16
PARTISAN REVIEW
mothers, not nothing. My boy had done fell in love with something you
couldn't put your hand on like .a woman and love her up for a night or
two and then forget her. My boy had done give himself away to some–
thing men don't never grow tired of, and there wan 't nothing I could
do about it.
So I didn't say a word. When he fim she.:i talking and goes into
his room and I see him through the door taking down the old rifle his
pa
used to shoot squirrels with in the mountains before we ever come to th(St
God forsaken mills, I don't open my mouth. He come bad into
tht
room and stands there with the risen sun behind him, holding that gun
in his two hands and looking at me. And I don't say a word, l don't
open my mouth.
"So long, ma," he says, his voice a little shaky, " I got to oe leaving
here."
"All right, son," I manages to say, and can't move outa my chair
to save my life, I got such a sudden pain across my chest.
" So long, rna," he says again, like he had forget he said it
onct
already, "don't you fret none, they ain't got nothing to be skeercd of."
"All right, son," I says, "take keer of yourself wherever you goes."
I set paralyzed in my chair by the stove and watch him go down
tht
street, half humming, with that old squirrel rifle of his pa's crooked over
his right arm. When he come to the corner and
l
can't see him no mort,
I jumps up and run after him. I says to myself all of a sudden, "Wher·
ever Jim goes, I gotta go, too!" I can't keep back the tears no mort,
and as I run after him I hear my own breath coming anJ going bke it
Will
somebody else running along beside me. When I reach the co111er, I
Sft
him way down the street.
"Son," I yell, "Jim, wait for me!"
But he don't hear me. I hadn't slept none and I'm getting weaktr
and weaker all the time, and the heavy panting is tearing the guts out
of me. My head starts going round and round and I can't see which
way to go. Pretty soon somebody grabs me and I collapses.
"What's wrong here!" I hear somebody holler, way off, and then
somebody hollers again, "what's wrong with · her?"
"Us workers," I says, "us Reds.... "
"What's that?" somebody asks closer to me, "who's dead?"
"We're a hunderd millyun, ain't we?" I yell, "we is more numerous
like the sands of the sea, ain't we?"
