She just stood there, looking at me, twisting her hands together.
"Damn you," she says. "Damn you."
"Sure," I says. "That's all right too.
Mind what I say, now.
After number 17, and I tell them."
After she was gone I felt better.
I says I reckon you'll think twice before you deprive me of a job that was promised me.
I was a kid then.
I believed folks when they said they'd do things.
I've learned better since.
Besides, like I say I guess I dont need any man's help to get along I can stand on my own feet like I always have.
Then all of a sudden I thought of Dilsey and Uncle Maury.
I thought how she'd get around Dilsey and that Uncle Maury would do anything for ten dollars.
And there I was, couldn't even get away from the store to protect my own Mother.
Like she says, if one of you had to be taken, thank God it was you left me I can depend on you and I says well I dont reckon I'll ever get far enough from the store to get out of your reach.
Somebody's got to hold on to what little we have left, I reckon.
So as soon as I got home I fixed Dilsey.
I told Dilsey she had leprosy and I got the bible and read where a man's flesh rotted off and I told her that if she ever looked at her or Ben or Quentin they'd catch it too.
So I thought I had everything all fixed until that day when I came home and found Ben bellowing.
Raising hell and nobody could quiet him.
Mother said, Well, get him the slipper then.
Dilsey made out she didn't hear.
Mother said it again and I says I'd go I couldn't stand that dam noise.
Like I say I can stand lots of things I dont expect much from them but if I have to work all day long in a dam store dam if I dont think I deserve a little peace and quiet to eat dinner in.
So I says I'd go and Dilsey says quick,
"Jason!"
Well, like a flash I knew what was up, but just to make sure I went and got the slipper and brought it back, and just like I thought, when he saw it you'd thought we were killing him.
So I made Dilsey own up, then I told Mother.
We had to take her up to bed then, and after things got quieted down a little I put the fear of God into Dilsey.
As much as you can into a nigger, that is.
That's the trouble with nigger servants, when they've been with you for a long time they get so full of self importance that they're not worth a dam.
Think they run the whole family.
"I like to know whut's de hurt in lettin dat po chile see her own baby," Dilsey says.
"If Mr Jason was still here hit ud be different."
"Only Mr Jason's not here," I says. "I know you wont pay me any mind, but I reckon you'll do what Mother says.
You keep on worrying her like this until you get her into the graveyard too, then you can fill the whole house full of ragtag and bobtail.
But what did you want to let that dam boy see her for?"
"You's a cold man, Jason, if man you is," she says. "I thank de Lawd I got mo heart den cat, even ef hit is black."
"At least I'm man enough to keep that flour barrel full," I says. "And if you do that again, you wont be eating out of it either."
So the next time I told her that if she tried Dilsey again, Mother was going to fire Dilsey and send Ben to Jackson and take Quentin and go away.
She looked at me for a while.
There wasn't any street light close and I couldn't see her face much.
But I could feel her looking at me.
When we were little when she'd get mad and couldn't do anything about it her upper lip would begin to jump.
Everytime it jumped it would leave a little more of her teeth showing, and all the time she'd be as still as a post, not a muscle moving except her lip jerking higher and higher up her teeth.
But she didn't say anything.
She just said,
"All right.
How much?"
"Well, if one look through a hack window was worth a hundred," I says.