They just let the air out.
I just stood there for a while, thinking about that kitchen full of niggers and not one of them had time to lift a tire onto the rack and screw up a couple of bolts.
It was kind of funny because even she couldn't have seen far enough ahead to take the pump out on purpose, unless she thought about it while he was letting out the air maybe.
But what it probably was was somebody took it out and gave it to Ben to play with for a squirt gun because they'd take the whole car to pieces if he wanted it and Dilsey says, Aint nobody teched yo car.
What we want to fool with hit fer? and I says You're a nigger. You're lucky, do you know it?
I says I'll swap with you any day because it takes a white man not to have anymore sense than to worry about what a little slut of a girl does.
I walked up to Russell's.
He had a pump.
That was just an oversight on their part, I reckon.
Only I still couldn't believe she'd have had the nerve to.
I kept thinking that.
I dont know why it is I cant seem to learn that a woman'll do anything.
I kept thinking, Let's forget for a while how I feel toward you and how you feel toward me: I just wouldn't do you this way.
I wouldn't do you this way no matter what you had done to me.
Because like I say blood is blood and you cant get around it.
It's not playing a joke that any eight year old boy could have thought of, it's letting your own uncle be laughed at by a man that would wear a red tie.
They come into town and call us all a bunch of hicks and think it's too small to hold them.
Well he doesn't know just how right he is.
And her too.
If that's the way she feels about it, she'd better keep right on going and a dam good riddance.
I stopped and returned Russell's pump and drove on to town.
I went to the drugstore and got a shot and then I went to the telegraph office.
It had closed at 20.21, forty points down.
Forty times five dollars; buy something with that if you can, and she'll say, I've got to have it I've just got to and I'll say that's too bad you'll have to try somebody else, I haven't got any money; I've been too busy to make any.
I just looked at him.
"I'll tell you some news," I says. "You'll be astonished to learn that I am interested in the cotton market," I says. "That never occurred to you, did it?"
"I did my best to deliver it," he says. "I tried the store twice and called up your house, but they didn't know where you were," he says, digging in the drawer.
"Deliver what?" I says.
He handed me a telegram. "What time did this come?" I says.
"About half past three," he says.
"And now it's ten minutes past five," I says.
"I tried to deliver it," he says. "I couldn't find you."
"That's not my fault, is it?" I says.
I opened it, just to see what kind of a lie they'd tell me this time.
They must be in one hell of a shape if they've got to come all the way to Mississippi to steal ten dollars a month.
Sell, it says.
The market will be unstable, with a general downward tendency.
Do not be alarmed following government report.
"How much would a message like this cost?" I says.
He told me.
"They paid it," he says.
"Then I owe them that much," I says. "I already knew this.
Send this collect," I says, taking a blank.
Buy, I wrote, Market just on point of blowing its head off.
Occasional flurries for purpose of hooking a few more country suckers who haven't got in to the telegraph office yet.
Do not be alarmed.
"Send that collect," I says.
He looked at the message, then he looked at the clock.
"Market closed an hour ago," he says.
"Well," I says. "That's not my fault either.