Free A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines Page B

back against the fence, overseeing us. He looked terribly frail that day. I hadn’t seen him in several months. He was being looked after by a relative, who did not care too much for anyone visiting him, and especially darker people. She admitted me into the room and left us. He sat at the fireplace. Summer or winter, he always sat at the fireplace when he was inside. We shook hands. His hand was large, cold, and bony. He was coughing a lot. “We got our first load of wood last week,” I told him. “Nothing changes,” he said. “I guess I’m a genuine teacher now,” I said. He nodded, and coughed. He didn’t seem to want to talk. Still, I sat there, both of us gazing into the fire. “Any advice?” I asked him. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “Just do the best you can. But it won’t matter.”

9
    AT ONE-THIRTY I left school to take Miss Emma into Bayonne. She came out on the porch with Tante Lou, and she had a basket hung over one arm and a handbag in the other hand. Tante Lou closed the door to keep the heat in the room, and she and Miss Emma came down the walk and out to the car. Miss Emma wore her brown overcoat with the rabbit fur around the collar and cuffs. Tante Lou wore only a sweater, so I figured she was not going to Bayonne with us. She opened the door for Miss Emma to get into the back seat, and after shutting it, she leaned against the door to continue their conversation. I am sure they had been talking all day, but still they had things to talk about.
    â€œThis way is best,” she said.
    Miss Emma may have nodded, but I am not sure. I refused to look into the mirror at them.
    â€œAnything else he need, let me know,” my aunt went on. “They got plenty old socks and shirts round the place.”
    â€œI think we’re supposed to be there around two,” I said, without looking back at them.
    I could feel both sets of eyes on the back of my neck.
    â€œTell him I’m praying,” my aunt said. “Y’all better go. I’ll see you when you get back.”
    She was talking to Miss Emma, not to me. She knew how I felt about the whole thing. I drove farther down the quarter and turned around. My aunt was standing where we had left her; she was waving now. You might have thought we were going to China instead of the thirteen miles to Bayonne.
    Driving along the St. Charles River, I could feel Miss Emma not looking at me, not looking at anything—just thinking. Maybe once or twice she glanced in my direction, but most of the time she was lost in thought. Like my aunt, she knew how much I hated all this.
    So the thirteen miles to Bayonne were driven in silence. I didn’t say anything to her, she didn’t say anything to me. I never looked at her in the rearview mirror. I never turned my head to the river on my right or to the houses on the side of the road to my left. As far up the highway as you could see were stalks of sugarcane that had fallen off the trailers on their way to the mill. The people were gathering pecans on either side of the road, but I looked at them only from a distance. If they waved, I did not wave back. I didn’t want Miss Emma to think for a moment that my mood had changed.
    The courthouse, like most of the public buildings in town, was made of red brick. Built around the turn of the century, it looked like a small castle you might see in the countryside somewhere in Europe. The parking lot that surrounded the courthouse was covered with crushed seashells. A statue of a Confederate soldier stood to the right of the walk that led up to the courthouse door. Above the head of the statue, national, state, and Confederate flags flew on long metal poles. The big clock on the tower struck two as I parked opposite the statue and the flags. It took Miss Emma a while to get out of the car, so by the time we came into the sheriff’s office, the clock on the wall there said five