Journeyman by Erskine Caldwell Read Free Book Online Page A

it,” Clay said, keeping beyond reach of Semon’s nubbin-like thumb. “I just never could stand to be goosed.”
    Semon put his feet on the railing and gazed across the yard as though nothing had happened.
    “You have to have religion to be a preacher, Horey,” he explained. “You can’t preach unless you know what you’re preaching about.”
    “I reckon you must be right. But maybe I’ll get it at the schoolhouse Sunday.”
    “I’ll do my damnedest to give it to you. That’s my job—giving people religion.”
    “There’s one thing about being a preacher I don’t know about, though,” Clay said doubtfully.
    “What’s that?”
    “I like white girls just a shade better than I do darky ones. I don’t know whether I could be satisfied with one like Sugar all the time.”
    “That all depends,” Semon said. “Every man has his own likes. You could have white ones, I reckon, if you’d rather. It don’t make much difference, in the end. Colored girls are a little easier and quicker to get; other than that, I don’t know that it would make much difference—except that they know how to get ’way down like a white girl don’t know about.”
    “I reckon a fellow could sort of get used to them,” Clay said. “And he could switch around every once in a while, too, if he wanted to.”
    “That sounds like it might be all right, but it won’t work out. It never does work out.”
    “Why won’t it work out? What’s wrong with that?”
    “You get so you lose your hold, jumping around from one to the other. You forget that white girls cry when it’s all over and you get ready to leave. Colored girls don’t.”
    “Well, I’ll declare,” Clay said. “I never would have known that. I reckon it would spoil it some.”

Chapter VII
    T OM R HODES WAS late in getting back from McGuffin. Clay and Semon had been waiting for him all afternoon. They were afraid he had drunk the rest of the corn liquor in the jug. If he had, Clay had already decided to make him go home and bring them another jugful to take the place of that which he and Semon considered rightfully theirs.
    Neither of them ate much supper. As soon as they had eaten a little grits and sweet potatoes, they got up hurriedly from the table and went back on the front porch to wait for Tom. Tom had promised to stop when he came back; they wished to be there to remind him of it when he did drive up.
    Half an hour before dark Semon heard an automobile coming up the road in a hurry. Clay ran out to see if it was Tom coming back from McGuffin. In the failing light it was not easy to recognize Tom’s car a quarter of a mile away, and Clay went to the middle of the road to be in a position to wave him down. He was going to stop Tom Rhodes from going on past if he possibly could.
    “It’s Tom, all right,” he called to Semon at the gate a moment later. “I know his noise.”
    Semon ran out to the road and waited beside him.
    Tom bore down upon them without slackening speed. Just when it looked as if he had no intention of stopping, and that he was going to run over them, he swung the front wheels to the side of the road with a mighty wrench of both arms, and the car narrowly missed them both. He stopped it and shut off the engine.
    “Who’s that with you, Tom?” Clay yelled at him, running to the car.
    Tom leaped out on the ground as though he were a ten-year-old boy.
    “You’ve seen her enough times to remember,” Tom said. “Now, look and see if you don’t.”
    Lorene stepped out and ran around to the other side.
    “Well, I’ll be doggone if I won’t!” Clay said. “Where did you come from, Lorene?”
    Lorene threw both arms around his neck and kissed him. She would not turn him loose.
    “Where’s my little boy?” she asked.
    “Who? Vearl? Oh, Vearl’s somewhere down there. I reckon he’s played so hard today he went to sleep in Susan’s house. I wouldn’t bother him now. Just let the little fellow sleep till morning, and I’ll go