And so when Earl came up front with his hat on he says,
"I'm going to step up to Rogers' and get a snack.
We wont have time to go home to dinner, I reckon."
"What's the matter we wont have time?" I says.
"With this show in town and all," he says. "They're going to give an afternoon performance too, and they'll all want to get done trading in time to go to it.
So we'd better just run up to Rogers'."
"All right," I says. "It's your stomach. If you want to make a slave of yourself to your business, it's all right with me."
"I reckon you'll never be a slave to any business," he says.
"Not unless it's Jason Compson's business," I says.
So when I went back and opened it the only thing that surprised me was it was a money order not a check.
Yes, sir.
You cant trust a one of them.
After all the risk I'd taken, risking Mother finding out about her coming down here once or twice a year sometimes, and me having to tell Mother lies about it.
That's gratitude for you. And I wouldn't put it past her to try to notify the postoffice not to let anyone except her cash it. Giving a kid like that fifty dollars. Why I never saw fifty dollars until I was twentyone years old, with all the other boys with the afternoon off and all day Saturday and me working in a store.
Like I say, how can they expect anybody to control her, with her giving her money behind our backs.
She has the same home you had I says, and the same raising. I reckon Mother is a better judge of what she needs than you are, that haven't even got a home.
"If you want to give her money," I says, "you send it to Mother, dont be giving it to her.
If I've got to run this risk every few months, you'll have to do like I say, or it's out."
And just about the time I got ready to begin on it because if Earl thought I was going to dash up the street and gobble two bits worth of indigestion on his account he was bad fooled.
I may not be sitting with my feet on a mahogany desk but I am being payed for what I do inside this building and if I cant manage to live a civilised life outside of it I'll go where I can.
I can stand on my own feet; I dont need any man's mahogany desk to prop me up.
So just about the time I got ready to start I'd have to drop everything and run to sell some redneck a dime's worth of nails or something, and Earl up there gobbling a sandwich and half way back already, like as not, and then I found that all the blanks were gone.
I remembered then that I had aimed to get some more, but it was too late now, and then I looked up and there she came.
In the back door.
I heard her asking old Job if I was there.
I just had time to stick them in the drawer and close it.
She came around to the desk.
I looked at my watch.
"You been to dinner already?" I says. "It's just twelve; I just heard it strike.
You must have flown home and back."
"I'm not going home to dinner," she says. "Did I get a letter today?"
"Were you expecting one?" I says. "Have you got a sweetie that can write?"
"From Mother," she says. "Did I get a letter from Mother?" she says, looking at me.
"Mother got one from her," I says. "I haven't opened it.
You'll have to wait until she opens it.
She'll let you see it, I imagine."
"Please, Jason," she says, not paying any attention. "Did I get one?"
"What's the matter?" I says. "I never knew you to be this anxious about anybody.
You must expect some money from her."
"She said she-- " she says. "Please, Jason," she says.
"Did I?"
"You must have been to school today, after all," I says. "Somewhere where they taught you to say please.
Wait a minute, while I wait on that customer."
I went and waited on him.
When I turned to come back she was out of sight behind the desk.
I ran.
I ran around the desk and caught her as she jerked her hand out of the drawer.
I took the letter away from her, beating her knuckles on the desk until she let go.
"You would, would you?" I says.
"Give it to me," she says. "You've already opened it.