Unvanquished

It was a big blank account book; it weighed almost fifteen pounds. They opened it on the reading desk, Granny and Ringo side by side, while Granny drew the tin can out of her dress and spread the money on the book. But nobody moved until she began to call out the names. Then they came up one at a tune, while Ringo read the names off the book, and the date, and the amount they had received before. Each time Granny would make them tell what they intended to do with the

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money, and now she would make them tell her how they had spent it, and she would look at the book to see whether they had lied or not. And the ones that she had loaned the brand-blotted mules that Ab Snopes was afraid to try to sell would have to tell her how the mule was getting along and how much work it had done, and now and then she would take the mule away from one man or woman and give it to another, tearing up the old receipt and making the man or the woman sign the new one, telling them on what day to go and get the mule.

So it was afternoon when Ringo closed the book and got the new receipts together, and Granny stopped put­ ting the rest of the money back into the can and she and Brother Fortinbride did what they did each time. 'I'm making out fine with the mule,' he said. 'I don't need any money.'

'Fiddlesticks,' Granny said. 'You'll never grow enough food out of the ground to feed a bird the long­est day you live. You take this money.'

'No,' Brother Fortinbride said. 'I'm making out fine.'

We walked back home, Ringo carrying the book. 'You done receipted out four mules you ain't hardly laid eyes on yet,' he said. 'What you gonter do about that?'

'They will be here tomorrow morning, I reckon,' Granny said. They were; Ab Snopes came in while we were eating breakfast; he leaned in the door with his eyes a little red from lack of sleep and looked at Granny.

'Yes, ma'am,' he said, 'I don't never want to be rich; I just want to be lucky. Do you know what you done?' Only nobody asked him what, so he told us any­way: 'Hit was taking place all day yestiddy; I reckon by now there ain't a Yankee regiment left hi Mississippi. You might say that this here war has turned around at last and went back North. Yes, sir. That regiment you requisitioned on Sattidy never even stayed long enough to warm the ground. You managed to requisition the last batch of Yankee livestock at the last possible mo­ment hit could have been done by living man. You made

F

no

THE UNVANQUISHED

just one mistake: You drawed them last nineteen mules just too late to have anybody to sell them back to.'

3

it was a bright warm day; we saw the guns and the bits shining a long way down the road. But this time Ringo didn't even move. He just quit drawing and looked up from the paper and said, 'So Ab Snopes was lying. Gre't God, ain't we gonter never get shet of them?' It was just a lieutenant; by this time Ringo and I could tell the different officers' ranks better than we could tell Confederate ranks, because one day we counted up and the only Confederate officers we had ever seen were Father and the captain that talked to us with Uncle Buck McCaslin that day in Jefferson before Grant burned it. And this was to be the last tune we would see any uniforms at all except as the walking sym­bols of defeated men's pride and indomitable unregret, but we didn't know that now.

So it was just a lieutenant. He looked about forty, and kind of mad and gleeful, both at the same time. Ringo didn't recognise him because he had not been in the wagon with us, but I did:—from the way he sat •the horse, or maybe from the way he looked mad and happy both, like he had been mad for several days, thinking about how much he was going to enjoy being mad when the right time came. And he recognised me, too; he looked at me once and said 'Hah!' with his teeth showing, and pushed his horse up and looked at Ringo's picture. There were maybe a dozen cavalry behind him; we never noticed especially. 'Hah!' he said again, then he said, 'What's that?'

'A house,' Ringo said. Ringo had never even looked at him good yet; he had seen even more of them than I had. 'Look at it.'

The lieutenant looked at me and said 'Hah!' again behind his teeth; every now and then while he was talking to Ringo he would do that. He looked at Ringo's picture. Then he looked up the grove to where the chimneys rose out of the pile of rubble and ashes. Grass and weeds had come up out of the ashes now, and unless you

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knew better, all you saw was the four chimneys. Some of the goldenrod was still in bloom. 'Oh,' the officer said. 'I see. You're drawing it like it used to be.'

'Co-rect,' Ringo said. 'What I wanter draw hit like hit is now? I can walk down here ten tunes a day and look at hit like hit is now. I can even ride in that gate on a horse and do that.'

The lieutenant didn't say 'Hah!' this time. He didn't do anything yet; I reckon he was still enjoying waiting a little longer to get good and mad. He just kind of grunted. 'When you get done here, you can move into town and keep busy all winter, can't you?' he said. Then he sat back in the saddle. He didn't say 'Hah!' now either; it was his eyes that said it, looking at me. They were a kind of thin milk color, like the chine knucklebone hi a ham. 'All right,' he said. 'Who lives up there now? What's her name today, hey?'

Ringo was watching him now, though I don't think he suspected yet who he was. 'Don't nobody,' he said. 'The roof leaks.' One of the men made a kind of sound; maybe it was laughing. The lieutenant started to whirl around, and then he started not to; then he sat there glaring down at Ringo with his mouth beginning to open. 'Oh,' Ringo said, 'you mean way back yonder, in the quarters. I thought you was still worrying about them chimneys.'

This time the soldier did laugh, and this time the lieutenant did whirl around, cursing at the soldier; I would have known him now even if I hadn't before. He cursed at them all now, sitting there with his face swell­ing up. 'Blank-blank-blank!' he shouted. 'Get to hell on out of here! He said that pen is down there in the creek bottom beyond the pasture. If you meet man, woman or child and they so much as smile at you, shoot them! Get!' The soldiers went on, galloping up the drive; we watched them scatter out across the pas­ture. The lieutenant looked at me and Ringo; he said 'Hah!' again, glaring at us. 'You boys come with me. Jump!'

He didn't wait for us; he galloped, too, up the drive. We ran; Ringo looked at me. ' 'He' said the pen