Light in August by William Faulkner Page A

mixed up with niggers. Visits them when they are sick, like they was white. Wont have a cook because it would have to be a nigger cook. Folks say she claims that niggers are the same as white folks. That’s why folks dont never go out there. Except one.” She is watching him, listening. Now he does not look at her, looking a little aside. “Or maybe two, from what I hear. I hope they was out there in time to help her move her furniture out. Maybe they was.”
    “Maybe who was?”
    “Two fellows named Joe that live out that way somewhere. Joe Christmas and Joe Brown.”
    “Joe Christmas? That’s a funny name.”
    “He’s a funny fellow.” Again he looks a little aside from her interested face. “His partner’s a sight, too. Brown. He used to work here too. But they done quit now, both of them. Which aint nobody’s loss, I reckon.”
    The woman sits on the towsack pad, interested, tranquil. The two of them might be sitting in their Sunday clothes,in splint chairs on the patinasmooth earth before a country cabin on a sabbath afternoon. “Is his partner named Joe too?”
    “Yes, ma’am. Joe Brown. But I reckon that may be his right name. Because when you think of a fellow named Joe Brown, you think of a bigmouthed fellow that’s always laughing and talking loud. And so I reckon that is his right name, even if Joe Brown does seem a little kind of too quick and too easy for a natural name, somehow. But I reckon it is his, all right. Because if he drew time on his mouth, he would be owning this here mill right this minute. Folks seem to like him, though. Him and Christmas get along, anyway.”
    She is watching him. Her face is still serene, but now it is quite grave, her eyes quite grave and quite intent. “What do him and the other one do?”
    “Nothing they hadn’t ought to, I reckon. At least, they aint been caught at it yet. Brown used to work here, some; what time he had off from laughing and playing jokes on folks. But Christmas has retired. They live out yonder together, out there somewhere where that house is burning. And I have heard what they do to make a living. But that aint none of my business in the first place. And in the second place, most of what folks tells on other folks aint true to begin with. And so I reckon I aint no better than nobody else.”
    She is watching him. She is not even blinking. “And he says his name is Brown.” It might have been a question, but she does not wait for an answer. “What kind of tales have you heard about what they do?”
    “I would injure no man,” Byron says. “I reckon I oughtnot to talked so much. For a fact, it looks like a fellow is bound to get into mischief soon as he quits working.”
    “What kind of tales?” she says. She has not moved. Her tone is quiet, but Byron is already in love, though he does not yet know it. He does not look at her, feeling her grave, intent gaze upon his face, his mouth.
    “Some claim they are selling whiskey. Keeping it hid out there where that house is burning. And there is some tale about Brown was drunk down town one Saturday night and he pretty near told something that ought not to been told, about him and Christmas in Memphis one night, or on a dark road close to Memphis, that had a pistol in it. Maybe two pistols. Because Christmas come in quick and shut Brown up and took him away. Something that Christmas didn’t want told, anyway, and that even Brown would have had better sense than to told if he hadn’t been drunk. That’s what I heard. I wasn’t there, myself.” When he raises his face now he finds that he has looked down again before he even met her eyes. He seems to have already a foreknowledge of something now irrevocable, not to be recalled, who had believed that out here at the mill alone on Saturday afternoon he would be where the chance to do hurt or harm could not have found him.
    “What does he look like?” she says.
    “Christmas? Why——”
    “I dont mean Christmas.”
    “Oh. Brown.