PRELUDE
Murrell Edmunds
A s sooN AS HE CAME INTO THE HOUSE,
I lmew he had done it. I
knew his mind was made up.
My
heart near stopped beating. His face
was all lit-up and shining and he didn 't look worried no more, and every–
thing he done was kind of free and easy, like somebody had done lifted
a heavy burden from off his chest.
I
hadn't even took off my clothes,
I
had been setting there in front
of
the stove all night long waiting for him, and the sight of his tace
skeered me a little. So
I
says, "Son, here 'tis almost morning, and you
didn't come home for your supper again tonight.
I
don't know what's
got into you lately, never coming to your meals and staying out half the
night with God knows what sort of people."
Now he ain't had a job for six months, but he says, "I been busy
here lately, rna, there's a powerful heap of work for a man
to
do these
days."
And then he throwed back his head, like he was laughing, bu t the
sound what come from his mouth didn't sound like nothing funny to me.
I
noticed how white he looked in the light from the lamp and hew old and
wrinkled-up his face was for just a boy. It made me feel sick all over.
I
knew who he had been going with and
I
knew what sort of doings he
had
been up to without him telling me.
So
I
says, "Them Reds is agoing to get you into trouble, son. You
better 'tend to your own business and obey the law and let them Reds
alone."
But he just keep on laughing, like he was doing before without
nothing funny or happy in it, and says, "You better not talk about them
Reds like that no more, ma, you liable to hurt my feelings. Yts," he
says, "you liable to hurt your own son's feelings.
Us
Reds," he says,
"us
Reds is got aplenty to do without no bad ad vice, and we aims to do
it." That's what he says, and he thir.b I don't know what's on his mind,
and he keeps right on: "And when I ain 't here for supper," he says,
"just wash up the dishes and put 'em away, rna, because I'll be busy."
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