He let her out where he turned off from the main road, and she walked along for a while till she was just about as tired of walking as she could stand to be, no cars passing at all, and she saw that old shack off in its meadow of weeds. Good things happen three at a time, and here was a place where she could take her shoes off and put her suitcase and her bedroll down. That road followed a river, so there wouldn’t be much else to want. She could wash the dust off, get a drink.
Those first few days, clearing out the shack and washing at the river, finding dandelion greens and ferns still coming up and wild carrot, finding a rabbit burrow. Life is hard in the spring, and still it all felt like something she had almost died for the want of. She found a patch of violets blooming and lay down there, and ate every single flower, one by one, the way Mellie used to do. Mellie sitting there Indian-style with a blossom perched on the tip of her tongue like a toad with a butterfly, thinking about something else, some plan for the next ten minutes. Once, when she had that look on her face, Marcelle said, “Now what’s she getting up to?” and Doane said, “She’s just hatching a couple more freckles.” Lila told the child, “I believe I really was a little crazy then, because things I remembered seemed so real to me. I don’t wonder at it. I just hope nobody saw me acting that way.” There was a time, when she was riding along in that car with the window down a crack, smelling the dark, wet fields, that she thought when she got the chance she might just lie right down on the ground in some lonely place and let the world take her life away. She felt that way when she saw those violets and remembered the old times, and she did lie down, but then the ants started bothering. There always was something bothering, and you had to be scratching and shifting around. The world don’t want you as long as there is any life in you at all.
But a place like that, just waiting, unless somebody came along and said it was his. She’d left the bottles and tins where they were except in the one corner, so it wouldn’t look like she meant to take the place if she didn’t have the right. But she did spread out her bedroll and lie down, and next thing she knew, it was almost morning. She could hear the birds singing. What is it they know, when the sky is still dark? Mellie said if just one of them saw just one bit of light, it’d wake up the rest of them and then they’d all go at it, making sure none of them stayed asleep. That’s what she did herself when she woke up first, no matter how early it was. Hum, hum, hum. I just wisht I knew where they put them matches. They got to be somewheres around here. Hum, hum, hum. I was thinking I’d get breakfast started. Tripping over Lila’s foot once or twice. What would one bit of light look like? A star. The birds would never be sleeping at all. Mellie would say, That’s all right, I know what I know.
She thought for a few days that she must have come to the end of her life, because it felt so much like the beginning of it. She was waiting for something to happen and nothing did. Then she started thinking about the movies again, until she was afraid she would get tired of them, that she’d wear them out and wouldn’t have them anymore to go back to. And then she decided she’d take a look at that town they’d passed through. Well, she had the money she didn’t have to spend on a bus ticket, so she could walk into town and buy a few things.
She’d noticed there was a movie theater, which you wouldn’t really expect in a town that size. She strolled by to see what was playing. To Have and Have Not. She’d seen it. That’s the worst part about a small town. Well, pretty soon she wouldn’t even know how long something had been showing in the city. Not that she should be spending money on a movie now anyway. Fishing line, fishing hooks, a pot, cornmeal, some matches. The man at the counter looked at her like Well, I never seen you around here before, meaning to be a little friendly, and she looked at him like Mind your own damn business. That same man gave her a big jar of cloves for a wedding present, wrapped in white paper. “Helps with the toothache,” he said. He played third base and the Reverend pitched, back in the old, old days. At first she just hated having to deal with anybody. Then she got used to seeing how the gardens came along. Sometimes people would nod when she passed. She made up her mind about which house was the prettiest. That wasn’t the one where she stopped to ask the lady if she might be looking for some help. Mrs. Graham. She was working in her garden and Lila saw her there and thought she might as well ask. There are women who take pride in how kind they are and jump at every chance, their eyes all shining with it so you can’t help but notice. You keep clear of them if you can, but they do come in handy. Sometimes you want a bowl of soup. She said, “Why, yes, dear, I am! Yes, I am looking
