William Faulkner: Collected Stories

Then he went on, and I went back to where Solon and Homer was setting on the running board of Solon’s schoolbus truck, eating, and sho enough Solon said jest exactly what pap said he was going to.

“I admire his optimism, but he’s mistaken. If it’s something he needs that he can’t use his natural hands and feet for, he’s going somewhere else than jest his own house.”

We had jest went back to the shingles when pap rid up and got down and tied the mule back to the sapling and come and taken up the ax and snicked the blade into the next cut.

“Well, men,” he said, “I been thinking about it. I still don’t think it’s right, but I still ain’t thought of anything to do about it. But somebody’s got to make up for them two hours nobody worked this morning, and since you fellers are two to one against me, it looks like it’s going to be me that makes them up. But I got work waiting at home for me tomorrow. I got corn that’s crying out loud for me right now. Or maybe that’s jest a lie too. Maybe the whole thing is, I don’t mind admitting here in private that I been outfigured, but I be dog if I’m going to set here by myself tomorrow morning admitting it in public. Anyway, I ain’t. So I’m going to trade with you, Solon. You can have the dog.”

Solon looked at pap. “I don’t know as I want to trade now,” he said.

“I see,” pap said. The ax was still stuck in the cut. He began to pump it up and down to back it out.

“Wait,” Solon said. “Put that durn ax down.” But pap held the ax raised for the lick, looking at Solon and waiting.

“You’re swapping me half a dog for a half a day’s work,” Solon said. “Your half of the dog for that half a day’s work you still owe on these shingles.”

“And the two dollars!” pap said. “That you and Tull agreed on. I sell you half the dog for two dollars, and you come back here tomorrow and finish the shingles. You give me the two dollars now, and I’ll meet you here in the morning with the dog, and you can show me the receipt from Tull for his half then.”

“Me and Tull have already agreed,” Solon said.

“All right,” pap said. “Then you can pay Tull his two dollars and bring his receipt with you without no trouble.”

“Tull will be at the church tomorrow morning, pulling off them old shingles,” Solon said.

“All right,” pap said. “Then it won’t be no trouble at all for you to get a receipt from him. You can stop at the church when you pass. Tull ain’t named Grier. He won’t need to be off somewhere borrowing a crowbar.”

So Solon taken out his purse and paid pap the two dollars and they went back to work. And now it looked like they really was trying to finish that afternoon, not jest Solon, but even Homer, that didn’t seem to be concerned in it nohow, and pap, that had already swapped a half a dog to get rid of whatever work Solon claimed would be left over. I quit trying to stay up with them; I jest stacked shingles.

Then Solon laid his froe and maul down. “Well, men,” he said, “I don’t know what you fellers think, but I consider this a day.”

“All right,” pap said. “You are the one to decide when to quit, since whatever elbow units you consider are going to be shy tomorrow will be yourn.”

“That’s a fact,” Solon said. “And since I am giving a day and a half to the church instead of jest a day, like I started out doing, I reckon I better get on home and tend to a little of my own work.” He picked up his froe and maul and ax, and went to his truck and stood waiting for Homer to come and get in.

“I’ll be here in the morning with the dog,” pap said.

“Sholy,” Solon said. It sounded like he had forgot about the dog, or that it wasn’t no longer any importance. But he stood there again and looked hard and quiet at pap for about a second. “And a bill of sale from Tull for his half of it. As you say, it won’t be no trouble a-tall to get that from him.”

Him and Homer got into the truck and he started the engine.

You couldn’t say jest what it was. It was almost like Solon was hurrying himself, so pap wouldn’t have to make any excuse or pretense toward doing or not doing anything. “I have always understood the fact that lightning don’t have to hit twice is one of the reasons why they named it lightning. So getting lightning-struck is a mistake that might happen to any man. The mistake I seem to made is, I never realized in time that what I was looking at was a cloud. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“With the dog,” pap said.

“Certainly,” Solon said, again like it had slipped his mind completely. “With the dog.”

Then him and Homer drove off. Then pap got up.

“What?” I said. “What? You swapped him your half of Tull’s dog for that half a day’s work tomorrow. Now what?”

“Yes,” pap said. “Only before that I had already swapped Tull a half a day’s work pulling off them old shingles tomorrow, for Tull’s half of that dog. Only we ain’t going to wait until tomorrow. We’re going to pull them shingles off tonight, and without no more racket about it than is necessary. I don’t aim to have nothing on my mind tomorrow but watching Mr. Solon Work-Unit Quick trying to get a bill of sale for two dollars or ten dollars either on the other half of that dog. And we’ll do it tonight. I don’t want him jest to find out at sunup tomorrow that he is too late. I want him to find out then that even when he laid down to sleep he was already too late.”

So we went back home and I fed and milked while pap went down to Killegrews’ to carry the froe and maul back and to borrow a crowbar. But of all places in the world and doing what under the sun with it, Old Man Killegrew had went and lost his crowbar out of a boat into forty feet of water. And pap said how he come within a inch of going to Solon’s and borrowing his crowbar out of pure poetic justice, only Solon might have smelled the rat jest from the idea of the crowbar. So pap went to Armstid’s and borrowed hisn and come back and we et supper and cleaned and filled the lantern while maw still tried to find out what we was up to that couldn’t wait till morning.

We left her still talking, even as far as the front gate, and come on back to the church, walking this time, with the rope and crowbar and a hammer for me, and the lantern still dark.

Whitfield and Snopes was unloading a ladder from Snopes’ wagon when we passed the church on the way home before dark, so all we had to do was to set the ladder up against the church. Then pap clumb up onto the roof with the lantern and pulled off shingles until he could hang the lantern inside behind the decking, where it could shine out through the cracks in the planks, but you couldn’t see it unless you was passing in the road, and by that time anybody would a already heard us. Then I clumb up with the rope, and pap reached it through the decking and around a rafter and back and tied the ends around our waists, and we started. And we went at it. We had them old shingles jest raining down, me using the claw hammer and pap using the crowbar, working the bar under a whole patch of shingles at one time and then laying back on the bar like in one more lick or if the crowbar ever happened for one second to get a solid holt, he would tilt up that whole roof at one time like a hinged box lid.

That’s exactly what he finally done. He laid back on the bar and this time it got a holt. It wasn’t jest a patch of shingles, it was a whole section of decking, so that when he lunged back he snatched that whole section of roof from around the lantern like you would shuck a corn nubbin. The lantern was hanging on a nail. He never even moved the nail, he jest pulled the board off of it, so that it looked like for a whole minute I watched the lantern, and the crowbar, too, setting there in the empty air in a little mess of floating shingles, with the empty nail still sticking through the bail of the lantern, before the whole thing started down into the church.