Sounder by William H. Armstrong

Author:William H. Armstrong [Armstrong, William H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062105561
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 1969-03-23T08:00:00+00:00

The boy’s father stood with his hands on the bars. He did not have his hands and feet chained together. Seeing the hands that could handle a hot pot lid without a pot rag, open the stove door without using a poker, or skin a possum by holding the hind legs of the carcass with one hand and the hide with the other and just pulling, the boy knew his father could have choked the cruel man with the bull neck.

The father looked at the boy and said, “Child.” On the way, the boy had thought about what he would say to his father. He had practiced talking about his mother selling kernels at the store and buying the cake makings, his little brother and sisters being all right, no strangers coming past, not finding Sounder’s body. And he was going to ask his father where Sounder came to him along the road when he wasn’t more’n a pup. He practiced saying them all over and over to get the quiver and the quiet spells out of his voice because his mother had said, “Whatever you do, child, act perkish and don’t grieve your father.”

But the boy was full of mixed hate and pity now, and it addled him. There was an opening in the bars with a flat, iron shelf attached on the inside. The boy had left the lid of the box on the floor. Now he pushed the box through the opening and said, “This was a cake, before—” But he couldn’t finish. An awful quiet spell destroyed all his practice.

“Sounder might not be dead,” the boy said. He knew his father was grieved, for he swallowed hard and the quiet spells came to him too.

“I’ll be back ’fore long,” said his father.

From somewhere down the corridor there came a loud belly laugh, and a loud voice called out, “Listen to the man talk.”

“Tell her not to grieve.” His father was almost whispering now.

“Sounder didn’t die under the cabin.” But the boy couldn’t keep the quivering out of his voice.

“Tell her not to send you no more.” The quiet spells were getting longer. The man stopped looking through the bars at the boy and looked down at the cake.

“If he wasn’t shot in his vitals,” the boy said, “he might get healed in the woods.” Then there was a long quiet spell that was split in the middle by the loud clank of an iron door banging shut.

“Tell her I’ll send word with the visitin’ preacher.”

The big red-faced man with the bull neck opened the corridor door and yelled, “Visitin’ over.” The boy felt numb and cold, like he had felt standing outside the jail door. He choked up. He had grieved his father. He hated the red-faced man, so he wouldn’t cry until he got outside.

“Come on, boy,” the man yelled, swinging the big key ring.

“Go, child,” the father said. “Hurry, child.”

The boy was the last person through the big iron door. The bull-necked man pushed him and said, “Git, boy, or next time you won’t get in.

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