Proud Flesh by William Humphrey Read Free Book Online

time a feeling as pure as his love for Ma and along with it—
    He was being watched. He hunched himself, his neck stiffening and his senses straining alert. He located his observer directly. Perched on a limb of a tree and watching him wide-eyed as an owl was one of the children from the work camp. But for Clyde it was an imp from hell, and a great sadness came over him at the thought that his depravity had been judged to merit no bigger a devil than a mere cub like this one. And when it grinned at him, baring not fangs but rows of small white milk teeth, as much as to say, “You are not as bad as you would like to think,” Clyde’s soul shriveled inside him like the kernel of a nut gone bitter.
    The child leapt to the ground and ran away and Clyde caught his breath with a sob and gathered strength to recommence running, and he heard someone calling him. Turning, though he hardly needed to turn, for he knew who it was, who it would be, even knew, God help him, what she would say, he saw a short black figure in skirts down to the ground toddling after him along the lane, calling in a voice exactly the same as the caw of a crow, “Mista Cly! Mista Cly! Mista Cly!”
    Was it really so short a time ago that she had come to him with the tale which had destroyed forever the contentment he had not known was his until it was taken from him? Could the misery he seemed now to have lived with always really be still so fresh? She had come saying she hated to bother him with problems when he had enough on his own, but she had nobody else to turn to, and this was his problem, too, in a way. He would not want any trouble on the place if he could help it. He was the boss, and if he acted now to stop it before it went any further, before it came out in the open, he might be saving himself some unpleasantness and be saving her and them a lot of real bad trouble.
    She said she had always vowed and determined not to be the kind of old woman who meddled in her daughter’s way of raising her children. How whenever she saw anything she disapproved of, no matter how strong the temptation to interfere, she would just close her eyes, keep her mouth shut. How she had not said anything when Shug announced that she was quitting school with only one more year to go before graduating and neither Eulalie nor Archie, who ought to have taken a father’s place when a little sister without a father and too young to know what a mistake she was making, did nothing to oppose it. How even on that terrible day when she announced that she was getting married and then named her choice of a husband as if she expected them to forbid it and then to despise them when they did not, she still had just bitten her tongue and said nothing. It was not her place to speak when those who were closest to Shug did not. That wedding day had been the unhappiest day of her life—though she could never thank Mr. Clyde enough for helping them make the best of a bad situation, taking on Shug’s husband (she could never bring herself to utter his name, not to his face nor in speaking about him) to work around the place (work! hah! that worthless human wreck!) and fixing them up that nice little house all for their own—but so was it the unhappiest day in her life for poor Eulalie, and for her to have said anything would only have made it all the harder on her.
    He had been about to show his impatience with all this when he sensed that it must be leading somewhere and that it might concern him to know where. Instantly it concerned him deeply. She said she hated to meddle, to spy and tell tales, and she had held off from coming to him for just as long as she could, hoping things would work out by themselves. How long was that? he wondered, his heart racing. Long enough for what to have happened? She apologized for bothering him. She knew he had enough on his mind already without getting involved in …
    That was all right, he said patiently,