Free The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor

slunk over to him. He pulled the animal’s short, scraggy ears and rolled over with it in the mud.”
    Miss Willerton settled back. That was a good beginning. Now she would plan her action. There had to be a woman, of course. Perhaps Lot could kill her. That type of woman always started trouble. She might even goad him on to kill her because of her wantonness and then he would be pursued by his conscience maybe.
    He would have to have principles if that were going to be the case, but it would be fairly easy to give him those. Now how was she going to work that in with all the love interest there’d have to be, she wondered. There would have to be some quite violent, naturalistic scenes, the sadistic sort of thing one read of in connection with that class. It was a problem. However, Miss Willerton enjoyed such problems. She liked to plan passionate scenes best of all, but when she came to write them, she always began to feel peculiar and to wonder what the family would say when they read them. Garner would snap his fingers and wink at her at every opportunity; Bertha would think she was terrible; and Lucia would say in that silly voice of hers, “What have you been keeping from us, Willie? What have you been keeping from us?” and titter like she always did. But Miss Willerton couldn’t think about that now; she had to plan her characters.
    Lot would be tall, stooped, and shaggy but with sad eyes that made him look like a gentleman in spite of his red neck and big fumbling hands. He’d have straight teeth and, to indicate that he had some spirit, red hair. His clothes would hang on him but he’d wear them nonchalantly like they were part of his skin; maybe, she mused, he’d better not roll over with the dog after all. The woman would be more or less pretty—yellow hair, fat ankles, muddy-colored eyes.
    She would get supper for him in the cabin and he’d sit there eating the lumpy grits she hadn’t bothered to put salt in and thinking about something big, something way off—another cow, a painted house, a clean well, a farm of his own even. The woman would yowl at him for not cutting enough wood for her stove and would whine about the pain in her back. She’d sit and stare at him eating the sour grits and say he didn’t have nerve enough to steal food. “You’re just a damn beggar!” she’d sneer. Then he’d tell her to keep quiet. “Shut your mouth!” he’d shout. “I’ve taken all I’m gonna.” She’d roll her eyes, mocking him, and laugh—“I ain’t afraid er nothin’ that looks like you.” Then he’d push his chair behind him and head toward her. She’d snatch a knife off the table—Miss Willerton wondered what kind of a fool the woman was—and back away holding it in front of her. He’d lunge forward but she’d dart from him like a wild horse. Then they’d face each other again—their eyes brimming with hate—and sway back and forth. Miss Willerton could hear the seconds dropping on the tin roof outside. He’d dart at her again but she’d have the knife ready and would plunge it into him in an instant—Miss Willerton could stand it no longer. She struck the woman a terrific blow on the head from behind. The knife dropped out of her hands and a mist swept her from the room. Miss Willerton turned to Lot. “Let me get you some hot grits,” she said. She went over to the stove and got a clean plate of smooth white grits and a piece of butter.
    â€œGee, thanks,” Lot said and smiled at her with his nice teeth. “You always fix ’em just right. You know,” he said, “I been thinkin’—we could get out of this tenant farm. We could have a decent place. If we made anything this year over, we could put it in a cow an’ start buildin’ things up. Think what it would mean, Willie, just think.”
    She sat down