We got too much, now.”
“I et six of them peaches,” Ruthie said.
“Well, you’ll have the skitters.
An’ it ain’t close to no toilet where we are.”
The company’s store was a large shed of corrugated iron.
It had no display window.
Ma opened the screen door and went in.
A tiny man stood behind the counter.
He was completely bald, and his head was blue-white.
Large, brown eyebrows covered his eyes in such a high arch that his face seemed surprised and a little frightened.
His nose was long and thin, and curved like a bird’s beak, and his nostrils were blocked with light brown hair.
Over the sleeves of his blue shirt he wore black sateen sleeve protectors.
He was leaning on his elbows on the counter when Ma entered.
“Afternoon,” she said.
He inspected her with interest.
The arch over his eyes became higher.
“Howdy.”
“I got a slip here for a dollar.”
“You can get a dollar’s worth,” he said, and he giggled shrilly. “Yes, sir.
A dollar’s worth.
One dollar’s worth.” He moved his hand at the stock. “Any of it.” He pulled his sleeve protectors up neatly.
“Thought I’d get a piece of meat.”
“Got all kinds,” he said.
“Hamburg, like to have some hamburg?
Twenty cents a pound, hamburg.”
“Ain’t that awful high?
Seems to me hamburg was fifteen las’ time I got some.”
“Well,” he giggled softly, “yes, it’s high, an’ same time it ain’t high.
Time you go on in town for a couple poun’s of hamburg, it’ll cos’ you ’bout a gallon gas.
So you see it ain’t really high here, ’cause you got no gallon a gas.”
Ma said sternly,
“It didn’ cos’ you no gallon a gas to get it out here.”
He laughed delightedly.
“You’re lookin’ at it bass-ackwards,” he said. “We ain’t a-buyin’ it, we’re a-sellin’ it.
If we was buyin’ it, why, that’d be different.”
Ma put two fingers to her mouth and frowned with thought.
“It looks all full a fat an’ gristle.”
“I ain’t guaranteein’ she won’t cook down,” the storekeeper said.
“I ain’t guaranteein’ I’d eat her myself; but they’s lots of stuff I wouldn’ do.”
Ma looked up at him fiercely for a moment.
She controlled her voice.
“Ain’t you got some cheaper kind a meat?”
“Soup bones,” he said. “Ten cents a pound.”
“But them’s jus’ bones.”
“Them’s jes’ bones,” he said. “Make nice soup.
Jes’ bones.”
“Got any boilin’ beef ?”
“Oh, yeah!
Sure.
That’s two bits a poun’.”