“But I ain’t a preacher no more,” Casy protested.
“Aw, come on. Give her a grace. Don’t do you no harm, an’ she likes ’em.” They walked into the kitchen together.
Ma said quietly, “You’re welcome.”
And Pa said, “You’re welcome. Have some breakfast.”
“Grace fust,” Granma clamored. “Grace fust.”
Grampa focused his eyes fiercely until he recognized Casy. “Oh, that preacher,” he said. “Oh, he’s all right. I always liked him since I seen him-” He winked so lecherously that Granma thought he had spoken and retorted, “Shut up, you sinful ol’ goat.”
Casy ran his fingers through his hair nervously. “I got to tell you, I ain’t a preacher no more. If me jus’ bein’ glad to be here an’ bein’ thankful for people that’s kind and generous, if that’s enough- why, I’ll say that kinda grace. But I ain’t a preacher no more.”
“Say her,” said Granma. “An’ get in a word about us goin’ to California.” The preacher bowed his head, and the others bowed their heads. Ma folded her hands over her stomach and bowed her head. Granma bowed so low that her nose was nearly in her plate of biscuit and gravy. Tom, leaning against the wall, a plate in his hand, bowed stiffly, and Grampa bowed his head sidewise, so that he could keep one mean and merry eye on the preacher. And on the preacher’s face there was a look not of prayer, but of thought; and in his tone not supplication, but conjecture.
“I been thinkin’,” he said. “I been in the hills, thinkin’, almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to think His way out of a mess of troubles.”
“Pu-raise Gawd!” Granma said, and the preacher glanced over at her in surprise.
“Seems like Jesus got all messed up with troubles, and He couldn’t figure nothin’ out, an’ He got to feelin’ what the hell good is it all, an’ what’s the use fightin’ an’ figurin’. Got tired, got good an’ tired, an’ His sperit all wore out. Jus’ about come to the conclusion, the hell with it. An’ so He went off into the wilderness.”
“A-men,” Granma bleated. So many years she had timed her responses to the pauses. And it was so many years since she had listened to or wondered at the words used.
“I ain’t sayin’ I’m like Jesus,” the preacher went on. “But I got tired like Him, an’ I got mixed up like Him, an’ I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin’ stuff. Nighttime I’d lay on my back an’ look up at the stars; morning I’d set an’ watch the sun come up; midday I’d look out from a hill at the rollin’ dry country; evenin’ I’d foller the sun down. Sometimes I’d pray like I always done. On’y I couldn’ figure what I was prayin’ to or for. There was the hills, an’ there was me, an’ we wasn’t separate no more. We was one thing. An’ that one thing was holy.”
“Hallelujah,” said Granma, and she rocked a little, back and forth, trying to catch hold of an ecstasy.
“An’ I got thinkin’, on’y it wasn’t thinkin, it was deeper down than thinkin’. I got thinkin’ how we was holy when we was one thing, an’ mankin’ was holy when it was one thing. An’ it on’y got unholy when one mis’able little fella got the bit in his teeth an’ run off his own way, kickin’ an’ draggin’ an’ fightin’. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they’re all workin’ together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang- that’s right, that’s holy. An’ then I got thinkin’ I don’t even know what I mean by holy.” He paused, but the bowed heads stayed down, for they had been trained like dogs to rise at the “amen” signal. “I can’t say no grace like I use’ ta say. I’m glad of the holiness of breakfast. I’m glad there’s love here. That’s all.” The heads stayed down. The preacher looked around. “I’ve got your breakfast cold,” he said; and then he remembered. “Amen,” he said, and all the heads rose up.
“A-men,” said Granma, and she fell to her breakfast, and broke down the soggy biscuits with her hard old toothless gums. Tom ate quickly, and Pa crammed his mouth. There was no talk until the food was gone, the coffee drunk; only the crunch of chewed food and the slup of coffee cooled in transit to the tongue. Ma watched the preacher as he ate, and her eyes were questioning, probing and understanding. She watched him as though he were suddenly a spirit, not human any more, a voice out of the ground.
The men finished and put down their plates, and drained the last of their coffee; and then the men went out, Pa and the preacher and Noah and Grampa and Tom, and they walked over to the truck, avoiding the litter of furniture, the wooden bedsteads, the windmill machinery, the old plow. They walked to the truck and stood beside it. They touched the new pine side-boards.
Tom opened the hood and looked at the big greasy engine. And Pa came up beside him. He said, “Your brother Al looked her over before we bought her. He says she’s all right.”
“What’s he know? He’s just a squirt,” said Tom.
“He worked for a company. Drove truck last year. He knows quite a little. Smart aleck like he is. He knows. He can tinker an engine, Al can.”
Tom asked, “Where’s he now?”
“Well,” said Pa, “he’s a-billygoatin’ aroun’ the country. Tom-cattin’ hisself to death. Smart-aleck sixteen-year-older, an’ his nuts is just a-eggin’ him on. He don’t think of nothin’ but girls and engines. A plain smart aleck. Ain’t been in nights for a week.”
Grampa, fumbling with his chest, had succeeded in buttoning the buttons of his blue shirt into the buttonholes of his underwear. His fingers felt that something was wrong, but did not care enough to find out. His fingers went down to try to figure out the intricacies of the buttoning of his fly. “I was worse,” he said happily. “I was much worse. I was a heller, you might say. Why, they was a camp meetin’ right in Sallisaw when I was a young fella a little bit older’n Al. He’s just a squirt, an’ punkin-soft. But I was older. An’ we was to this here camp meetin’. Five hunderd folks there, an’ a proper sprinklin’ of young heifers.”
“You look like a heller yet, Grampa,” said Tom.
“Well, I am, kinda. But I ain’t nowheres near the fella I was. Jus’ let me get out to California where I can pick me an orange when I want it. Or grapes. There’s a thing I ain’t never had enough of. Gonna get me a whole big bunch of grapes off a bush, or whatever, an’ I’m gonna squash ’em on my face an’ let ’em run offen my chin.”
Tom asked, “Where’s Uncle John? Where’s Rosasharn? Where’s Ruthie an’ Winfield? Nobody said nothin’ about them yet.”
Pa said, “Nobody asked. John gone to Sallisaw with a load a stuff to sell: pump, tools, chickens, an’ all the stuff we brung over. Took Ruthie an’ Winfield with ‘im. Went ‘fore daylight.”
“Funny I never saw him,” said Tom.
“Well, you come down from the highway, didn’t you? He took the back way, by Cowlington. An’ Rosasharn, she’s nestin’ with Connie’s folks. By God! You don’t even know Rosasharn’s married to Connie Rivers. You ‘member Connie. Nice young fella. An’ Rosasharn’s due ’bout three-four-five months now. Swellin’ up right now. Looks fine.”
“Jesus!” said Tom. “Rosasharn was just a little kid. An’ now she’s gonna have a baby. So damn much happens in four years if you’re away. When ya think to start out west, Pa?”
“Well, we got to take this stuff in an’ sell it. If Al gets back from his squirtin’ aroun’, I figgered he could load the truck an’ take all of it in, an’ maybe we could start out tomorra or day after. We ain’t got so much money, an’ a fella says it’s damn near two thousan’ miles to California. Quicker we get started, surer it is we get there. Money’s a-dribblin’ out all the time. You got any money?”
“On’y a couple dollars. How’d you get money?”
“Well,” said Pa, “we sol’ all the stuff at our place, an’ the whole bunch of us chopped cotton, even Grampa.”
“Sure did,” said Grampa.
“We put ever’thing together- two hunderd dollars. We give seventy-five for this here truck, an’ me an’ Al cut her in two an’ built on this here back. Al was gonna grind the valves, but he’s too busy messin’ aroun’ to get down to her. We’ll have maybe a hunderd an’ fifty when we start. Damn ol’ tires on this truck ain’t gonna go far. Got a couple of wore out spares. Pick stuff up along the road, I guess.”