Free Oral History (9781101565612) by Lee Smith Page A

got me a new mule,” Almarine says. “Hit’s over there.” Everbody looks where he’s got it hitched in front of Mr. Poole’s store.
    â€œWhat I purpose is this,” says Almarine. “I’ll give you that mule scot-free, hit’s a good mule, and you let Pricey Jane stay here with me.”
    Lord, everbody sets to talking at once! and Squirrel, he is trying to talk Almarine out of it. But Almarine don’t give a inch. He stands there staring down at that little old man, stands tall with the sun shining offen his yaller hair. It don’t take long. The man looks at that mule, then he looks at Almarine, and then he nods his head one time. His boys give a whoop and one of them runs over and gets the mule and hitches it on behind the wagon and the man gets in the wagon seat, “Giddyup,” he says, and he clicks his tongue, and off they go. That’s the last anybody ever seed them in this world, going off through Black Rock a-raising the dust, that man a-driving and looking straight ahead like there ain’t nobody even with him, all those kids a-scampering ever which way around the wagon and them two women walking behind crying and holding on to each other and dragging their skirts in the dust. There they went, and it ain’t a one of them ever come back.
    Almarine give a whoop and picked up the gal and swung her around and around, both of them laughing to beat the band, and everbody is running off to be the first to tell it iffen they can.
    Except for Miss Lucille Aston. Now she’s real important.
    Miss Lucille Aston is the sister of old Judge Aston and she come from Richmond to keep house for him when his wife died and he started going blind. She puts on airs all over Black Rock and she would up and die rathern set one foot in the hollers. Miss Lucille Aston hires women to come in and clean her house and she keeps everything just so. She had her some fancy long curtains made in Richmond and shipped into Roseann on the lumber train, and she makes them women what works for her polish the silver all the time. She mought as well live in New York City, what I say. Wearing them hats with the feathers downtown. Well, Miss Lucille Aston was out doing her shopping that day, had her a parasol and a little boy along to carry whatever she found that was fitten to buy. And so it was that Miss Lucille Aston just happens along in front of Squirrel Waldron’s place with her parasol and her little old loaded-up boy at the very time Almarine was a-trading to get him a wife. She stood right still and watched it all, pig-eyes a-flashing fire.
    â€œI saw that, boy!” she hollers out at Almarine, who is whooping it up in the road, as I said.
    He never paid her no mind.
    â€œI said I saw that, boy!” she hollers out even louder, and Almarine sets the gal back down on her feet and turns around.
    â€œAir you a-talking to me, ma’am?” he asks real polite. The feathers on her hat is shaking she’s so mad and all of her chins is a-shaking too. Her mouth is drawed up in a bow.
    â€œYou can’t trade a mule for a girl, boy,” she says. “I never heard of such a thing in all my days. I don’t know where you’ve been, but I tell you it can’t be done here, not in this town, not in this day and age,” says Miss Lucille Aston.
    Almarine starts laughing, which flusters her up even more. She pokes her parasol out at the gal.
    â€œHow old are you?” she asks in that way she has, but the gal bows her head and giggles. “I’ll bet you’re not even sixteen.” Miss Lucille Aston squints her little pig-eyes, but the gal draws up close to Almarine and won’t say ary a word. “I’m going to speak to the sheriff about this,” she says.
    Now that tickles Almarine good. Everbody knows the sheriff, old Cord Ballew, who has daddied more children than ary other man in these hills. You can feature what he’ll have to