut he do wid it. He sho don’t bring it home, and me and mah po’ chillun is so hongry! Mist’ Starks, please gimme uh lil piece uh meat fur me and mah chillun.”
“Ah know you don’t need it, but come on inside. You ain’t goin’ tuh lemme read till Ah give it to yuh.”
Mrs. Tony’s ecstasy was divine. “Thank you, Mist’ Starks. You’se noble! You’se du most gentlemanfied man Ah ever did see. You’se uh king!”
The salt pork box was in the back of the store and during the walk Mrs. Tony was so eager she sometimes stepped on Joe’s heels, sometimes she was a little before him. Something like a hungry cat when somebody approaches her pan with meat. Running a little, caressing a little and all the time making little urging-on cries.
“Yes,
indeedy, Mist’ Starks, you’se noble. You got sympathy for me and mah po’ chillun. Tony don’t give us nothin’ tuh eat and we’se so hongry. Tony don’t fee-eed me!”
This brought them to the meat box. Joe took up the big meat knife and selected a piece of side meat to cut. Mrs. Tony was all but dancing around him.
“Dat’s right, Mist’ Starks! Gimme uh lil piece ’bout dis wide.” She indicated as wide as her wrist and hand. “Me and mah chillun is so hongry!”
Starks hardly looked at her measurements. He had seen them too often. He marked off a piece much smaller and sunk the blade in. Mrs. Tony all but fell to the floor in her agony.
“Lawd a’mussy! Mist’ Starks, you ain’t gointuh gimme dat lil tee-ninchy piece fuh me and all mah chillun, is yuh? Lawd, we’se so hongry!”
Starks cut right on and reached for a piece of wrapping paper. Mrs. Tony leaped away from the proffered cut of meat as if it were a rattlesnake.
“Ah wouldn’t tetch it! Dat lil eyeful uh bacon for me and all mah chillun! Lawd, some folks is got everything and they’s so gripin’ and so mean!”
Starks made as if to throw the meat back in the box and close it. Mrs. Tony swooped like lightning and seized it, and started towards the door.
“Some folks ain’t got no heart in dey bosom. They’s willin’ tuh see uh po’ woman and her helpless chillun starve tuh death. God’s gointuh put ’em under arrest, some uh dese days, wid dey stingy gripin’ ways.”
She stepped from the store porch and marched off in high dudgeon! Some laughed and some got mad.
“If dat wuz mah wife,” said Walter Thomas, “Ah’d kill her cemetery dead.”
“More special after Ah done bought her everything mah wages kin stand, lak Tony do,” Coker said. “In de fust place Ah never would spend on no woman whut Tony spend on her.”
Starks came back and took his seat. He had to stop and add the meat to Tony’s account.
“Well, Tony tells me tuh humor her along. He moved here from up de State hopin’ tuh change her, but it ain’t. He say he can’t bear tuh leave her and he hate to kill her, so ’tain’t nothin’ tuh do but put up wid her.”