I could hear her when she reached the top, then in the hall.
Then the door slammed.
Mother had stopped.
Then she came on.
"Dilsey," she says.
"All right," Dilsey says. "Ise comin.
You go on and git dat car and wait now," she says, "so you kin cahy her to school."
"dont you worry," I says. "I'll take her to school and I'm going to see that she stays there.
I've started this thing, and I'm going through with it."
"Jason," Mother says on the stairs.
"Go on, now," Dilsey says, going toward the door. "You want to git her started too?
Ise comin, Miss Cahline."
I went on out.
I could hear them on the steps.
"You go on back to bed now," Dilsey was saying. "dont you know you aint feeling well enough to git up yet?
Go on back, now.
I'm gwine to see she gits to school in time."
I went on out the back to back the car out, then I had to go all the way round to the front before I found them.
"I thought I told you to put that tire on the back of the car," I says.
"I aint had time," Luster says. "Aint nobody to watch him till mammy git done in de kitchen."
"Yes," I says. "I feed a whole dam kitchen full of niggers to follow around after him, but if I want an automobile tire changed, I have to do it myself."
"I aint had nobody to leave him wid," he says.
Then he begun moaning and slobbering.
"Take him on round to the back," I says. "What the hell makes you want to keep him around here where people can see him?"
I made them go on, before he got started bellowing good.
It's bad enough on Sundays, with that dam field full of people that haven't got a side show and six niggers to feed, knocking a dam oversize mothball around.
He's going to keep on running up and down that fence and bellowing every time they come in sight until first thing I know they're going to begin charging me golf dues, then Mother and Dilsey'll have to get a couple of china door knobs and a walking stick and work it out, unless I play at night with a lantern.
Then they'd send us all to Jackson, maybe.
God knows, they'd hold Old Home week when that happened.
I went on back to the garage.
There was the tire, leaning against the wall, but be damned if I was going to put it on.
I backed out and turned around.
She was standing by the drive.
I says,
"I know you haven't got any books: I just want to ask you what you did with them, if it's any of my business.
Of course I haven't got any right to ask," I says. "I'm just the one that paid $11.65 for them last September."
"Mother buys my books," she says. "There's not a cent of your money on me.
I'd starve first."
"Yes?" I says. "You tell your grandmother that and see what she says.
You dont look all the way naked," I says, "even if that stuff on your face does hide more of you than anything else you've got on."
"Do you think your money or hers either paid for a cent of this?" she says.
"Ask your grandmother," I says. "Ask her what became of those checks.
You saw her burn one of them, as I remember." She wasn't even listening, with her face all gummed up with paint and her eyes hard as a fice dog's.
"Do you know what I'd do if I thought your money or hers either bought one cent of this?" she says, putting her hand on her dress.
"What would you do?" I says. "Wear a barrel?"
"I'd tear it right off and throw it into the street," she says. "dont you believe me?"
"Sure you would," I says. "You do it every time."
"See if I wouldn't," she says.
She grabbed the neck of her dress in both hands and made like she would tear it.
"You tear that dress," I says, "and I'll give you a whipping right here that you'll remember all your life."