"When you talk that way I know you are thinking bitterly of your father's memory," she says. "You have a right to, I suppose.
But it breaks my heart to hear you."
I got up.
"If you've got any crying to do," I says, "you'll have to do it alone, because I've got to get on back.
I'll get the bank book."
"I'll get it," she says.
"Keep still," I says. "I'll get it." I went up stairs and got the bank book out of her desk and went back to town.
I went to the bank and deposited the check and the money order and the other ten, and stopped at the telegraph office.
It was one point above the opening.
I had already lost thirteen points, all because she had to come helling in there at twelve, worrying me about that letter.
"What time did that report come in?" I says.
"About an hour ago," he says.
"An hour ago?" I says. "What are we paying you for?" I says. "Weekly reports?
How do you expect a man to do anything? The whole dam top could blow off and we'd not know it."
"I dont expect you to do anything," he says. "They changed that law making folks play the cotton market."
"They have?" I says. "I hadn't heard.
They must have sent the news out over the Western Union."
I went back to the store.
Thirteen points.
Dam if I believe anybody knows anything about the dam thing except the ones that sit back in those New York offices and watch the country suckers come up and beg them to take their money.
Well, a man that just calls shows he has no faith in himself, and like I say if you aren't going to take the advice, what's the use in paying money for it.
Besides, these people are right up there on the ground; they know everything that's going on.
I could feel the telegram in my pocket.
I'd just have to prove that they were using the telegraph company to defraud.
That would constitute a bucket shop.
And I wouldn't hesitate that long, either.
Only be damned if it doesn't look like a company as big and rich as the Western Union could get a market report out on time.
Half as quick as they'll get a wire to you saying Your account closed out.
But what the hell do they care about the people.
They're hand in glove with that New York crowd.
Anybody could see that.
When I came in Earl looked at his watch.
But he didn't say anything until the customer was gone.
Then he says,
"You go home to dinner?"
"I had to go to the dentist," I says because it's not any of his business where I eat but I've got to be in the store with him all the afternoon.
And with his jaw running off after all I've stood.
You take a little two by four country storekeeper like I say it takes a man with just five hundred dollars to worry about it fifty thousand dollars' worth.
"You might have told me," he says. "I expected you back right away."
"I'll trade you this tooth and give you ten dollars to boot, any time," I says. "Our agreement was an hour for dinner," I says, "and if you dont like the way I do, you know what you can do about it." "I've known that some time," he says. "If it hadn't been for your mother I'd have done it before now, too.
She's a lady I've got a lot of sympathy for, Jason.
Too bad some other folks I know cant say as much."
"Then you can keep it," I says. "When we need any sympathy I'll let you know in plenty of time."
"I've protected you about that business a long time, Jason," he says.
"Yes?" I says, letting him go on.
Listening to what he would say before I shut him up.
"I believe I know more about where that automobile came from than she does."
"You think so, do you?" I says. "When are you going to spread the news that I stole it from my mother?"
"I dont say anything," he says.
"I know you have her power of attorney.