Then the monument was finished, ready for Flem to pass on it, and he—Lawyer—sent me the word too, brisk and lively as a general jest getting ready to capture a town: “Be at the office at three-thirty so we can pick up Chick. The train leaves Memphis at eight oclock so we wont have any time to waste.”
So I was there. Except it wasn’t in the office at all because he was already in the car with the engine already running when I got there. “What train at eight oclock to where and whose?” I says.
“Linda’s,” he says. “She’ll be in New York Saturday morning. She’s all packed and ready to leave. Flem’s sending her to Memphis in his car as soon as we are done.”
“Flem’s sending her?” I says.
“Why not?” he says. “She’s his daughter. After all you owe something to your children even if it aint your fault. Get in,” he says. “Here’s Chick.”
So we went out to the cemetery and there it was—another colyum not a-tall saying what it had cost Flem Snopes because what it was saying was exactly how much it was worth to Flem Snopes, standing in the middle of that new one-grave lot, at the head of that one grave that hadn’t quite healed over yet, looking—the stone, the marble—whiter than white itself in the warm October sun against the bright yellow and red and dark red hickories and sumacs and gums and oaks like splashes of fire itself among the dark green cedars. Then the other car come up with him and Linda in the back sea the Negro driver that would drive her to Memphis in the front seat with the baggage (it was all new too) piled on the seat by him; coming up and stopping, and him setting there in that black hat that still looked brand new and like he had borrowed it, and that little bow tie that never had and never would look anything but new, chewing slow and steady at his tobacco; and that gal setting there by him, tight and still and her back not even touching the back of the seat, in a kind of dark suit for travelling and a hat and a little veil and her hands in white gloves still and kind of clenched on her knees and not once not never once ever looking at that stone monument with that marble medallion face that Lawyer had picked out and selected that never looked like Eula a- tall you thought at first, never looked like nobody nowhere you thought at first, until you were wrong because it never looked like all women because what it looked like was one woman that ever man that was lucky enough to have been a man would say, “Yes, that’s her. I knowed her five years ago or ten years ago or fifty years ago and you would a thought that by now I would a earned the right not to have to remember her any more,” and under it the carved letters that he hisself, and I dont mean Lawyer this time, had picked out:
EULA VARNER SNOPES
1889 1927
A VIRTUOUS WIFE IS A CROWN TO HER HUSBAND
HER CHILDREN RISE AND CALL HER BLESSED
and him setting there chewing, faint and steady, and her still and straight as a post by him, not looking at nothing and them two white balls of her fists on her lap. Then he moved. He leant a little and spit out the window and then set back in the seat.
“Now you can go,” he says.
TWENTY-FOUR
“What’s the matter?” Then he said, “Well, let’s get on back. You boys are free to loaf all day long if you want to but after all I work for the County so I have to stay close enough to the office so that anybody that wants to commit a crime against it can find me.”
So we got in the car and he started it and we drove back to town. Except that he was talking about football now, saying to me: “Why dont you wake up and get out of that kindergarten and into high school so you can go out for the team? I’ll need somebody I know on it because I think I know what’s wrong with football the way they play it now; going on from there, talking and even turning loose the wheel with both hands to show us what he meant; how the trouble with football was, only an expert could watch it because nobody else could keep up with what was happening; how in baseball everybody stood still and the ball moved and so you could keep up with what was happening. But in football, the ball and everybody else moved at the same time and not only that but always in a clump, a huddle with the ball hidden in the middle of them so you couldn’t even tell who did have it, let alone who was supposed to have it; not to mention the ball being already the color of dirt and all the players thrashing and rolling around in the mud and dirt until they were all that same color too; going on like that, waving both hands with Ratliff and me both hollering, “Watch the wheel! Watch the wheel!” and Uncle Gavin saying to Ratliff, “Now you dont think so,” or “You claim different of course,” or “No matter what you say,” and Ratliff saying, “Why, I never,” or “No I dont,” or “I aint even mentioned football,” until finally he—Ratliff—said to me:
“Did you find that bottle?”
“No sir,” I said. “I reckon Father drank it. Mr Gowrie wont bring the next kag until Sunday night.”
“Let me out here,” Ratliff said to Uncle Gavin. Uncle Gavin stopped talking long enough to say,
“What?”
“I’ll get out here,” Ratliff said. “See you in a minute.”
So Uncle Gavin stopped long enough for Ratliff to get out (we had just reached the Square), then we went on, Uncle Gavin talking again or still talking since he had only stopped long enough to say What? to Ratliff, and parked the car and went up to the office and he was still talking that same kind of foolishness that you never could decide whether it didn’t make any sense or not, and took one of the pipes from the bowl and begun to look around the desk until I went and shoved the tobacco jar up and he looked at the jar and said, “Oh yes, thanks,” and put the pipe down, still talking. Then Ratliff came in and went to the cooler and got a glass and the spoon and sugar-bowl from the cabinet and took a pint bottle of white whiskey from inside of his shirt, Uncle Gavin still talking, and made the toddy and came and held it out.
“Here,” he said.
“Why, much obliged,” Uncle Gavin said. “That looks fine. That sure looks fine.” But he didn’t touch it. He didn’t even take it while Ratliff set it down on the desk where I reckon it was still sitting when Clefus came in the next morning to sweep the office and found it and probably had already started to throw it out when he caught his hand back in time to smell it or recognise it or anyway drink it. And now Uncle Gavin took up the pipe again and filled it and fumbled in his pocket and then Ratliff held out a match and Uncle Gavin stopped talking and looked at it and
