The Reivers

Miss Reba turned to Boon again. 'What you been doing? wrassling with hogs?'

'We got; in a mudhole back down the road. We drove up. The automobile's outside now.'

'I saw it,' Miss Reba said. 'We all did. Dont tell me it's yours. Just tell me if the police are after it. If they are, get it away from my door. Mr Binford's strict about having police around here too. So am I.'

'The automobile's all right,' Boon said. 'It better be,' Miss Reba said. She was looking at me again. She said, 'Lucius,' not to anybody. 'Too bad you didn't get here sooner. Mr Binford likes kids. He still likes them even after he begins to have doubts, and this last week would have raised doubts in anybody that aint a ossified corpse. I mean, he was still willing to give Otis the benefit of the doubt to take him to the zoo right after dinner. Lucius could have gone too. But then on the other hand, maybe not. If Otis is still using up doubts at the same rate he was before they left here, he aint coming back—providing there's some way to get him up close enough to the cage for one of them lions or tigers to reach him—providing a lion or tiger would want him, which they wouldn't if they'd ever spent a week in the same house with him.' She was still looking at me. She said, 'Lucius,' again, not at anybody. Then she said to Minnie: 'Go up and tell everybody to stay out of the bathroom for the next half an hour.' She said to Boon: 'You got a change of clothes with you?'

'Yes,' Boon said.

'Then wash yourself off and put them on; this is a decent place: not a joint. Let them use Vera's room, Minnie. Vera's visiting her folks up in Paducah.' She said to Boon or maybe to both of us: 'Minnie fixed a bed for Otis up ffi the attic. Lucius can sleep with him tonight—'

There were feet on the stairs, then in the hall and in the door. This time it was a big girl. I dont mean fat: just big, like Boon was big, but still a girl, young too, with dark hair and blue eyes and at first I thought her face was plain. But she came into the room already looking at me, ?a„? I,,knew it didn't matter what her face was. 'Hi, kiddo,' Boon said. But she didn't pay any attention to him at all yet; she and Miss Reba were both looking at me

'Watch now,' Miss Reba said. 'Lucius, this is Miss Come.' I made my manners again. 'See what I mean?' Miss Reba said. 'You brought that nephew of yours over here hunting refinement. Here it is, waiting for him. He wont know what it means, let alone why he's doing it. But maybe Lucius could learn him to at least ape it. All right' she said to Boon. 'Go get cleaned up.'

J, M^ayb^- Corrie>11 ^me help us,' Boon said. He was Holding Miss Corrie's hand. 'Hi, kiddo,' he said again В« -Ar7.TM1??kmg like a shanty-boat swamp rat,' Miss Reba said, 'I'll keep this damned place respectable on Sunday anyhow.'

Minnie showed us where the room and the bathroom were upstairs and gave us soap and a towel apiece and went out. Boon put his grip on the bed and opened it and took out a clean shirt and his other pants. They were his everyday pants but the Sunday ones he had on wouldn't be ''''' ' '^ere until they were cleaned with naptha ee?' he said. 'I told you so. I done the

'x 1.1-----make you brinS at least a clean shirt.'

(My blouse aint muddy,' I said.

bathe'' r said' 'l had a bath yesterday ' said didn't you?' Said 'BUt yВ°U hCard What Miss Reba

- -aid' 'J never **ew в„?y !adies any-TaSQt trying to make somebody take a bath.'

В°''? known Miss Reba a few hours out you done learned something else and one shirt from one grip but he over the open grip, busy, holding the shirt in his hand while he decided where to put the pants, then putting the shirt on the bed and picking up the pants again and moving them about a foot further along the bed, then picking up the shirt again and putting it where the pants were; then he cleared his throat loud and hard and went to the window and opened it and leaned out and spit and closed the window and came back to the bed, not looking at me, talking loud, like somebody that comes upstairs first on Christmas morning and tells you what you're going to get on the Christmas tree that's not the thing you wrote Santa Claus for:

'Dont it beat all how much a fellow can learn and in what a short time, about something he not only never knowed before, he never even had no idea he would ever want to know it, let alone would find it useful to him for the rest of his life—providing he kept it, never let it get away from him. Take you, for instance. Just think. Here it aint but yesterday morning, not even two days back yet, and think how much you have learned: how to drive a automobile, how to go to Memphis across the country without depending on the railroad, even how to get a automobile out of a mudhole. So that when you get big and own a automobile of your own, you will not only already know how to drive it but the road to Memphis too and even how to get it out of a ffludhole.'

'Boss says that when I get old enough to own an automobile, there wont be any more mudholes to get into. That all the roads everywhere will be so smooth and hard that automobiles will be foreclosed and reclaimed by the bank or even wear out without ever seeing a mudhole.'

'Sure, sure,' Boon said, 'all right, all right. Say there aint no more need to know how to get out of a mudhole, at least you'll still know how to. Because why? Because you aint give the knowing how away to nobody.'

'Who could I give it to?' I said. 'Who would want to know how, if there aint any more mudholes?'

'All right, all right,' Boon said. 'Just listen to me a minute, will you? I ain't talking about mudholes. I'm talking about the things a fellow—boy can learn that he never even thought about before, that forever afterward, when he needs them he will already have them. Because there aint nothing you ever learn that the day wont come when you'll need it or find Use for it—providing you've still got it, aint let it get away from you by chance or, worse than that, give it away from carelessness or pure and simple bad judgment. Do you see what I mean now? Is that clear?'

'I dont know,' I said. 'It must be, or you couldn't keep on talking about it.'

'All right,' he said. 'That's point number one. Now for point number two. Me and you have been good friends as long as we have known each other, we're having a nice trip together; you done already learned a few things you never seen nor heard of before, and I'm proud to be the one to be along and help you learn them. And tonight you're fixing to learn some more things I dont think you have thought about before neither—things and information and doings that a lot of folks in Jefferson and other places too will try to claim you aint old enough yet to be bothered with knowing about them. But shucks, a boy that not only learned to run a automobile but how to drive it to Memphis and get it out of that son of a bitch's private mudhole too, all in one day, is plenty old enough to handle anything he'll meet. Only -' He had to cough again, hard, and clear his throat and then go to the window and open it and spit again and close it again. Then he came back.

'And that's point number three. That's what I'm trying to impress on you. Everything a m—fel—boy sees and learns and hears about, even if he dont understand it at the time and cant even imagine he will ever have any use