When the Whippoorwill by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Author:Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Stories
Publisher: Reading Essentials
Published: 1931-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

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That night at dead midnight I was laying sleeping and trusting beside my Will. In my dreams, like, I heard a sound like a person choking to death. It come to me my Will was strangling, and I lep outen the bed, me not plumb used to him being in it. ’Twa’n’t Will at all. He was snoring, but not no such sound as that un. It chilled my backbone. It come from the yard and I knowed somebody was out there getting murdered. The sound quit and I heard steps in the sand. I called out “Will!” and I leaned out the window. I wasn’t prepared. I just wasn’t prepared. I run my face smack into that blasted mule’s nose, and him standing there in the moonlight, peeking in the window.

“I might of knowed it was you,” I said to him. “Git! Git, you rambling stump-sucker! You and me is sure going to mix it in the morning.”

And in the morning, there was my gate-post chewed to splinters where that on-natural mule had been sucking on it in the darkness. And that wasn’t all. There was my fresh-set petunia plants—I’ve always been a fool for petunias—mashed to nothing. I followed the tracks and there was my sweet-potato beds trompled something astonishing. Most creeturs’ll walk in a low place, like the ruts of a road. But this mule had done rambled right down the tops of my potato beds. He’d walked down one row and up t’other, like a young un walking a fence, and ary place he’d set them big feet down, he’d cut a peck of sweet potatoes to where they wasn’t only fit for the hogs.

You know what I done? I done nothing. You know what I said? I said to my Will, “Peace is wuth more than potatoes.” For when I studied on it by daylight, I seed that if I put in to quarrel at Luty, I’d lose all chancet of talking give-and-take between him and Jim. Was it a mean woman or a un-patient one that held in like that? I say it was a mighty patient woman.

Now what I missed in crawling Luty about the mule, Jim Lee sure made up for. Spring come. The yellow jessamine had done quit blooming. I’d done cut back my petunia plants. Jim come to the house, and it about dusk-dark.

“I’m on my way to Luty’s,” he said, “to carry home my mule for my spring planting. Hope the little feller ain’t too pore to work.”

“His belly was sticking out like a rain barrel last time I seed him,” I said. “Bachelor or no, Luty ain’t as scarce with his rations as some folks I could mention.”

“Now Quincey—they told a lie on me when they told I won’t let my wife save out no butter for her own bread.”

“You’re powerful prompt denying it,” I said. “Ne’ mind. I’ll walk on over to Luty’s with you and carry him a mess of greens and bacon.”

So me and Jim walked on over to Luty’s.

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