It was not my mother.
She went away when the other one laid down in her bed and drew the quilt up.
She went away.
"Did she go as far as town?”
"She went further than town."
"Did all those rabbits and possums go further than town?"
God made the rabbits and possums.
He made the train.
Why must He make a different place for them to go if she is just like the rabbit.
Pa walks around.
His shadow does.
The saw sounds like it is asleep.
And so if Cash nails the box up, she is not a rabbit.
And so if she is not a rabbit I couldn't breathe in the crib and Cash is going to nail it up.
And so if she lets him it is not her.
I know.
I was there.
I saw when it did not be her.
I saw.
They think it is and Cash is going to nail it up.
It was not her because it was laying right yonder in the dirt.
And now it's all chopped up.
I chopped it up.
It's laying in the kitchen in the bleeding pan, waiting to be cooked and et.
Then it wasn't and she was, and now it is and she wasn't.
And tomorrow it will be cooked and et and she will be him and pa and Cash and Dewey Dell and there wont be anything in the box and so she can breathe.
It was laying right yonder on the ground.
I can get Vernon.
He was there and he seen it, and with both of us it will be and then it will not be.
Tull.
It was nigh to midnight and it had set into rain when he woke us.
It had been a misdoubtful night, with the storm making; a night when a fellow looks for most anything to happen before he can get the stock fed and himself to the house and supper et and in bed with the rain starting, and when Peabody's team come up, lathered, with the broke harness dragging and the neck-yoke betwixt the off critter's legs, Cora says
"It's Addie Bundren.
She's gone at last."
"Peabody mought have been to ere a one of a dozen houses hereabouts," I says.
"Besides, how do you know it's Peabody's team?"
"Well, aint it?" she says.
"You hitch up, now."
"What for?" I says.
"If she is gone, we cant do nothing till morning.
And it fixing to storm, too."
"It's my duty," she says.
"You put the team in."
But I wouldn't do it.
"It stands to reason they'd send for us if they needed us.
You dont even know she's gone yet."
"Why, dont you know that's Peabody's team?
Do you claim it aint?
Well, then."
But I wouldn't go.