Flannery O'Connor Complete Short Stories by Flannery O’Connor Read Free Book Online

“Lord don’t want me with no wildcat marks.” He was moving toward the cat hole. Across on the riverbank the Lord was waiting on him with a troupe of angels and golden vestments for him to put on and when he came, he’d put on the vestments and stand there with the Lord and the angels, judging life. Won’t no nigger for fifty miles fitter to judge than him. Pick. He stopped. He smelled it right outside, nosing the hole. He had to climb onto something! What he going toward it for? He had to get on something high! There was a shelf nailed over the chimney and he turned wildly and fell against a chair and shoved it up to the fireplace. He caught hold of the shelf and pulled himself onto the chair and sprang up and backwards and felt the narrow shelf board under him for an instant and then felt it sag and jerked his feet up and felt it crack somewhere from the wall. His stomach flew inside him and stopped hard and the shelf board fell across his feet and the rung of the chair hit against his head and then, after a second of stillness, he heard a low, gasping animal cry wail over two hills and fade past him; then snarls, tearing short, furious, through the pain wails. Gabriel sat stiff on the floor.
    â€œCow,” he breathed finally. “Cow.”
    Gradually he felt his muscles loosen. It got to her befo’ him. It would go on off now, but it would be back tomorrer night. He rose shaking from the chair and stumbled to his bed. The cat had been a half mile away. He won’t sharp like he used to be. They shouldn’t leave old people by theyselves. He done tole ’em they won’t gonna ketch nothin’ off in no woods. Tomorrer night it would come back. Tomorrer night they would stay here an’ kill it. Now he want to sleep. He done tole ’em they couldn’t get no wildcat in no woods. He the one tole ’em where it gonna be. They’d a listened to him, they’d done had it by now. When he die he want to be sleepin’ in a bed; didn’t want to be on no floor with a wildcat stuck in his face. Lord waitin’.
    When he woke up, the darkness was full of morning things. He heard Mose and Luke at the stove and smelled the side meat in the skillet. He reached for his snuff and filled his lip. “What yawl ketch?” he asked trenchantly.
    â€œAin’t caught nothin’ las’ night.” Luke put the plate in his hands. “Here yo’ side meat. How you bust that shelf?”
    â€œAin’t busted no shelf,” old Gabriel muttered. “Wind to’ it down and waked me up in the middle of the night. It been due to fall. You ain’t never built nothin’ yet stayed together.”
    â€œWe sot a trap,” Mose said. “We git that cat tonight.”
    â€œYawl sho will, boys,” Gabriel said. “It’ll be right here tonight. Ain’t it done kill a cow a half a mile from here las’ night?”
    â€œThat don’t mean it comin’ this way,” Luke said.
    â€œIt comin’ this way,” Gabriel said.
    â€œHow many wildcats you killed, Granpaw?”
    Gabriel stopped; the plate of side meat tremored in his hand. “I knows what I knows, boy.”
    â€œWe git it soon. We sot a trap over in Ford’s Woods. It been around there. We goin’ up in a tree over the trap every night an’ wait ’til we gits it.”
    Their forks were scraping back and forth over their tin plates like knife teeth against stone.
    â€œYou wants sommo’ side meat, Granpaw?”
    Gabriel put his fork down on the quilt. “No, boy,” he said, “no mo’ side meat.” The darkness was hollow around him and through its depth, animal cries wailed and mingled with the beats pounding in his throat.

The Crop
    Miss Willerton always crumbed the table. It was her particular household accomplishment and she did it with great thoroughness. Lucia and Bertha did the dishes and Garner went into the