I could still see the smoke stack.
That's where the water would be, healing out to the sea and the peaceful grottoes.
Tumbling peacefully they would, and when He said Rise only the flat irons.
When Versh and I hunted all day we wouldn't take any lunch, and at twelve oclock I'd get hungry.
I'd stay hungry until about one, then all of a sudden I'd even forget that I wasn't hungry anymore.
The street lamps go down the hill then heard the car go down the hill. The chair-arm flat cool smooth under my forehead shaping the chair the apple tree leaning on my hair above the eden clothes by the nose seen You've got fever I felt it yesterday it's like being near a stove.
Dont touch me.
Caddy you cant do it if you are sick.
That blackguard.
I've got to marry somebody.Then they told me the bone would have to be broken again
At last I couldn't see the smoke stack.
The road went beside a wall.
Trees leaned over the wall, sprayed with sunlight.
The stone was cool.
Walking near it you could feel the coolness.
Only our country was not like this country.
There was something about just walking through it. A kind of still and violent fecundity that satisfied even bread-hunger like.
Flowing around you, not brooding and nursing every niggard stone.
Like it were put to makeshift for enough green to go around among the trees and even the blue of distance not that rich chimaera. told me the bone would have to be broken again and inside me it began to say Ah Ah Ah and I began to sweat. What do I care I know what a broken leg is all it is it wont be anything I'll just have to stay in the house a little longer that's all and my jaw-muscles getting numb and my mouth saying Wait Wait just a minute through the sweat ah ah ah behind my teeth and Father damn that horse damn that horse. Wait it's my fault. He came along the fence every morning with a basket toward the kitchen dragging a stick along the fence every morning I dragged myself to the window cast and all and laid for him with a piece of coal Dilsey said you goin to ruin yoself aint you got no mo sense than that not fo days since you bruck hit. Wait I'll get used to it in a minute wait just a minute I'll get
Even sound seemed to fail in this air, like the air was worn out with carrying sounds so long.
A dog's voice carries further than a train, in the darkness anyway.
And some people's.
Niggers.
Louis Hatcher never even used his horn carrying it and that old lantern.
I said,
"Louis, when was the last time you cleaned that lantern?"
"I cleant hit a little while back.
You member when all dat flood-watter wash dem folks away up yonder? I cleans hit dat ve'y day.
Old woman and me settin fo de fire dat night and she say
'Louis, whut you gwine do ef dat flood git out dis fur?' and I say
'Dat's a fack.
I reckon I had better clean dat lantun up.'
So I cleant hit dat night."
"That flood was way up in Pennsylvania," I said. "It couldn't ever have got down this far."
"Dat's whut you says," Louis said. "Watter kin git des ez high en wet in Jefferson ez hit kin in Pennsylvaney, I reckon.
Hit's de folks dat says de high watter cant git dis fur dat comes floatin out on de ridge-pole, too."
"Did you and Martha get out that night?"
"We done jest cat.
I cleans dat lantun and me and her sot de balance of de night on top o dat knoll back de graveyard.
En ef I'd a knowed of aihy one higher, we'd a been on hit instead."
"And you haven't cleaned that lantern since then."
"Whut I want to clean hit when dey aint no need?"
"You mean, until another flood comes along?"
"Hit kep us outen dat un."
"Oh, come on, Uncle Louis," I said.
"Yes, suh.
You do yo way en I do mine.
Ef all I got to do to keep outen de high watter is to clean dis yere lantun, I wont quoil wid no man."
"Unc' Louis wouldn't ketch nothin wid a light he could see by," Versh said.
"I wuz huntin possums in dis country when dey was still drowndin nits in yo pappy's head wid coal oil, boy," Louis said. "Ketchin um, too."