man in the prime of
life," said Gant. "I was talking to him the day before I
went away," he lied, convincing himself permanently that this
was true. "He looked as if he had never known a day's
sickness in his life."
"He went home one Friday night with a chill,"
said the motorman, "and the next Tuesday he was gone."
There was a crescent humming on the rails. With
his thick glove finger he pushed away a clearing in the window-coated
ice scurf and looked smokily out on the raw red cut-bank. The
other car appeared abruptly at the end of the cut and curved with a
skreeking jerk into the switch.
"No, sir," said the motorman, sliding back
the door, "you never know who'll go next. Here to-day and
gone to-morrow. Hit gits the big 'uns first sometimes."
He closed the door behind him and jerkily opened
three notches of juice. The car ground briskly off like a wound
toy.
In the prime of life, thought Gant. Myself like
that some day. No, for others. Mother almost eighty-six.
Eats like a horse, Augusta wrote. Must send her twenty
dollars. Now in the cold clay, frozen. Keep till Spring.
Rain, rot, rain. Who got the job? Brock or Saul Gudger?
Bread out of my mouth. Do me to death--the stranger.
Georgia marble, sandstone base, forty dollars.
"A gracious friend from
us is gone,
A
voice we loved is fled,
But
faith and memory lead us on:
He lives; he is not dead."
Four cents a letter. Little enough, God knows,
for the work you do. My letters the best. Could have been
a writer. Like to draw too. And all of mine! I
would have heard if anything--he would have told me. I'll never
go that way. All right above the waist. If anything happens it
will be down below. Eaten away. Whisky holes through all
your guts. Pictures in Cardiac's office of man with cancer.
But several doctors have to agree on it. Criminal offense if
they don't. But, if worst comes to worst--all that's outside.
Get it before it gets up in you. Still live. Old man
Haight had a flap in his belly. Ladled it out in a cup.
McGuire--damned butcher. But he can do anything. Cut off
a piece here, sew it on there. Made the Hominy man a nose with
a piece of shinbone. Couldn't tell it. Ought to be possible.
Cut all the strings, tie them up again. While you wait.
Sort of job for McGuire--rough and ready. They'll do it some
day. After I'm gone. Things standing thus,
unknown--but kill you maybe. Bull's too big. Soon now the
Spring. You'd die. Not big enough. All bloody in
her brain. Full filling fountains of bull-milk. Jupiter and
what's-her-name.
But westward now he caught a glimpse of Pisgah and
the western range. It was more spacious there. The hills
climbed sunward to the sun. There was width to the eye, a
smoking sun-hazed amplitude, the world convoluting and opening into
the world, hill and plain, into the west. The West for desire,
the East for home. To the east the short near mile-away hills reeked
protectively above the town. Birdseye, Sunset. A straight
plume of smoke coiled thickly from Judge Buck Sevier's smut-white
clapboard residence on the decent side of Pisgah Avenue, thin
smoke-wisps rose from the nigger shacks in the ravine below.
Breakfast. Fried brains and eggs with streaky rashers of limp
bacon. Wake, wake, wake, you mountain grills! Sleeps she
yet, wrapped dirtily in three old wrappers in stale, airless
yellow-shaded cold. The chapped hands sick-sweet glycerined.
Gum-headed bottles, hairpins, and the bits of string. No one
may enter now. Ashamed.
A paper-carrier, number 7, finished his route on the
corner of Vine Street, as the car stopped, turned eastwards now from
Pisgah Avenue toward the town core. The boy folded, bent, and
flattened the fresh sheets deftly, throwing the block angularly
thirty yards upon the porch of Shields the jeweller; it struck the
boarding and
life," said Gant. "I was talking to him the day before I
went away," he lied, convincing himself permanently that this
was true. "He looked as if he had never known a day's
sickness in his life."
"He went home one Friday night with a chill,"
said the motorman, "and the next Tuesday he was gone."
There was a crescent humming on the rails. With
his thick glove finger he pushed away a clearing in the window-coated
ice scurf and looked smokily out on the raw red cut-bank. The
other car appeared abruptly at the end of the cut and curved with a
skreeking jerk into the switch.
"No, sir," said the motorman, sliding back
the door, "you never know who'll go next. Here to-day and
gone to-morrow. Hit gits the big 'uns first sometimes."
He closed the door behind him and jerkily opened
three notches of juice. The car ground briskly off like a wound
toy.
In the prime of life, thought Gant. Myself like
that some day. No, for others. Mother almost eighty-six.
Eats like a horse, Augusta wrote. Must send her twenty
dollars. Now in the cold clay, frozen. Keep till Spring.
Rain, rot, rain. Who got the job? Brock or Saul Gudger?
Bread out of my mouth. Do me to death--the stranger.
Georgia marble, sandstone base, forty dollars.
"A gracious friend from
us is gone,
A
voice we loved is fled,
But
faith and memory lead us on:
He lives; he is not dead."
Four cents a letter. Little enough, God knows,
for the work you do. My letters the best. Could have been
a writer. Like to draw too. And all of mine! I
would have heard if anything--he would have told me. I'll never
go that way. All right above the waist. If anything happens it
will be down below. Eaten away. Whisky holes through all
your guts. Pictures in Cardiac's office of man with cancer.
But several doctors have to agree on it. Criminal offense if
they don't. But, if worst comes to worst--all that's outside.
Get it before it gets up in you. Still live. Old man
Haight had a flap in his belly. Ladled it out in a cup.
McGuire--damned butcher. But he can do anything. Cut off
a piece here, sew it on there. Made the Hominy man a nose with
a piece of shinbone. Couldn't tell it. Ought to be possible.
Cut all the strings, tie them up again. While you wait.
Sort of job for McGuire--rough and ready. They'll do it some
day. After I'm gone. Things standing thus,
unknown--but kill you maybe. Bull's too big. Soon now the
Spring. You'd die. Not big enough. All bloody in
her brain. Full filling fountains of bull-milk. Jupiter and
what's-her-name.
But westward now he caught a glimpse of Pisgah and
the western range. It was more spacious there. The hills
climbed sunward to the sun. There was width to the eye, a
smoking sun-hazed amplitude, the world convoluting and opening into
the world, hill and plain, into the west. The West for desire,
the East for home. To the east the short near mile-away hills reeked
protectively above the town. Birdseye, Sunset. A straight
plume of smoke coiled thickly from Judge Buck Sevier's smut-white
clapboard residence on the decent side of Pisgah Avenue, thin
smoke-wisps rose from the nigger shacks in the ravine below.
Breakfast. Fried brains and eggs with streaky rashers of limp
bacon. Wake, wake, wake, you mountain grills! Sleeps she
yet, wrapped dirtily in three old wrappers in stale, airless
yellow-shaded cold. The chapped hands sick-sweet glycerined.
Gum-headed bottles, hairpins, and the bits of string. No one
may enter now. Ashamed.
A paper-carrier, number 7, finished his route on the
corner of Vine Street, as the car stopped, turned eastwards now from
Pisgah Avenue toward the town core. The boy folded, bent, and
flattened the fresh sheets deftly, throwing the block angularly
thirty yards upon the porch of Shields the jeweller; it struck the
boarding and
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