490
PARTISAN REVIEW
to him and let all his remarks pass as if she had not heard them. He
decided it was going to cost him considerable to buy her good humor
again and that he had better do it with a boat, since he wanted
one too. She had been talking boats ever since the water backed up
onto his place. They went first to the boat store. "Show us the
yachts for po' folks! " he shouted jovially to the clerk as they entered.
"They're all for
po'
folks!" the clerk said. "You'll be po' when
you finish buying one!" He was a stout youth in a yellow shirt and
blue pants and he had a ready wit. They exchanged several clever
remarks in rapid-fire succession. Mr. Fortune looked at Mary Fortune
to see if her face had brightened. She stood staring absently over the
side of an outboard motor boat at the opposite wall.
"Ain't the lady innerested in boats?" the clerk asked.
She turned and wandered back out onto the sidewalk and got
in the car again. The old man looked after her with amazement. He
could not believe that a child of her intelligence could be acting–
this way over the mere sale of a field. "I think she must be coming
down with something," he said. "We'll come back again," and he
returned to the car.
"Let's go get us an ice-cream cone," he suggested, looking at
her with concern.
"I don't want no ice-cream cone," she said.
His actual destination was the courthouse but he did not want
to make this apparent. "How'd you like to visit the ten-cent store
while I tend to a little bidnis of mine?" he asked. "You can buy
yourself something with a quarter I brought along."
"I ain't got nothing to do in no ten-cent store," she said. "I
don't want no quarter of yours."
If
a boat was of no interest, he should not have thought a
quarter would be and reproved himself for that stupidity. "Well
what's the matter, sister?" he asked kindly. "Don't you feel good?"
She turned and looked him straight in the face and said with
a slow concentrated ferocity, "It's the lawn. My daddy grazes his
calves there. We won't be able to see the woods any more."
The old man had held his fury in as long as he could. "He
beats you!" he shouted. "And you worry about where he's going to
graze his calves!"
