Engineering School Students, tape 1
DATE: 8 May 1957
OCCASION: Engineering School Students
TAPE: T-124
LENGTH: 29:22
READING: "Was"
Play the full recording:
John Longley, Jr.: Gentlemen, I had a speech all prepared tonight, but I've forgotten what it was. [audience laughter] So I'll just say that I would like to introduce to you an old hand on this campus. He's been around so long now that he's really become one of us: Mr. William Faulkner, who is going to entertain you now. [applause]
William Faulkner: [...]
William Faulkner:
When he and Uncle Buck ran back to the house from discovering that Tomey's Turl had run again, they heard Uncle Buddy cursing and bellowing in the kitchen, then the fox and the dogs came out of the kitchen and crossed the hall into the dogs' room and they heard them run through the dogs' room into his and Uncle Buck's room then they saw them cross the hall again into Uncle Buddy's room and heard them run through Uncle Buddy's room into the kitchen again and this time it sounded like the whole kitchen chimney had come down and Uncle Buddy bellowing like a steamboat blowing and this time the fox and the dogs and five or six sticks of firewood all came out of the kitchen together with Uncle Buddy in the middle of them hitting at everything in sight with another stick. It was a good race.
William Faulkner:
When he and Uncle Buck ran into their room to get
Uncle Buck's necktie, the fox had treed behind the clock on the mantel.
Uncle Buck got the necktie from the drawer and kicked the dogs off and
lifted the fox down by the scruff of the neck and shoved it back into
the crate under the bed and they went to the kitchen, where Uncle Buddy
was picking the breakfast up out of the ashes and wiping it off with his
apron. "What in damn's hell do you mean," he said, "turning that damn
fox out with the dogs all loose in the house?"
"Damn the fox,"
Uncle Buck said. "Tomey's Turl has broke out again. Give me and Cass
some breakfast quick. We might just barely catch him before he gets
there."
William Faulkner:
Because they knew exactly where Tomey's Turl had gone, he went there every time he could slip off, which was about twice a year. He was heading for Mr Hubert Beauchamp's place just over the edge of the next county, that Mr Hubert's sister, Miss Sophonsiba (Mr Hubert was a bachelor too, like Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy) was still trying to make people call Warwick after the place in England that she said Mr Hubert was probably the true earl of only he never even had enough pride, not to mention energy, to take the trouble to establish his just rights. Tomey's Turl would go there to hang around Mr Hubert's girl, Tennie, until somebody came and got him. They couldn't keep him at home by buying Tennie from Mr Hubert because Uncle Buck said he and Uncle Buddy had so many niggers already that they could hardly walk around on their own land for them, and they couldn't sell Tomey's Turl to Mr Hubert because Mr Hubert said he not only wouldn't buy Tomey's Turl, he wouldn't have that damn white half-McCaslin on his place even as a free gift, not even if Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy were to pay board and keep for him. And if somebody didn't go and get Tomey's Turl right away, Mr Hubert would fetch him back himself, bringing Miss Sophonsiba, and they would stay for a week or longer, Miss Sophonsiba living in Uncle Buddy's room and Uncle Buddy moved clean out of the house, sleeping in one of the cabins in the quarters where the niggers used to live in his great-grandfather's time until his great-grandfather died and Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy moved all the niggers into the big house which his great-grandfather had not had time to finish, and not even doing the cooking while they were there and not even coming to the house any more except to sit on the front gallery after supper, sitting in the darkness between Mr Hubert and Uncle Buck until after a while even Mr Hubert would give up telling how many more head of niggers and acres of land he would add to what he would give Miss Sophonsiba when she married, and go to bed. And one midnight last summer Uncle Buddy just happened by accident to wake and hear Mr Hubert drive out of the lot and by the time he waked them and they got Miss Sophonsiba up and dressed and the team put to the wagon and caught Mr Hubert, it was almost daylight. So it was always he and Uncle Buck who went to fetch Tomey's Turl because Uncle Buddy never went anywhere, not even to town and not even to fetch Tomey's Turl from Mr Hubert's, even though they all knew that Uncle Buddy would have risked it ten times as much as Uncle Bud—Buck—Buck could have dared.
William Faulkner: Now did you want us to go to—is that enough there, or did you want us to go to the fox—to the poker game—?
John Longley, Jr.: Yes. I think reading about the poker prowess. And—let me see if I can [find this one now]. [...]
William Faulkner: Not too long, yes.
John Longley, Jr.: Oh yes, you can read it [...] If your voice doesn't give out. Let's see. You might explain it they're simply been—trying to catch Tomey's Turl. Then you might begin about here where they are going back into the bedroom again. [...]
William Faulkner:
They ate breakfast fast. Uncle Buck put on his necktie while they were running toward the lot to catch the horses. The only time he wore the necktie was on Tomey's Turl's account and he hadn't even had it out of the drawer since that night last summer when Uncle Buddy had waked them in the dark and said, "Get up and out of that bed and damn quick." Uncle Buddy didn't own a necktie at all; Uncle Buck said Uncle Buddy wouldn't take the chance even in a section like theirs, where ladies were so damn seldom thank God that a man could ride for days in a straight line without having to dodge a single one. His grandmother (she was Uncle Buck's and Uncle Buddy's sister; she had raised him following his mother's death. That was where he had got his christian name: McCaslin, Carothers McCaslin Edmonds) said that Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy both used the necktie just as another way of daring people to say they looked like twins, because even at sixty they would still fight anyone who claimed he could tell—could not tell them apart; whereupon his father had answered that any man who ever played poker once with Uncle Buddy would never misjudge him again for Uncle Buck or anybody else.
William Faulkner:
Jonas had the two horses saddled and waiting. Uncle
Buck didn't mount a horse like he was any sixty years old either, lean
and active as a cat, with his round, close-cropped white head and his
hard little gray eyes and his white-stubbled jaw, his foot in the iron
and the horse already moving, already running at the open gate when
Uncle Buck came into the seat. He scrabbled up too, onto the shorter
pony, before Jonas could boost him up, clapping the pony with his heels
into its own stiff, short-coupled canter, out the gate after Uncle Buck,
when Uncle Buddy (he hadn't even noticed him) stepped out from the gate
and caught the bit. "Watch him," Uncle Buddy said. "Watch Theophilus.
The minute anything begins to look wrong, you ride to hell back here and
get me. You hear?"
"Yes, sir," he said. "Lemme go now. I wont even
ketch Uncle Buck, let alone Tomey's Turl—"
William Faulkner:
Uncle Buck was riding Black John, because if they could just catch sight of Tomey's Turl at least one mile from Mr Hubert's gate, Black John would ride him down in two minutes. So when they came out on the long flat about three miles from Mr Hubert's, sure enough, there was Tomey's Turl on the Jake mule about a mile ahead. Uncle Buck flung his arm out and back, reining in, crouched on the big horse, his little round head and his gnarled neck thrust forward like a cooter's. "Stole away!" he whispered. "You stay back where he wont see you and flush. I'll circle him through the woods and we will bay him at the creek ford."
William Faulkner:
He waited until Uncle Buck had vanished into the woods. Then he went on. But Tomey's Turl saw him. He was closed—he closed in too fast; maybe he was afraid he wouldn't be there in time to see him when he treed. It was the best race he had ever seen. He had never seen old Jake go that fast, and nobody had ever known Tomey's Turl to go faster than his natural walk, even riding a mule. Uncle Buck whooped once from the woods, running on sight, then Black John came out of the trees, driving, soupled out flat and level as a hawk, with Uncle Buck right up—up behind his ears now and yelling so they looked exactly like a big black hawk with a sparrow riding it, across the field and over the ditch and across the next field, and he was running too; the mare went out before he even knew she was ready, he was yelling too. Because, being a nigger, Tomey's Turl should have jumped down and run for it afoot as soon as he seen them. But he didn't; maybe Tomey's Turl had been running off from Uncle Buck for so long that he had even got used to running away like a white man would do it. And it was like he and old Jake had added Tomey's Turl's natural walking speed to the best that old Jake had ever done in his life, and it was just exactly enough to beat Uncle Buck to the ford. Because when he and the pony arrived, Uncle—Black John was blown and lathered and Uncle Buck was down, leading him around in a circle slow—to slow him down, and they could already hear Mr Hubert's dinner horn a mile away.
William Faulkner:
Only, for a while Tomey's Turl didn't seem to be at Mr Hubert's either. The boy was still sitting on the gatepost, blowing the horn—there was no gate there; just two posts and a nigger boy about his size sitting on one of them, blowing a fox-horn; this was what Miss Sophonsiba was still reminding people was named Warwick even when they had already known for a long time that's what she aimed to have it called, until they wouldn't call it Warwick she wouldn't even seem to know what they were talking about and it would sound as if she and Mr Hubert owned two separate plantations covering the same area of ground, one on top of the other. Mr Hubert was sitting in the spring-house with his boots off and his feet in the water, drinking a toddy. But nobody there had seen Tomey's Turl; for a time it looked like Mr Hubert couldn't even place who Uncle Buck was talking about. "Oh, that nigger," he said at last. "We'll find him after dinner."
William Faulkner:
Only it didn't seem as if they were going to eat
either. Mr Hubert and Uncle Buck had a toddy, then Mr Hubert finally
sent to tell the boy on the gate post he could quit blowing, and he and
Uncle Buck and—had another toddy and Uncle Buck still saying, "I just want
my nigger. Then we got to get on back home."
"After dinner," Mr
Hubert said. "If we dont start him somewhere around the kitchen, we'll
put the dogs on him. They'll find him if it's in the power of mortal
Walker dogs to do it."
William Faulkner:
But at last a hand began waving a handkerchief or something white through the broken place in an upstairs shutter. They went to the house, crossing the back gallery, Mr Hubert warning them again, as he always did, to watch out for the rotted floor-board he hadn't got around to having fixed yet. Then they stood in the hall, until presently there was a jangling and swishing noise and they began to smell the perfume, and Miss Sophonsiba came down the stairs. Her hair was roached under a lace cap; she had on her Sunday dress and beads and a red ribbon around her throat and a little nigger girl carrying her fan and he stood quietly a little behind Uncle Buck, watching her lips until they opened and he could see the roan tooth. He had never known anyone before with a roan tooth and he remembered how one time his grandmother and his father were talking about Uncle Buddy and Uncle Buck and his grandmother said that Miss Sophonsiba had matured into a fine-looking woman once. Maybe she had. He didn't know. He wasn't but nine.
William Faulkner:
"Why, Mister Theophilus," she said. "And McCaslin,"
she said. She had never looked at him and she wasn't talking to him and
he knew it, although he was prepared to—to balanced to drag his foot
when Uncle Buck did. "Welcome to Warwick."
He and Uncle Buck
dragged their foot. "I just come to get my nigger," Uncle Buck said.
"Then we got to get on back home."
Then Miss Sophonsiba said
something about a bumblebee, but he couldn't remember that. It was too
fast and there was too much of it, the earrings and beads clashing and
jingling like little trace chains on a toy mule trotting and the perfume
stronger too, like the earrings and the beads sprayed it out each time
they moved and he watched the roan-colored tooth flick and glint between
her lips; something about Uncle Buck was a bee sipping from flower to
flower and not staying long anywhere and all that stored sweetness to be
wasted on Uncle Buddy's desert air, calling Uncle Buddy Mister Amodeus
like she called Uncle Buck Mister Theophilus, or maybe the honey was
being stored up against the advent of a queen and who was the lucky
queen and when? "Ma'am?" Uncle Buck said. Then Mr Hubert said:
"Hah. A buck bee. I reckon that nigger's going to think he's a buck
hornet, once he lays hands on him. But I reckon what Buck's thinking
about sipping right now is some meat gravy and biscuit and a cup of
coffee. And so am I."
William Faulkner:
They went into the dining room and ate and Miss Sophonsiba said how seriously now neighbors just a half day's ride apart ought not to be so long as Uncle Buck did, and Uncle Buck said Yessum, and Miss Sophonsiba said Uncle Buck was just a confirmed roving bachelor from the cradle born and this time Uncle Buck even quit chewing and looked at her and said, Yes, ma'am, he sure was, [audience laughter] and born too late at it to ever change now but at least he could thank God no lady would ever have to suffer the misery of living with him and Uncle Buddy, and Miss Sophonsiba said ah, then maybe Uncle Buck just aint met the woman yet who would not only accept what Uncle Buck was pleased to call misery, but who would make Uncle Buck consider even his freedom a small price to pay, and Uncle Buck said, "Nome. Not yet."
William Faulkner:
Then he and Mr. Hubert and Uncle Buck went out on the front gallery and sat down. Mr Hubert hadn't even got done taking his shoes off again and inviting Uncle Buck to take his off, when Miss Sophonsiba came out of the door carrying a tray with another toddy on it. "Damnit, Sibbey," Mr Hubert said. "He's just et. He dont want to drink now." Miss—but Miss Sophonsiba didn't seem to hear him at all. She stood there, the roan tooth not flicking now but fixed because she wasn't talking now, handing the toddy to Uncle Buck until after a while she said how her papa always said nothing sweetened a Missippi toddy like the hand of a Missippi lady and would Uncle Buck like to see how she use to sweeten her papa's toddy for him? So she lifted the toddy and took a sip of it and handed it again to Uncle Buck and this time Uncle Buck took it. He dragged his foot again and drank the toddy and said if Mr Hubert was going to lay down, he would lay down a while too, since from the way things looked Tomey's Turl was fixing to give them a long hard race unless Mr Hubert's dogs were a considerable better than they used to be.
William Faulkner:
Mr Hubert and Uncle Buck went into the house. After
a while he got up too and went around to the back yard to wait for them.
The first thing he saw was Tomey's Turl's head slipping along behind the
lane fence. But when he cut across the yard to turn him, Tomey's Turl
wasn't even running. He was squatting behind a bush, watching the house,
peering around the bush at the back door and the upstairs windows, not
whispering exactly but not talking loud either: "Whut they doing
now?"
"They're taking a nap now," he said. "But never mind that;
they're going to put the dogs on you when they get up."
"Hah,"
Tomey's Turl said. "And nemmind—nem you mind that neither. I got
protection now. All I needs to do is to keep Old Buck from ketching me
unto I gets the word."
"What word?" he said. "Word from who? Is Mr
Hubert going to buy you from Uncle Buck?"
"Huh," Tomey's Turl said
again. "I got more protection than whut Mr Hubert got even." He rose to
his feet. "I gonter tell you something to remember: anytime you wants to
git something done, from hoeing out a crop to getting married, just get
the womenfolks to working at it. Then all you needs to do is set down
and wait. You member that."
William Faulkner:
Then Tomey's Turl was gone. And after a while he went back to the house. But there wasn't anything but the snoring coming out of the room where Uncle Buck and Mr Hubert were, and some more light-sounding snoring coming from upstairs. He went to the spring-house and sat with his feet in the water as Mr Hubert had been doing, because now soon it would be cool enough for a race. And sure enough, after a while Mr Hubert and Uncle Buck came out onto the back gallery, with Miss Sophonsiba right behind them with the toddy tray only this time Uncle Buck drank his before Miss Sophonsiba had time to sweeten it, [audience laughter] and Miss Sophonsiba told them to get back early, that all Uncle Buck knew of Warwick was just dogs and niggers and now that she had him, she wanted to show him her garden that Mr Hubert and nobody else had any sayso in. "Yessum," Uncle Buck said. "I just want to catch my nigger. Then we got to get on back home."
William Faulkner:
Four or five niggers brought up the three horses. They could already hear the dogs waiting still coupled in the lane, and they mounted and went on down the lane, toward the quarters, with Uncle Buck already out in front of even the dogs. So he never did know just when and where they jumped Tomey's Turl, whether he flushed out of one of the cabins or not. Uncle Buck was away out in front on Black John and they hadn't even cast the dogs yet when Uncle Buck roared, "Gone away! I godfrey, he broke cover then!" and Black John's feet clapped four times like pistol shots while he was gathering to go out, then he and Uncle Buck vanished over the hill like they had been—like they had run at the blank edge of the world itself. Mr Hubert was roaring too: "Gone away! Cast them!" and they all piled over the crest of the hill just in time to see Tomey's Turl away out across the flat, almost to the woods, and the dogs streaking down the hill and out onto the flat. They just tongued once and when they came boiling up around Tomey's Turl it looked like they were trying to jump up and lick him in the face until even Tomey's Turl slowed down and he and the dogs all went into the woods together, walking, like they were going home from a rabbit hunt. [audience laughter] And when they caught up with Uncle Buck in the woods, there was no Tomey's Turl and no dogs either, just nothing but old Jake about a half an hour later, hitched into a clump of bushes with Tomey's Turl's coat tied on him for a saddle and near half a bushel of Mr Hubert's oats scattered around on the ground that old Jake never even had enough appetite left to nuzzle up and spit back out again. It wasn't any race at all.
William Faulkner:
"We'll get him tonight though," Mr Hubert said.
"We'll bait for him. We'll throw a picquet of niggers and dogs around
Tennie's house about midnight, and we'll get him."
"Tonight, hell,"
Uncle Buck said. "Me and Cass and that nigger all three are going to be
half way home by dark. Aint one of your niggers got a fyce or something
that will trail them hounds?"
"And fool around here in the woods
for half the night too?" Mr Hubert said. "When I'll bet you five hundred
dollars that all you've got to do to catch that nigger is to walk up to
Tennie's cabin after dark and call him?"
"Five hundred dollars?"
Uncle Buck said. "Done! Because me and him neither one aint going to be
anywhere near Tennie's house by dark. Five hundred dollars!" He and Mr
Hubert glared at each other.
"Done!" Mr Hubert said.
William Faulkner:
So they waited while Mr Hubert sent one of the
niggers back to the house on old Jake and in about a half an hour the
nigger came back with a little bob-tailed black fyce and a new bottle of
whisky. Then he rode up to Uncle Buck and held something out to him
wrapped in a piece of paper. "What?" Uncle Buck said.
"It's for
you," the nigger said. Then Uncle Buck took it and unwrapped it. It was
a piece of red ribbon that had been on Miss Sophonsiba's neck and Uncle
Buck sat there on Black John, holding the ribbon like it was a little
water moccasin only he wasn't going to let anybody see he was afraid of
it, batting his eyes fast at the nigger. Then he stopped batting his
eyes.
"What for?" he said.
"She just sont hit to you," the
nigger said. "She say to tell you 'success'."
"She said what?"
Uncle Buck said.
"I dont know, sir," the nigger said. "She just say
success."
William Faulkner:
"Oh," Uncle Buck said. And the fyce found the
hounds, They heard them first, from a considerable distance. It was just
before sundown and they were not trailing—they were not, they were making the
noise dogs make when they want to get out of something. They found out what
that was too. It was a ten-foot-square cotton-house in a field about two
miles from Mr Hubert's house and all eleven of the dogs were inside it
and the door wedged with a chunk of wood. They watched the dogs come
boiling out when the nigger opened the door, Mr Hubert sitting his horse
and looking at the back of Uncle Buck's neck.
"Well, well," Mr
Hubert said. "That's something, anyway. You can use them again now. They
dont seem to have no trouble—no more trouble with your nigger than he
seems to have with them."
"Not enough," Uncle Buck said. "That
means both of them. I'll stick to the fyce."
"All right," Mr Hubert
said. Then he said, "Hell, 'Filus, come on. Let's go eat supper. I tell
you, all you got to do to catch that nigger is—"
"Five hundred dollars," Uncle Buck said.
"What?" Mr Hubert said. He and Uncle Buck looked at each other. They
were not glaring now. They were not joking each other either now. They
sat there in the beginning of twilight, looking at each other, just
blinking a little. "What five hundred dollars?" Mr Hubert said. "That
you wont catch that nigger in Tennie's cabin at midnight tonight?"
"That me or that nigger neither aint going to be near nobody's house but
mine at midnight tonight." Now they did glare at each other.
"Five
hundred dollars," Mr Hubert said. "Done."
"Done," Uncle Buck
said.
"Done," Mr Hubert said.
"Done," Uncle Buck said.
William Faulkner:
So Mr Hubert took the dogs and some of the niggers and went back to the house. Then he and Uncle Buck and the nigger with the fyce went on, the nigger leading old Jake with one hand and holding the fyce's leash (it was a piece of gnawed plowline) with the other. Now Uncle Buck let the fyce smell Tomey's Turl's coat; it was like for the first time now the fyce found out what they were after and they would have let him off the leash and kept up with him on the horses, only about that time the nigger boy began blowing the fox-horn for supper at the house and they didn't dare risk it. [audience laughter]
William Faulkner:
Then it was full dark. And then—he didn't know how much later nor where they were, how far from the house, except that it was a good piece and it had been dark for good while and they were still going on, with Uncle Buck leaning down—leaning down from time to time to let the fyce have another smell of Tomey's Turl's coat while Uncle Buck took another drink from the whisky bottle—they found that Tomey's Turl had doubled and was making a long swing back toward the house. "I godfrey, we've got him," Uncle Buck said. "He's going to earth. We'll cut back to the house and head him before he can den." So they left the nigger to cast the fyce and followed him on old Jake, and he and Uncle Buck rode on to Mr Hubert's, stopping on the hills to blow the horses and listen to the fyce down in the creek bottom where Tomey's Turl was still making his swing.
William Faulkner:
But they never caught him. They reached the dark quarters; they could see lights still burning in Mr Hubert's house and somebody was blowing the fox-horn again and it wasn't any boy and he had never heard a fox-horn sound mad before, and he and Uncle Buck scattered out on the slope below Tennie's cabin. Then they heard the fyce, not trailing now but yapping, about a mile away, then the nigger whooped and they held the fyce—and they knew the fyce had faulted. It was at the creek. They hunted the banks both ways for more than an hour, but they couldn't straighten Tomey's Turl out. At last even Uncle Buck gave up and they started back toward the house, the fyce riding too now, in front of the nigger on the mule. They were just coming up the lane to the quarters; they could see on—on along the ridge to where Mr Hubert's house was all dark now, when all of a sudden the fyce gave a yelp and jumped down from old Jake and hit the ground running and yelling every jump, and Uncle Buck was down too and had snatched him off the pony almost before he could clear his feet from the irons, and they ran too, on past the dark cabins toward the one where the fyce had treed. "We got him!" Uncle Buck said. "Run around to the back. Dont holler; just grab up a stick and knock on the back door, loud."
William Faulkner:
Afterward, Uncle Buck admitted that it was his own mistake, that he had forgotten when even a little child should have known: not ever to stand right in front of or right behind a nigger when you scare him; but always to stand to one side of him. [audience laughter] Uncle Buck forgot that. He was standing facing the front door and right in front of it, with the fyce right in front of him yelling fire and murder every time it could draw a new breath; he said the first he knew was when the fyce gave a shriek and whirled and Tomey's Turl was right behind it. Uncle Buck said he never saw the door open; that the fyce just screamed once and ran between his legs and then Tomey's Turl ran right clean over him. He never even bobbled; he knocked Uncle Buck down and then caught him up before he fell without even stopping, snatched him up under one arm, still running, and carrying him along for about ten feet, saying, "Look out of here, old Buck. Look out of here, old Buck," before he threw him away and went on. [audience laughter] By that time they couldn't even hear the fyce any more at all.
William Faulkner:
Uncle Buck wasn't hurt; it was only the wind knocked
out of him where Tomey's Turl had thrown him down on his back. But he
had been carrying the whisky bottle in his back pocket, saving the last
drink until Tomey's Turl was captured, and he refused to move until he
knew for certain it was just whisky and not blood. [audience laughter] So Uncle Buck laid over on his side easy,
and he knelt behind him and raked the broken glass out of his pocket.
Then they went on to the house. They walked. The nigger came up with the
horses, but nobody said anything to Uncle Buck about riding again. They
couldn't hear the fyce at all now. "He was going fast, all right," Uncle
Buck said, "But I dont believe that even he will catch that fyce, I
godfrey, what a night."
"We'll catch him tomorrow," he said.
"Tomorrow, hell," Uncle Buck said. "We'll be at home tomorrow. And the
first time Hubert Beauchamp or that nigger either one ever sets foot on
my land, I'm going to have them arrested for trespass and vagrancy."
William Faulkner:
The house was dark. They could hear Mr Hubert snoring good now, as if he had settled down to road-gaiting at it. But they couldn't hear anything from upstairs, even when they were inside the dark hall, at the foot of the stairs. "Likely her room will be at the back," Uncle Buck said. "Where she can holler down to the kitchen without having to get up. Besides, an unmarried lady will sholy have her door locked with strangers in the house." So Uncle Buck eased himself down onto the bottom step, and he knelt and drew Uncle Buck's boots off. Then he removed his own and set them against the wall, and he and Uncle Buck mounted the stairs, feeling their way up and into the upper hall. It was dark too, and still there was no sound anywhere except Mr Hubert snoring below, so they felt their way along the hall toward the front of the house, until they felt a door. They could hear nothing beyond the door, and when Uncle Buck tried the knob, it opened. "All right," Uncle Buck whispered. "Be quiet." They could see a little now, enough to see the shape of the bed and the mosquito-bar. Uncle Buck threw down his suspenders and unbuttoned his trousers and went to the bed and eased himself carefully down onto the edge of it, and he knelt again and drew Uncle Buck's trousers off and he was just removing his own when Uncle Buck lifted the mosquito-bar and raised his feet and rolled into the bed. That was when Miss Sophonsiba sat up on the other side of Uncle Buck and gave the first scream. [audience laughter]
William Faulkner:
When he reached home just before dinner time the next day, he was just about worn out. He was too tired to eat, even if Uncle Buddy had waited to eat dinner first; he couldn't have stayed on the pony another mile without going to sleep. In fact, he must have gone to sleep while he was telling Uncle Buddy, because the next thing he knew it was late afternoon and he was lying on some hay in the jolting wagon-bed, with Uncle Buddy sitting on the seat above him exactly the same way he sat a horse or sat in his rocking chair before the kitchen hearth while he was cooking, holding the whip exactly as he held the [spork or foon] he stirred and tasted with. Uncle Buddy had some cold bread and meat and a jug of buttermilk wrapped in a—in damp towsacks waiting when he waked up. He ate, sitting in the wagon in almost the last of the afternoon. They must have come fast, because they were not more than two miles from Mr Hubert's. Uncle Buddy waited for him to eat. Then he said, "Tell me again," and he told it again: how he and Uncle Buck finally found a room without anybody in it, and Uncle Buck sitting on the side of the bed saying, "O godfrey, Cass. O godfrey, Cass," and then they heard Mr Hubert's feet on the stairs and watched the light come down the hall and Mr Hubert came in, in his nightshirt, and walked over and set the candle on the table and stood looking at Uncle Buck.
William Faulkner:
"Well, 'Filus," he said. "She's got you at last."
[audience laughter]
"It was an accident," Uncle
Buck said. "I swear to godfrey—"
"Hah," Mr Hubert said. "Dont tell
me. Tell her that."
"I did," Uncle Buck said. "I did tell her. I
swear to godfrey—"
"Sholy," Mr Hubert said. "And just listen." They
listened a minute. He had been hearing her all the time. She was nowhere
near as loud as at first; she was just steady. "Dont you want to go back
in there and tell her again it was an accident, that you never meant
nothing and to just excuse you and forget about it? All right."
"All right what?" Uncle Buck said.
"Go back in there and tell her
again," Mr Hubert said. Uncle Buck looked at Mr Hubert for a minute. He
batted his eyes fast.
"Then what will I come back and tell you?" he
said.
"To me?" Mr Hubert said. "I would call that a horse of
another color. Wouldn't you?"
William Faulkner:
Uncle Buck looked at Mr Hubert. He batted his eyes
fast again. Then he stopped again. "Wait," he said. "Be reasonable. Say
I did walk into a lady's bedroom, even Miss Sophonsiba's; say, just for
the sake of the argument, there wasn't no other lady in the world but
her and so I walked into hers and tried to get in bed with her, would
I—would I have took a nine-year-old boy with me?" [audience laughter]
"Reasonable is just what I'm being,"
Mr Hubert said. "You come into bear-country of your own free will and
accord. All right; you were a grown man and you knew it was bear-country
and you knew the way back out like you knew the way in and you had your
chance to take it. But no. You had to crawl into the den and lay down by
the bear. And whether you did or didn't know the bear was in it dont
make any difference. [audience laughter] So if you got
back out of that den without even a claw-mark on you, I would not only
be unreasonable, I'd be a damned fool. After all, I'd like a little
peace and quiet and freedom myself, now I got a chance for it. Yes, sir.
She's got you, 'Filus, and you know it. You run a hard race and you run
a good one, but you skun the hen-house one time too many."
William Faulkner:
"Yes," Uncle Buck said. He drew his breath in and
let it out again, slow and not loud. But you could hear it. "Well," he
said. "So I reckon I'll have to take the chance then."
"You already
took it," Mr Hubert said. "You did that when you came back here." Then he
stopped too. Then he batted his eyes, but only about six times. Then he
stopped and looked at Uncle Buck for more than a minute. "What chance?"
he said.
"That five hundred dollars," Uncle Buck said.
"What
five hundred dollars?" Mr Hubert said. He and Uncle Buck looked at each
other. Now it was Mr—Mr Hubert that batted his eyes again and then
stopped—
[end of recording]
