God's Little Acre Read Online Free PDF Page A

attention to Darling Jill,” Ty Ty said consolingly. “Pluto, Darling Jill is as crazy as hell sometimes, and about nothing.”
    Pluto sank back on the steps, his body spreading on the boards when he relaxed. He took a fresh chew of yellow plug. There was nothing else he could do.
    “We ought to be starting, Pa,” Shaw said. “It’s getting late.”
    “Why, son,” he said, “I thought you quit work an hour or two ago to go to town. What about that game of pool you were going to shoot?”
    “I wasn’t going to town to shoot pool. I’d rather go to the swamp tonight.”
    “Well, then, if you didn’t aim to shoot pool in town tonight, what about that woman you would be after?”
    Shaw walked away without a reply. When Ty Ty tried to make fun of him, he could only walk away. He could not explain things to his father, and he had long before decided that the best course was to let him go ahead and talk as much as he wished.
    “It’s time to get started,” Buck said.
    “That ain’t no lie,” Ty Ty said, going down toward the barn.
    He came back in a few moments carrying several plowlines over his arm. He tossed the ropes into the back seat of the car and sat down on the stump again.
    “Boy,” he said, “I’ve just had a notion. I’m going to send for Rosamond and Will to come over here. We need them to help us dig some, now that we’re going to have that albino to show us where the lode is, and Rosamond and Will ain’t doing much now. The mill over there at Scottsville is shut down again, and Will ain’t doing a thing in the world. He might just as well be over here helping us dig. Rosamond and Griselda can help a lot, and maybe Darling Jill, too. Now mind you, I don’t say I’m asking girls to do work like the rest of us. They can do a lot to help us, though. They can cook food for us and carry water, and some other things. Griselda there, and Rosamond will help all they can, but I ain’t so sure about Darling Jill. I’ll try to persuade her to do something for us out there in the holes. I wouldn’t let a girl on my place work like a man, but I’ll do my durndest trying to make Darling Jill want to help some.”
    “I’d just like to see you make Will Thompson dig,” Shaw said, jerking his head at his father. “That Will Thompson is the laziest white man this side of Atlanta. I’ve never seen him work, not here, anyway. I don’t know what he does over there in that cotton mill, when it’s running, but I’ll bet it’s nothing to speak of. Will Thompson won’t be doing much digging, even if he does go down in a hole and go through the motion of it.”
    “You boys don’t seem to catch on to Will like I do. Now, Will is just as hard a worker as the next one. The reason he never likes to dig in the holes here for us is because he don’t feel at home here. Will is a cotton mill man, and he can’t get along in the country on a farm. But maybe Will will dig some this time. Will can dig as good as the next one, if he wants to. He might get the gold-fever over here this time, and go down in the ground and dig like nobody’s business. You never can tell what will happen when the fever strikes a man; maybe you’ll wake up some morning and go out there to find him digging for a fare-you-well. I ain’t seen a man or a woman yet who won’t get down in the ground and dig when the gold-fever strikes him. You get to thinking about turning up a handful of those little yellow nuggets, maybe with the next stroke of the pick; and—man alive—you dig and dig and dig! That’s why I’m going to send for Rosamond and Will right away. We’ll be needing all the help we can get, son. That lode might be thirty feet in the ground, and at a place we haven’t started digging into yet.”
    “It might be on God’s little acre,” Buck said. “What would you do about that? You wouldn’t dig nuggets when they were all going to the preacher and the church, would you? I know I wouldn’t. All the gold I get is