William Faulkner - Flags in the Dust

“How much is it?”

The leader swelled impressively in his Prince Albert. “Brudder Mo’,” he said, “will you read out de total emoluments owed to de pupposed Secon’ Baptis’ church by de late Deacon Strother in his capacity ez treasurer of de church boa’d?”

Brother Moore in the rear of the group genuflected himself, Thai ready hands pushed him into the foreground—a small ebon negro in sombre, over-large black—where the parson majestically made room for him. He laid his hat on the earth at his feet and from the right-hand pocket of his coat he produced in the following order, a red bandana handkerchief; a shoe horn; a plug of chewing tobacco, and holding these in his hand he delved yet further, with an expression of mildly conscientious alarm. Then he replaced the objects, and from his left-hand pocket he produced a pocket knife; a stick on which was wound a length of dingy string; a short piece of leather strap attached to a rusty buckle, and lastly a greasy, dog-eared notebook. He crammed the other things back into the pocket, dropping the leather strap, which he stooped and recovered, then he and the parson held a brief whispered conversation. He opened the notebook and fumbled the pages over, fumbled at them until the parson leaned over hisshoulder and found the proper page and laid his finger upon it.

“How much is it, reverend?” old Bayard asked.

“Brudder Mo’ will now read out de amount,” theparson said. Brother Moore stared at the page andmumbled something in a weak, indistinguishablevoice.

“What?” old Bayard demanded.

“Make ‘im talk up,” Simon said. “Can’t nobody tell whut he sayin’.”

“Louder,” the parson rumbled, with just a trace of impatience.

“Sixty-sevum dollars en fawty cents,” Brother Moore articulated at last. Old Bayard sat and swore for a time, then rose and tramped into the house, still swearing. Simon sighed and relaxed. The deputation milled again, politely, and Brother Moore faded briskly into the rear rank of it The parson, however, still retained his former attitude of fateful and solemn profundity.

“What became of that money, Simon?” Miss Jenny asked curiously. “You had it, didn’t you?”

“Dat’swhutdey claims,” Simon answered.

“What did you do with it?”

“Hit’s all right,” Simon assured her. “Ijes’ put it out, sort of.”

“I bet you did,” she agreed drily. “I bet it never even got cool while you had it. Who did you put it outto?”

“Oh, me and Cunnel done fix dat up” he said, “long time ago.” Old Bayard tramped in the hall again, and emerged flapping a check in his hand.

“Here,” he commanded, and the parson approached the railing and took it and folded it away in his coat pocket. Old Bayard glared at Simon. “And the next time you steal money and come to me topay it back, I’m going to have you arrested and prosecute you myself, you hear? Get those niggers out of here.”

The deputation stirred again, with a concertedmovement, but the parson halted than with a commanding hand. He turned and faced Simon. “DeaconStrother,” he said, “ez awdained minister of de lateFust Baptis’ church, en recalled minister of the pupposedSecon’ Baptis’ church, en chairman of dis committee, I hereby reinfests you wid yo. fawmer capacity of deacon in de said pupposed Secon’ Baptis’church. Amen. Cunnel Sartoris en ma’am, goodday.” Then he turned and herded his committee from sight.

“Thank de Lawd, we got rid of dat,” Simon said, and he came and lowered himself to the top step, groaning pleasurably.

“And you remember what I said,” old Bayard warned him. “One more time, now—”

But Simon was peering in the direction the churchcommittee had taken. “Dar now,” he said. “Whutyou reckon dey wants now?” For the deputation hadreturned and it now peered diffidently around the corner.

“Well,” old Bayard said violently “What is it now?”

They were trying to thrust Brother Moore forward again, but he would not be thrust. At last the parson spoke.

“You fergot de fawty cents, whitefolks.”

“What?”

“He says you lef out de extry fawty cents “Simon shouted. Old Bayard exploded; Miss Jenny chapped her hands over her ears and the committee rolled its eyes in fearsome admiration while he soared to magnificent heights, alighting finally upon Simon.

“You give him that forty cents, and get’em out of here,” old Bayard finished. “And if you ever bring ‘em back here again, I’ll take a horsewhip to the whole lot of you.”

“Lawd, Cunnel, I ain’t got fawty cents, en you knows it. Can’t dey do widout dat, after gittin’ de rest of it?”

“Yes you have, Simon,” Miss Jenny said, “Yon had a half a dollar left after I ordered those shoes for you last night.” Again Simon looked at her with pained astonishment.

“Give it to ‘em,” old Bayard commanded. Slowly Simon reached into his trousers and produced a half dollar and turned it slowly in his palm.

“Imought need dis money, Cunnel,” he protested. “Seems like deymought leave me dis.”

“Give ‘em that money!” old Bayard thundered. “I reckon you can pay forty cents of it, at least.” Simon rose reluctantly, and the minister approached to meet him.

“Whar’s my dime change?” he demanded, nor would he surrender the coin until the two nickels were in his hand. Then the committee departed.

“Now,” old Bayard said, “I want to know; what you did with that money.”

“Well, suh,” Simon began, “it wuz like dis. I put dat money out” Miss Jenny rose.

“My Lord,” she said, “are you all going over that again?” And she left them. In her room, where she sat in a sunny window, she could still hear them—old Bayard’s stormy rage, and Simon’s bland and ready evasion rising and falling on the drowsy Sabbath air.

There was a rose, a single remaining rose. Through the sad, dead days of late summer it had continued tobloom, and now though persimmons had long swung their miniature suns among the caterpillar-festooned branches, and gum and maple and hickory had flaunted four gold-and-scarlet weeks, and the grass, where grandfathers of grasshoppers squatted sluggishly like sullen octogenarians, had been pencilled twice delicately with frost, and the sunny noons were scented with sassafras, it still bloomed Overripe now, and a little gallantly blowsy, like a fading burlesque star. Miss Jenny worked in a sweater, nowadays, and her trowel glinted brightly in her earthy glove.

“It’s like some women I’ve known,” she said. “It just don’t know how to give up gracefully and be a grandmamma.”

“Let it have the summer out,” Narcissa, in her dark woolen dress, protested. She had a trowel too, and she pottered serenely after Miss Jenny’s scolding brisk impatience, accomplishing nothing. Worse than Isom, because she demoralized Isom, who had immediately given his unspoken alliance to the Left, or passive, Wing. “It’s entitled to its summer.”

“Some folks don’t know when summer’s over,” Miss Jenny rejoined. “Indian summer’s no excuse for senile adolescence.”

“It isn’t senility, either.”

“All right. You’ll see, someday.”

“Oh, someday. I’m not quite prepared to be a grandmother, yet.”

“You’re doing pretty well.” Miss Jenny trowelled a tulip bulb carefully and expertly up and removed the clotted earth from its roots. “We seem to have pretty well worn out Bayard, for the time being,” she continued. “I reckon we’d better name him John.”

“Yes?”

“Yes,” Miss Jenny repeated. “We’ll name him John. You, Isom!”

The gin had been running steadily for a month, now, what with the Sartoris cotton and that of other planters further up the valley, and of smaller croppers with their tilted fields among the hills. The Sartoris place was farmed on shares. Most of the tenants had picked their cotton, and gathered the late corn; and of late afternoons, with Indian summer upon the land and an ancient sadness sharp as woodsmoke on the still air, Bayard and Narcissa would drive out to where, beside a dilapidated cotton house on the edge of a wooden ravine above a spring, the tenants brought their cane and made their winter supply of sorghum molasses. One of the negroes, a sort of patriarch among them, owned the mill and the mule that furnished the motive power. He did the community grinding and superintended the cooking of the juice for a tithe, and when Bayard and Narcissa arrived the mule would be plodding in a monotonous circle, its feet rustling in the dried cane-pith, drawing the long wooden beam which turned the mill into which one of the patriarch’s grandsons fed the cane.