Flannery O'Connor Complete Short Stories (4 page)

Miss Willerton always crumbed the table. It was her particular household accomplishment and she did it with great thoroughness. Lucia and Bertha did the dishes and Garner went into the parlor and did the
Morning Press
crossword puzzle. That left Miss Willerton in the dining room by herself and that was all right with Miss Willerton. Whew! Breakfast in that house was always an ordeal. Lucia insisted that they have a regular hour for breakfast just like they did for other meals. Lucia said a regular breakfast made for other regular habits, and with Garner's tendency to upsets, it was imperative that they establish some system in their eating. This way she could also see that he put the Agar-Agar on his Cream of Wheat. As if, Miss Willerton thought, after having done it for fifty years, he'd be capable of doing anything else. The breakfast dispute always started with Garner's Cream of Wheat and ended with her three spoonfuls of pineapple crush. “You know your acid, Willie,” Miss Lucia would always say, “you know your acid”; and then Garner would roll his eyes and make some sickening remark and Bertha would jump and Lucia would look distressed and Miss Willerton would taste the pineapple crush she had already swallowed.

It was a relief to crumb the table. Crumbing the table gave one time to think, and if Miss Willerton were going to write a story, she had to think about it first. She could usually think best sitting in front of her typewriter, but this would do for the time being. First, she had to think of a subject to write a story about. There were so many subjects to write stories about that Miss Willerton never could think of one. That was always the hardest part of writing a story, she always said. She spent more time thinking of something to write about than she did writing. Sometimes she discarded subject after subject and it usually took her a week or two to decide finally on something. Miss Willerton got out the silver crumber and the crumb-catcher and started stroking the table. I wonder, she mused, if a baker would make a good subject? Foreign bakers were very picturesque, she thought. Aunt Myrtile Filmer had left her four color-tints of French bakers in mushroom-looking hats. They were great tall fellows—blond and. . . .

“Willie!” Miss Lucia screamed, entering the dining room with the saltcellars. “For heaven's sake, hold the catcher under the crumber or you'll have those crumbs on the rug. I've Bisseled it four times in the last week and I am not going to do it again.”

“You have not Bisseled it on account of any crumbs I have spilled,” Miss Willerton said tersely. “I always pick up the crumbs I drop,” and she added, “I drop relatively few.”

“And wash the crumber before you put it up this time,” Miss Lucia returned.

Miss Willerton drained the crumbs into her hand and threw them out the window. She took the catcher and crumber to the kitchen and ran them under the cold-water faucet. She dried them and stuck them back in the drawer. That was over. Now she could get to the typewriter. She could stay there until dinnertime.

Miss Willerton sat down at her typewriter and let out her breath. Now! What had she been thinking about? Oh. Bakers. Hmmm. Bakers. No, bakers wouldn't do. Hardly colorful enough. No social tension connected with bakers. Miss Willerton sat staring through her typewriter. A S D F G—her eyes wandered over the keys. Hmmm. Teachers? Miss Willerton wondered. No. Heavens no. Teachers always made Miss Willerton feel peculiar. Her teachers at Willowpool Seminary had been all right but they were women. Willowpool Female Seminary, Miss Willerton remembered. She didn't like the phrase, Willowpool Female Seminary—it sounded biological. She always just said she was a graduate of Willowpool. Men teachers made Miss Willerton feel as if she were going to mispronounce something. Teachers weren't timely anyhow. They weren't even a social problem.

Social problem. Social problem. Hmmm. Sharecroppers! Miss Willerton had never been intimately connected with sharecroppers but, she reflected, they would make as arty a subject as any, and they would give her that air of social concern which was so valuable to have in the circles she was hoping to travel! “I can always capitalize,” she muttered, “on the hookworm.” It was coming to her now! Certainly! Her fingers plinked excitedly over the keys, never touching them. Then suddenly she began typing at great speed.

“Lot Motun,” the typewriter registered, “called his dog.” “Dog” was followed by an abrupt pause. Miss Willerton always did her best work on the first sentence. “First sentences,” she always said, “came to her—like a flash! Just like a flash!” she would say and snap her fingers, “like a flash!” And she built her story up from them. “Lot Motun called his dog” had been automatic with Miss Willerton, and reading the sentence over, she decided that not only was “Lot Motun” a good name for a sharecropper, but also that having him call his dog was an excellent thing to have a sharecropper do. “The dog pricked up its ears and slunk over to Lot.” Miss Willerton had the sentence down before she realized her error—two “Lots” in one paragraph. That was displeasing to the ear. The typewriter grated back and Miss Willerton applied three x's to “Lot.” Over it she wrote in pencil, “him.” Now she was ready to go again. “Lot Motun called his dog. The dog pricked up its ears and slunk over to him.” Two dogs, too, Miss Willerton thought. Ummm. But that didn't affect the ears like two “Lots,” she decided.

Miss Willerton was a great believer in what she called “phonetic art.” She maintained that the ear was as much a reader as the eye. She liked to express it that way. “The eye forms a picture,” she had told a group at the United Daughters of the Colonies, “that can be painted in the abstract, and the success of a literary venture” (Miss Willerton liked the phrase, ‘literary venture') “depends on the abstract created in the mind and the tonal quality” (Miss Willerton also liked ‘tonal quality') “registered in the ear.” There was something biting and sharp about “Lot Motun called his dog”; followed by “the dog pricked up its ears and slunk over to him,” it gave the paragraph just the send-off it needed.

“He pulled the animal's short, scraggy ears and rolled over with it in the mud.” Perhaps, Miss Willerton mused, that would be overdoing it. But a sharecropper, she knew, might reasonably be expected to roll over in the mud. Once she had read a novel dealing with that kind of people in which they had done just as bad and, throughout three-fourths of the narrative, much worse. Lucia found it in cleaning out one of Miss Willerton's bureau drawers and after glancing at a few random pages took it between thumb and index finger to the furnace and threw it in. “When I was cleaning your bureau out this morning, Willie, I found a book that Garner must have put there for a joke,” Miss Lucia told her later. “It was awful, but you know how Garner is. I burned it.” And then, tittering, she added, “I was sure it couldn't be yours.” Miss Willerton was sure it could be none other's than hers but she hesitated in claiming the distinction. She had ordered it from the publisher because she didn't want to ask for it at the library. It had cost her $3.75 with the postage and she had not finished the last four chapters. At least, she had got enough from it, though, to be able to say that Lot Motun might reasonably roll over in the mud with his dog. Having him do that would give more point to the hookworm, too, she decided. “Lot Motun called his dog. The dog pricked up its ears and slunk over to him. He pulled the animal's short, scraggy ears and rolled over with it in the mud.”

Miss Willerton settled back. That was a good beginning. Now she would plan her action. There had to be a woman, of course. Perhaps Lot could kill her. That type of woman always started trouble. She might even goad him on to kill her because of her wantonness and then he would be pursued by his conscience maybe.

He would have to have principles if that were going to be the case, but it would be fairly easy to give him those. Now how was she going to work that in with all the love interest there'd have to be, she wondered. There would have to be some quite violent, naturalistic scenes, the sadistic sort of thing one read of in connection with that class. It was a problem. However, Miss Willerton enjoyed such problems. She liked to plan passionate scenes best of all, but when she came to write them, she always began to feel peculiar and to wonder what the family would say when they read them. Garner would snap his fingers and wink at her at every opportunity; Bertha would think she was terrible; and Lucia would say in that silly voice of hers, “What have you been keeping from us, Willie? What have you been keeping from us?” and titter like she always did. But Miss Willerton couldn't think about that now; she had to plan her characters.

Lot would be tall, stooped, and shaggy but with sad eyes that made him look like a gentleman in spite of his red neck and big fumbling hands. He'd have straight teeth and, to indicate that he had some spirit, red hair. His clothes would hang on him but he'd wear them nonchalantly like they were part of his skin; maybe, she mused, he'd better not roll over with the dog after all. The woman would be more or less pretty—yellow hair, fat ankles, muddy-colored eyes.

She would get supper for him in the cabin and he'd sit there eating the lumpy grits she hadn't bothered to put salt in and thinking about something big, something way off—another cow, a painted house, a clean well, a farm of his own even. The woman would yowl at him for not cutting enough wood for her stove and would whine about the pain in her back. She'd sit and stare at him eating the sour grits and say he didn't have nerve enough to steal food. “You're just a damn beggar!” she'd sneer. Then he'd tell her to keep quiet. “Shut your mouth!” he'd shout. “I've taken all I'm gonna.” She'd roll her eyes, mocking him, and laugh—“I ain't afraid er nothin' that looks like you.” Then he'd push his chair behind him and head toward her. She'd snatch a knife off the table—Miss Willerton wondered what kind of a fool the woman was—and back away holding it in front of her. He'd lunge forward but she'd dart from him like a wild horse. Then they'd face each other again—their eyes brimming with hate—and sway back and forth. Miss Willerton could hear the seconds dropping on the tin roof outside. He'd dart at her again but she'd have the knife ready and would plunge it into him in an instant—Miss Willerton could stand it no longer. She struck the woman a terrific blow on the head from behind. The knife dropped out of her hands and a mist swept her from the room. Miss Willerton turned to Lot. “Let me get you some hot grits,” she said. She went over to the stove and got a clean plate of smooth white grits and a piece of butter.

“Gee, thanks,” Lot said and smiled at her with his nice teeth. “You always fix 'em just right. You know,” he said, “I been thinkin'—we could get out of this tenant farm. We could have a decent place. If we made anything this year over, we could put it in a cowan' start buildin' things up. Think what it would mean, Willie, just think.”

She sat down beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. “We'll do it,” she said. “We'll make better than we've made any year and by spring we should have us that cow.”

“You always know how I feel, Willie,” he said. “You always have known.”

They sat there for a long time thinking of how well they understood each other. “Finish your food,” she said finally.

After he had eaten, he helped her take the ashes out the stove and then, in the hot July evening, they walked down the pasture toward the creek and talked about the place they were going to have some day.

When late March came and the rainy season was almost there, they had accomplished almost more than was believable. For the past month, Lot had been up every morning at five, and Willy an hour earlier to get in all the work they could while the weather was clear. Next week, Lot said, the rain would probably start and if they didn't get the crop in by then, they would lose it—and all they had gained in the past months. They knew what that meant—another year of getting along with no more than they'd had the last. Then too, there'd be a baby next year instead of a cow. Lot had wanted the cow anyway. “Children don't cost all that much to feed,” he'd argued, “an' the cow would help feed him,” but Willie had been firm—the cow could come later—the child must have a good start. “Maybe,” Lot had said finally, “we'll have enough for both,” and he had gone out to look at the new-plowed ground as if he could count the harvest from the furrows.

Even with as little as they'd had, it had been a good year. Willie had cleaned the shack, and Lot had fixed the chimney. There was a profusion of petunias by the doorstep and a colony of snapdragons under the window. It had been a peaceful year. But now they were becoming anxious over the crop. They must gather it before the rain. “We need another week,” Lot muttered when he came in that night. “One more week an' we can do it. Do you feel like gatherin'? It isn't right that you should have to,” he sighed, “but I can't hire any help.”

“I'm all right,” she said, hiding her trembling hands behind her. “I'll gather.”

“It's cloudy tonight,” Lot said darkly.

The next day they worked until nightfall—worked until they could work no longer and then stumbled back to the cabin and fell into bed.

Willie woke in the night conscious of a pain. It was a soft, green pain with purple lights running through it. She wondered if she were awake. Her head rolled from side to side and there were droning shapes grinding boulders in it.

Lot sat up. “Are you bad off?” he asked, trembling.

She raised herself on her elbow and then sank down again. “Get Anna up by the creek,” she gasped.

The droning became louder and the shapes grayer. The pain intermingled with them for seconds first, then interminably. It came again and again. The sound of the droning grew more distinct and toward morning she realized that it was rain. Later she asked hoarsely, “How long has it been raining?”