Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

So we had to wait. Which was interesting enough. I mean, Lawyer had enough to keep him occupied worrying the Italian Government, and all I ever needed was jest something to look at, watch, providing of course it had people in it. They—Flem and Linda—still lived in the same little house that folks believed for years after he bought it that he was still jest renting it. Though pretty soon Flem owned a automobile. I mean, presently, after the polite amount of time after he turned up president of the bank; not to have Santy Claus come all at once you might say. It wasn’t a expensive car: jest a good one, jest the right unnoticeable size, of a good polite unnoticeable black color and he even learned to drive it because maybe he had to because now ever afternoon after the bank closed he would have to go and watch how the carpenters was getting along with his new house (it was going to have colyums across the front now, I mean the extry big ones so even a feller that never seen colyums before wouldn’t have no doubt a-tall what they was, like in the photographs where the Confedrit sweetheart in a hoop skirt and a magnolia is saying good-bye to her Confedrit beau jest before he rides off to finish tending to General Grant) and Flem would have to drive hisself because, although Linda could drive it right off and done it now and then and never mind if all women are naturally interested in the house-building or -remodeling occupation no matter whose it is the same as a bird is interested in the nesting occupation, although she druv him there the first afternoon to look at the house, she wouldn’t go inside to look at it and after that one time she never even druv him back any more.

But like I said we was all busy or anyway occupied or at least interested, so we could wait. And sho enough, even waiting ends if you can jest wait long enough. So finally the medallion came. It was October now, a good time of year, one of the best. Naturally it was Lawyer went to the depot and got it though I’m sho Flem paid the freight on it for no other reason than Lawyer wouldn’t a waited long enough for the agent to add it up, herding the two Negroes toting it all wrapped up in straw and nailed up in a wooden boxuilding orross the platform to his car like he was herding two geese. And for the next three days when his office seen him it was on the fly you might say, from a distance when he happened to pass it. Which was a good thing there wasn’t no passel of brigands or highwaymen or contractors or jest simple lawyers making a concerted financial attack on Yoknapatawpha County at that time because Yoknapatawpha would a jest had to rock along the best it could without no help from its attorney. Because he had the masons already hired and waiting with likely even the mortar already mixed, even before the medallion come; one morning I even caught him, put my hand on the car door and says,

“I’ll ride out to the cemetery with you,” and he jest reached across, the car already in gear and the engine already racing, and lifted my hand off and throwed it away and says,

“Get out of the way,” and went on and so I went up to the office, the door never was locked nohow even when he was jest normal and jest out of it most of the time, and opened the bottom drawer where he kept the bottle but it never even smelled like he used to keep whiskey in it. So I waited on the street until school let out and finally caught that boy, Chick, and says,

“Hasn’t your uncle got some whiskey at home somewhere?” and he says,

“I don’t know. I’ll look. You want me to pour up a drink in something and bring it?” and I says,

“No. He dont need a drink. He needs a whole bottle, providing it’s big enough and full enough. Bring all of it; I’ll stay with him and watch.”

Then the monument was finished, ready for Flem to pass on it, and he—Lawyer—sent me the word too, brisk and lively as a general jest getting ready to capture a town: “Be at the office at three-thirty so we can pick up Chick. The train leaves Memphis at eight oclock so we wont have any time to waste.”

So I was there. Except it wasn’t in the office at all because he was already in the car with the engine already running when I got there. “What train at eight oclock to where and whose?” I says.

“Linda’s,” he says. “She’ll be in New York Saturday morning. She’s all packed and ready to leave. Flem’s sending her to Memphis in his car as soon as we are done.”

“Flem’s sending her?” I says.

“Why not?” he says. “She’s his daughter. After all you owe something to your children even if it aint your fault. Get in,” he says. “Here’s Chick.”