The Essential Faulkner by William Faulkner Read Free Book Online Page B

came forward. “You are now to eat of the corn of those white men yonder,” Doom said. “May it nourish you.” The white men went away, the ten black people following them. “Now,” Doom said, “let us make the steamboat get up and walk.”
    Herman Basket said that he and pappy did not go into the river with the others, because pappy said to go aside and talk. They went aside. Pappy talked, but Herman Basket said that he said he did not think it was right to kill white men, but pappy said how they could fill the white men with rocks and sink them in the river and nobody would find them. So Herman Basket said they overtook the three white men and the ten black people, then they turned back toward the boat. Just before they came to the steamboat, pappy said to the black men: “Go on to the Man. Go and help make the steamboat get up and walk. I will take this woman on home.”
    “This woman is my wife,” one of the black men said. “I want her to stay with me.”
    “Do you want to be arranged in the river with rocks in your inside too?” pappy said to the black man.
    “Do you want to be arranged in the river yourself?” the black man said to pappy. “There are two of you, and nine of us.”
    Herman Basket said that pappy thought. Then pappy said, “Let us go to the steamboat and help the Man.”
    They went to the steamboat. But Herman Basket said that Doom did not notice the ten black people until it was time to return to the Plantation. Herman Basket told how Doom looked at the black people, then looked at pappy. “It seems that the white men did not want these black people,” Doom said.
    “So it seems,” pappy said.
    “The white men went away, did they?” Doom said.
    “So it seems,” pappy said.
    Herman Basket told how every night Doom would make all the men sleep in the House, with the dogs in the House too, and how each morning they would return to the steamboat in the wagons. The wagons would not hold everybody, so after the second day the women stayed at home. But it was three days before Doom noticed that pappy was staying at home too. Herman Basket said that the woman’s husband may have told Doom. “Craw-ford hurt his back lifting the steamboat,” Herman Basket said he told Doom. “He said he would stay at the Plantation and sit with his feet in the Hot Spring so that the sickness in his back could return to the earth.”
    “That is a good idea,” Doom said. “He has been doing this for three days, has he? Then the sickness should be down in his legs by now.”
    When they returned to the Plantation that night, Doom sent for pappy. He asked pappy if the sickness had moved. Pappy said how the sickness moved very slow. “You must sit in the Spring more,” Doom said.
    “That is what I think,” pappy said.
    “Suppose you sit in the Spring at night too,” Doom said.
    “The night air will make it worse,” pappy said.
    “Not with a fire there,” Doom said. “I will send one of the black people with you to keep the fire burning.”
    “Which one of the black people?” pappy said.
    “The husband of the woman which I won on the steamboat,” Doom said.
    “I think my back is better,” pappy said.
    “Let us try it,” Doom said.
    “I know my back is better,” pappy said.
    “Let us try it, anyway,” Doom said. Just before dark Doom sent four of the People to fix pappy and the black man at the Spring. Herman Basket said the People returned quickly. He said that as they entered the House, pappy entered also.
    “The sickness began to move suddenly,” pappy said. “It has reached my feet since noon today.”
    “Do you think it will be gone by morning?” Doom said.
    “I think so,” pappy said.
    “Perhaps you had better sit in the Spring tonight and make sure,” Doom said.
    “I know it will be gone by morning,” pappy said.
IV
    When it got to be summer, Herman Basket said that the steamboat was out of the river bottom. It had taken them five months to get it out of the bottom,