To think how fine and golden the lady was
And how sweet she smelled, how sweet she looked at the men,
How they looked at her. “I’d like to smell sweet,” she thought,
“Smell like a lady.” She put the hard pillow back.
The lady and the green bottle had gone away.
—If only you had clever hands—after the next sleeper—
—You could steal green bottles—the room would smell stale again—
Hide it somewhere under your dress—as it always did—
Stale cigars and tired bodies—or even say
When they reached to give you the tip, “Don’t give me a tip,
Just give me”—unwashed men with their six-weeks’ beards,
Trying to hold you back when—“that little green bottle,
I want it so.”—but the lady would never do it.
Ladies named Lucy. Lucy was a good name,
Flower-smelling. Sophy was just a name.
She took up her broom and swept ineffectively,
Thinking dim thoughts. The ladies named Lucy came,
Sometimes, in the winter, and then all the men got shaved
And you could look through the door at the people dancing.
But when battles drew near, the ladies went home to stay.
It was right they should. War wasn’t a thing for ladies.
War was an endless procession of dirty boots.
Filling pitchers and emptying out the slops,
And making the cornhusk beds for the unshaved men
Who came in tired—but never too tired to wonder—
Look in the eyes—and hands—and suppose you didn’t,
They didn’t like it—and if you did, it was nothing—
But they always—and rough sometimes—and drunk now and then—
And a couple of nice ones—well, it didn’t mean nothing.
It was merely hard to carry the heavy pails
When you didn’t get fed enough and got up so soon.
But, now the army was moving, there wouldn’t be
So many men or beds or slops for a while
And that meant something. She sighed and dabbed with her broom.
Shippy, the little man with the sharp rat-eyes,
Came behind her and put his hands on her waist.
She let him turn her around. He held her awhile
While his eyes tried to look at her and over his shoulder
At once and couldn’t. She felt his poor body shake
But she didn’t think much about it. He murmured something.
She shook her head with the air of a frightened doll
And he let her go. “Well, I got to go anyway,”
He said, in a gloomy voice. “I’m late as it is,
But I thought that maybe—” He let the sentence trail off.
“What do you want, next time I come back?” he said.
Her face was sharper. “You bring me a bottle, Charley,
The kind that lady had, with the Richmond scent.
Hers has got a big silver stopper.” He pursed his mouth.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll try. I’d like to all right.
You be a good girl now, Soph. Do you love me, Sophy?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, in a tired voice, thinking of pitchers.
“Well, I—you’re a good girl, Soph.” He held her again.
“I’m late,” he muttered. She looked at him and felt mean.
He was skimpy like her. They ought to be nice to each other.
She didn’t like him much but she sort of loved him.
“You be a good girl till Charley comes back,” he mumbled,
Kissing her nervously. “I’ll bring you the scent.”
“It’s got a name called French Lilies,” she said. “Oh, Charley!”
They clung together a moment like mournful shadows.
He was crying a little, the wet tears fell on her chin,
She cried herself when he’d gone, she didn’t know why,
But when she thought of the scent with the silver stopper
She felt more happy. She went to make the next bed.
Luke Breckenridge, washing his shirt in a muddy pool,
Chewed on a sour thought. Only yesterday
He had seen the team creak by toward Pollet’s Hotel
With that damn little rat-eyed peddler driving his mules
As if he was God Almighty. He conjured up
A shadow-Shippy before him to hate and bruise
As he beat his shirt with a stone. “If we-uns was home,
I could just lay for him and shoot him out of the bresh,
Goin’ to see my girl with his lousy mules.
Tryin’ to steal my girl with his peddler’s talk!”
But here, in the war, you could only shoot at the Yanks,
If you shot other folks, they found out about it and shot you,
Just like you was a spyer or something mean
Instead of a soldier. There wasn’t no sense to it,
“Teach him to steal my girl—if I had him home,
Back in the mountains—I told her straight the last time,
You be a good girl, Soph, and I’ll buy you a dress—
We can fix the cabin up fine—and if we have kids
We’ll get ourselves married. Couldn’t talk fairer than that,
And she’s a good girl—but women’s easy to change—
God-damn peddler, givin’ her Richmond trash,
And we-uns movin’ away to scrimmage the Yanks
Before I git a chance to see her agin
And find out if she’s been good—He’ll come back this way,
Drivin’ his mules—plumb easy to lay for him,
But they’d catch me, shore.” His mouth had a bitter twist,
His slow mind grubbed for a plan to settle his doubts.
At last he dropped his stone with a joyous whoop.
“Hey, Billy,” he called to his neighbor. “Got your shirt dry?
Well, lend it here for a piece until mine’s wrung out,
I got to go see the Captain.” Billy demurred.
“I got friends enough in this shirt,” he said with a drawl.
“I ain’t hankerin’ after no visitors out of yours.
I’m a modest man and my crawlies is sort of shy,
They don’t mix well with strangers. They’s Piedmont crawlies.
Besides, this shirt, she’s still got more shirt than hole,
Yours ain’t a shirt—it’s a doughnut.” They swore for a while
But finally Luke went off with the precious shirt,
Whistling the tuneless snatch of a mountain jig,
“Gawd help you, peddler,” he thought, as he looked for the Captain.
Shippy drove his rattletrap cart along
Through the dusty evening, worried and ill at ease.
He ought to have taken the other road by the creek
But he’d wasted too much time at Pollet’s Hotel
Looking for Sophy—and hardly seen her at that—
And now she wanted a bottle of scent. His soul
Shivered with fear like a thin dog in the cold,
Raging in vain at the terrible thing called Life.
—There must be a corner somewhere where you could creep,
Curl up soft and be warm—but he’d
