Free Of Love and Dust by Ernest J. Gaines Page A

to the yard with me to get the tractor. He thought he was going to see Pauline, but I could have told him she didn’t go to work until nine o’clock. That morning in the field, John and Freddie worked him just as hard as they had done the day before and the day before that. At twelve he went up the quarter with me again, still hoping to see Pauline. He saw Louise Bonbon sitting out on the gallery, but he paid no more attention to her than he did a weed standing ’side the road. He still didn’t know she was watching him. He saw her looking that way but he still didn’t know it was him she was looking at. He looked for Pauline again when we came up to the yard. He didn’t see her at first, but as we were getting ready to go back down the quarter he saw her coming from the store. He watched her walk across the yard.
    “Jim,” she said, waving at me when she came closer.
    “How’s it going, chicken?”
    “So-so,” she said. Then she looked at Marcus and nodded.
    “Hot enough for you?” I said.
    “Too hot,” she said.
    “You got it made, chicken,” I said.
    She smiled and went toward the house. And Marcus juststood there looking at her, looking at the smooth, easy way her body moved in that dress. I knew where his mind was. It was there and nowhere else.
    “Let’s get to getting,” I said.
    We started on back down the quarter, and again I saw Louise watching him from the gallery.
    That evening Bonbon was out there again. Marcus fell back and had to drag the sack on his shoulder. He still thought he was going to make Pauline, but you could see he wasn’t sure as he was the day before. You could see him watching Bonbon from the side. He wondered what it was about Bonbon could make Pauline love him. He couldn’t understand how Pauline could love a white man. How could she possibly love one? He still didn’t want to believe she did.
    He went back down there again that night. Aunt Ca’line and Pa Bully were sitting on the gallery just like the night before. Aunt Ca’line was fighting off mosquitoes with her special mosquito rag, and Pa Bully was fighting them with his hat. Pauline was sitting by the door in her chair, and Tick-Tock was sitting on the end of the gallery against the post. Aunt Ca’line and Pa Bully were talking softly to each other when she looked up and saw Marcus coming into Pauline’s yard. Aunt Ca’line heard Tick-Tock saying, “Lover-boy.”
    Pauline didn’t say anything.
    Tick-Tock said, “Hope a certain party ain’t coming here tonight.”
    “Tomorrow,” Pauline said.
    They watched Marcus come up the walk.
    “Good evening,” he said.
    Nobody spoke, but Pauline nodded. Then it was quiet for a while. Farther up the quarter the people were singing in the church.
    “Cobb got ’em going up there,” Pa Bully said.
    “Yes,” that’s Cobb, all right,” Aunt Ca’line said.
    It was quiet for about ten minutes; then everybody on the gallery saw the car lights coming down the quarter. Tick-Tock slid off the end of the gallery and nearly ran out of the yard. Nobody else moved. Since Pauline didn’t look worried, Aunt Ca’line said she wasn’t worried, either. Pa Bully wasn’t going to move unless Aunt Ca’line moved—and Marcus acted like he wouldn’t move no matter who it was.
    The car didn’t stop. It wasn’t Bonbon, it was Marshall Hebert. Marshall went down the quarter and turned around and went back out again.
    “Good night, Aunt Ca’line, you and Pa Bully,” Pauline said.
    “Good night,” they said to her.
    Pauline stood up to take her chair inside, and Marcus jumped up, too.
    “Pauline?” he said.
    “I told you to stay ’way from here,” she told him.
    “Pauline?” he said, going toward her.
    “You stay ’way from my house,” she told him.
    “Boy, can’t you hear?” Pa Bully said.
    “Mr. Grant,” Aunt Ca’line said, warningly.
    “Pauline?” he said, still going toward her.
    She went in and locked the door. Marcus stood before the door a long