Sanctuary

out. At each intersection they would turn this way or that, until at last

only the hearse and the six Packards were left, each carrying no occupant

save the liveried driver. The street was broad and now infrequent, with a

white line down the center that diminished on ahead and into the smooth

asphalt emptiness. Soon the hearse was making forty miles an hour, then

forty-five and then fifty.

One of the cabs drew up at Miss Reba's door. She got out, followed a thin

woman in sober, severe clothes and gold nose-glasses, and a short plump

woman in a plumed hat, her face hidden by a handkerchief, and a small

bullet-headed boy of five or six. The woman with the handkerchief continued

to sob in snuffy gasps as they went up the walk and entered the lattice.

Beyond the house door the dogs set up a falsetto uproar. When Minnie opened

the door they surged

142 WILLIAM FAULKNER

about Miss Reba's feet. She kicked them aside. Again they assailed her

with snapping eagerness; again she flung them back against the wall in

muted thuds.

"Come in, come in," she said, her hand to her breast. Once inside the

house the woman with the handkerchief began to weep aloud.

"Didn't he look sweet?" she wailed. "Didn't he look sweet!"

"Now, now," Miss Reba said, leading the way to her room,

come in and have some beer. You'll feel better. Minnie!" They entered the

room with the decorated dresser, the safe, the screen, the draped

portrait. "Sit down, sit down," she panted, shoving the chairs forward.

She lowered herself into one and stooped terrifically toward her feet.

"Uncle Bud, honey," the weeping woman said, dabbing at her eyes, "come

and unlace Miss Reba's shoes."

The boy felt and removed Miss Reba's shoes. "And if you'll just reach me

them house slippers under the bed there, honey," Miss Reba said. The boy

fetched the slippers. Minnie entered, followed by the dogs. They rushed

at Miss Reba and began to worry the shoes she had just removed.

"Scatl" the boy said, striking at one of them with his hand. The dog's

head snapped around, it's teeth clicking, it's halfhidden eyes bright and

malevolent. The boy recoiled. "You bite me, you thon bitch," he said.

"Uncle Bud!" the fat woman said, her round face, rigid in fatty folds and

streaked with tears, turned upon the boy in shocked surprise, the plumes

nodding precariously above it. Uncle Bud's head was quite round, his Dose

bridged with freckles like splotches of huge summer rain on a sidewalk.

The other woman sat primly erect, in gold nose-glasses on a gold chain

and neat iron-gray hair. She looked like a schoolteacher. "The very

ideal" the fat woman said. "How in the world can he learn such words on

an Arkansaw farm, I don't know."

"They'll learn meanness anywhere," Miss Reba said. Minnie leaned down a

tray bearing three frosted tankards. Uncle Bud watched with round

cornflower eyes as they took one each. The fat woman began to cry again.

"He looked so sweet!" she wailed.

"We all got to suffer it," Miss Reba said. "Well, may it be a long day-,"

lifting her tankard. They drank, bowing formally to one another. The fat

woman dried her eyes; the two guests wiped their lips with prim decorum.

The thin one coughed delicately aside, behind her hand.

"Such good beer," she said.

"Aint it?" the fat one said. "I always say it's the greatest pleasure I

have to call on Miss Reba."

SANCTUARY 143

They began to talk politely, in decorous half-completed sentences, with

little gasps of agreement. The boy had moved aimlessly to the window,

peering beneath the lifted shade.

"How long's he going to be with you, Miss Myrtle?" Miss Reba said.

"Just till Sat'dy," the fat woman said. "Then he'll go back home. It

makes a right nice little change for him, with me for a week or two. And

I enjoy having him."

"Children are such a comfort to a body," the thin one said.

"Yes," Miss Myrtle said. "Is them two nice young fellows still with you,

Miss Reba?"

"Yes," Miss Reba said. "I think I got to get shut of them, though. I aint

specially tenderhearted, but after all it aint no use in helping young

folks to learn this world's meanness until they have to. I already had

to stop the girls running around the house without no clothes on, and

they dont like it."

They drank again, decorously, handling the tankards delicately, save Miss

Reba who grasped hers as though it were a weapon, her other hand lost in

her breast. She set her tankard down empty. "I get so dry, seems like,"

she said. "Wont you ladies have another?" They murmured, ceremoniously.

"Minnie!" Miss Reba shouted.

Minnie came and filled the tankards again. "Reely, I'm right ashamed,"

Miss Myrtle said. "But Miss Reba has such good beer. And then we've all

had a kind of upsetting afternoon."

"I'm just surprised it wasn't upset no more," Miss Reba said. "Giving

away all that free liquor like Gene done."

"It must have cost a good piece of jack," the thin woman said.

"I believe you," Miss Reba said. "And who got anything out of it? Tell

me that. Except the privilege of having his place hell-full of folks not