Grandfather's police caught up with him. Because come back he must Where else could he go, who knew nowhere else, to whom the words, names—Jefferson, McCaslin, De Spain, Compson—were not just home but father and mother both? But some frayed ragtag judgment, some embryo gleam of simple yet-virgin discretion and common sense, persuaded him at least to try me first, to have me by as a kind of hostage. And he didn't need to try, test me first. When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they dont really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not yet be old enough to desire the fruits of it, which is not innocence but appetite; his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it, which is not ignorance but size.
But Boon didn't know this. He must seduce me. And he had so little time: only from the time the train left until dark. He could have started cold, from scratch, tomorrow or next day or any day up to and including Wednesday. But today, now, was his best, with the car visible to all Jefferson, already in motion, already involved in the condition of departure; it was as if the gods themselves had offered him these scot-free hours between eleven-two and sunset, he to scorn, ignore them at his peril. The car came up, Grandfather and Grandmother already in it, with the shoebox of fried chicken and devilled eggs and cake for dinner since there wouldn't be a dining car until they changed to the Limited at the junction at one oclock and Grandmother and Mother both knew Grandfather and Father well enough by this time to know they were not going to wait until one oclock to eat dinner, no matter who was dead. No: Grandmother too, if the bereaved had been anybody but Mother. 'No, that's wrong too; Grandmother had a wider range than her son's wife: maybe all Mother would have needed was to be a female. It's not men who cope with death; they resist, try to fight back and get their brains trampled out in consequence; where women just flank it, envelop it in one soft and instantaneous confederation of unresistance like cotton batting or cobwebs, already de-stingered and harmless, not merely reduced to size and usable but even useful like a penniless bachelor or spinster connection always available to fill an empty space or conduct an extra guest down to dinner. Their grips were already tied onto the fenders and Son Thomas had already brought Mother's and Father's out to the street and now we all followed, Mother in her black veil and Father with his black arm band, us following with Aunt Cal-lie carrying Alexander. 'Goodbye,' Mother said, 'goodbye,' kissing us veil and all, smelling like she always did but with something black in the smell too, like the thin black veil which really hid nothing, as if more than just a mechanical electric message over the copper wire had come that three hundred miles up from Bay St Louis; oh yes, I could smell it when she kissed me, saying, 'You're the big boy, the man now. You must help Aunt Callie with the others, so they wont worry Cousin Louisa,' already getting quick into the automobile beside Grandmother, when Boon said,
'I'll have to fill the tank for the trip out to McCaslin after dinner. I thought Lucius could come along now and help me on the way back from the depot.' You see, how easy it was going to be. It was too easy, making you a little ashamed. It was as if the very cards of virtue and rectitude were stacked against Grandfather and Grandmother and Mother and Father. All right then: against me too. Even the fact that automobiles were only two or three years old in Jefferson abetted Boon—all right, us. Mr Rouncewell, the oil company agent who supplied all the stores in Yoknapatawpha County from his tanks on the side track at the depot, for the last two years had also had a special tank of gasoline, with a pump and a Negro to pump it; all Boon or anyone else who wanted gasoline had to do was, simply drive up and stop and get out and the Negro would lift off the front seat and measure the tank with his special notched stick and fill the tank and collect the money or (if Mr Rouncewell himself wasn't there) let you yourself wiite down your name and how many gallons in a greasy ledger. But, although Grandfather had owned the car almost a year now, not one of them—Grandfather or Grandmother or Father or Mother—had either the knowledge about how cars operated or the temerity (or maybe it was just the curiosity) to question or challenge Boon.
So he and I stood on the platform; Mother waved to us through the window as the train drew away. Now it was his move. He would have to say something, have to begin. He had managed to get the decks cleared and me in his power, at least until Aunt Callie began to wonder where I was to eat my dinner. I mean, Boon didn't know he didn't have to say anything, other than perhaps to tell me where we were going, and even that—the destination—didn't matter. He had learned nothing since about human beings, and apparently had even forgot what he once must have known about boys.
And now Boon himself didn't know how to begin. He had prayed for luck, and immediately, by return post you might say, had been vouchsafed more than he knew what to do with. They have told you before this probably that Fortune is a fickle jade, who never withholds but gives, either good or bad: more of the former than you ever believe (perhaps with justice) that you deserve; more of the latter than you can handle. So with Boon. So all he said was, 'Well.'
Nor did I help him; I took that revenge. All right, revenge on whom? Not on Boon of course: on me, my shame; perhaps on Father and Mother, who had abandoned me to the shame; perhaps on Grandfather, whose automobile had made the shame available; who knows? perhaps on Mr Buftaloe himself—that rapt and divinely stricken somnambulist who had started the whole thing two innocent years ago. But I did feel sorry for Boon because he had so little time. It was after eleven now; Aunt Callie would be expecting me back in a matter of minutes, not because she knew it couldn't take more than ten minutes to get back home after she heard Twenty-three whistle for the lower crossing, but because she would already be in a driving impatience to get us all fed and on the way to McCaslin; she had been born in the country and still preferred it. Boon wasn't looking at me. He very carefully wasn't looking at me. 'Three hundred miles,' he said. 'Good thing somebody invented trains. If they'd a had to go by mule wagon like folks used to, they couldn't even get there in ten days, let alone back in ten days too.'
'Father said four days,' I said.
'That's right,' Boon said. 'So he did. Maybe we got four days to get back to the house in, but that still dont give us forever.' We went back to the car and got in it. But he didn't start it. 'Maybe when Boss gets back in te— four days he'll let me learn you to run this thing. You're big enough. Besides, you already know how. Have you ever thought about that?'
'No,' I said. 'Because he aint going to let me.'
'Well, you dont need to rush at it. You got four days for him to change his mind in. Though my guess is nearer ten.' Still he didn't move to start the car. 'Ten days.' he said. 'How far do you reckon this automobile could travel in ten days?'
'Father said four,' I said. 'All right,' he said. 'How far in four days?'
'I aint going to know that either,' I said. 'Because aint anybody around here going to find out to tell me.'
'All right.' he said. He started the car suddenly and backed and turned it, already going fast, neither toward the Square nor toward Mr Rouncewell's gasoline pump. 'I thought we had to get gasoline,' I said. We were going fast. 'I changed my mind,' Boon said. 'Ill tend to that just before we leave for McCaslin after dinner. Then so much of it wont evaporate away just standing around.' We were in a lane now. going fast between Negro cabins and vegetable patches and chicken yards, with chickens and mongrel dogs leaping frantically from the dust just in time, out of the lane and into a vacant field, a waste place marked faintly with tire tracks but no hooves; and now I recognised it: Mr Buffaloe's homemade motordrome where Colonel Sartoris's law had driven him two years ago and where he had taught Boon to operate an automobile. And still I didn't understand until Boon wrenched the car to a stop and said, 'Move over here.'
So I was late for dinner after all; Aunt Gallic was already standing on the front gallery, carrying Alexander and
