It’s like I’m blin’, it’s so dark.
I wanta remember, even if it’ son’y my fingers that remember.
You got to go away, Tom.”
“Yeah!
I knowed it from the start.”
“We made purty good,” she said. “I been squirrelin’ money away.
Hol’ out your han’, Tom.
I got seven dollars here.”
“I ain’t gonna take ya money,” he said.
“I’ll get ’long all right.”
“Hol’ out ya han’, Tom.
I ain’t gonna sleep none if you got no money.
Maybe you got to take a bus, or somepin.
I want you should go a long ways off, three-four hunderd miles.”
“I ain’t gonna take it.”
“Tom,” she said sternly. “You take this money.
You hear me?
You got no right to cause me pain.”
“You ain’t playin’ fair,” he said.
“I thought maybe you could go to a big city.
Los Angeles, maybe.
They wouldn’ never look for you there.”
“Hm-m,” he said.
“Lookie, Ma.
I been all day an’ all night hidin’ alone.
Guess who I been thinkin’ about?
Casy!
He talked a lot. Used ta bother me.
But now I been thinkin’ what he said, an’ I can remember—all of it.
Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an’ he foun’ he didn’ have no soul that was his’n. Says he foun’ he jus’ got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain’t no good, ’cause his little piece of a soul wasn’t no good ’less it was with the rest, an’ was whole. Funny how I remember.
Didn’ think I was even listenin’.
But I know now a fella ain’t no good alone.”
“He was a good man,” Ma said.
Tom went on,
“He spouted out some Scripture once, an’ it didn’ soun’ like no hell-fire Scripture.
He tol’ it twicet, an’ I remember it.
Says it’s from the Preacher.”
“How’s it go, Tom?”
“Goes,
‘Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, the one will lif’ up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.’
That’s part of her.”
“Go on,” Ma said. “Go on, Tom.”
“Jus’ a little bit more.
‘Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?
And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him, and a three-fold cord is not quickly broken.”’
“An’ that’s Scripture?”
“Casy said it was.
Called it the Preacher.”
“Hush—listen.”