Flags in the Dust Read Online Free Page A

from this window, Elnora’s endless minor ebbed and flowed unheard by him upon the lazy scene.
    He crossed to his closet and drew out a pair of scarred riding-boots and stamped into them and took a cigar from the humidor on his night table, and he stood for a time with the cold cigar between his teeth, having forgotten to light it. Through the cloth of his pocket his hand touched the pipe there, and he took it out and looked at it again, and it seemed to him that he could still hear old man Falls’ voice in roaring recapitulation: “Cunnel was settin’ thar in a cheer, his sock feet propped on the po’ch railin’, smokin’ this hyer very pipe. Old Louvinia was settin’ on the steps, shellin’ a bowl of peas fer supper. And a feller was glad to git even peas sometimes, in them days. And you was settin’ back agin’ the post. They wa’nt nobody else thar ’cep’ yo’ aunt, the one ’fo’ Miss Jenny come. Cunnel had sont them two gals to Memphis to yo’ gran’pappy when he fust went to Virginny with that ’ere regiment that turnt right around and voted him outen the colonelcy. Voted ’im out because he wouldn’t be Tom, Dick and Harry with ever’ skulkin’ camp-robber that come along with a salvaged muskit and claimed to be a sojer. You was about half-grown then, I reckon. How old was you then, Bayard?”
    “Fourteen.”
    “Hey?”
    “Fourteen. Do I have to tell you that everytime you tell me this damn story?”
    “And thar you all was a-settin’ when they turned in at the gate and come trottin’ up the carriage drive.
    “Old Louvinia drapped the bowl of peas and let out one squawk, but Cunnel shet her up and told her to run and git his boots and pistols and have ’em ready at the back do’, and you lit out fer the barn to saddle that stallion. And when them Yankees rid up and stopped—they stopped right whar that flower bed is now—they wa’nt nobody in sight but Cunnel, a-settin’ thar like he never even heerd tell of no Yankees.
    “The Yankees they sot thar on the hosses, talkin’ ’mongst theyselves if this was the right house or not, and Cunnel settin’ thar with his sock feet on the railin’, gawkin’ at ’em like a hillbilly. The Yankee officer he tole one man to ride back to the barn and look fer that ’ere stallion, then he says to Cunnel:
    “ ‘Say, Johnny, whar do the rebel, John Sartoris, live?’
    “ ‘Lives down the road a piece,’ Cunnel says, not battin’ a eye even. ‘’Bout two mile,’ he says. ‘But you wont find ’im now. He’s away fightin’ the Yanks agin.’
    “ ‘Well, I reckon you better come and show us the way, anyhow,’ the Yankee officer says.
    “So Cunnel he got up slow and tole ’em to let ’im git his shoes and walkin’ stick, and limped into the house, leavin’ ’em a-settin’ thar waitin’.
    “Soon’s he was out of sight he run. Old Louvinia was wait-in’ at the back do’ with his coat and boots and pistols and a snack of cawn bread. That ’ere other Yankee had rid into the barn, and Cunnel taken the things from Louvinia and wropped ’em up in the coat and started acrost the back yard like he was jest takin’ a walk. ’Bout that time the Yankee come to the barn do’.
    “ ‘They aint no stock hyer a-tall,’ the Yank says.
    “ ‘I reckon not,’ Cunnel says. ‘Cap’m says fer you to come on back,’ he says, goin’ on. He could feel that ’ere Yank a-watchin’ ’im, lookin’ right ’twixt his shoulder blades, whar the bullet would hit. Cunnel says that was the hardest thing heever done in his life, walkin’ on thar acrost that lot with his back to’ads that Yankee without breakin’ into a run. He was aimin’ to’ads the corner of the barn, whar he could git the house between ’em, and Cunnel says hit seemed like he’d been a-walkin’ a year without gittin’ no closer and not darin’ to look back. Cunnel says he wa’nt even thinkin’ of nothin’ ’cep’ he was glad the gals wa’nt at home.