Stories of Erskine Caldwell Read Online Free PDF

any longer the sobs that choked her throat and breast.
    “Yes,” he said. “If we could get a ride, we would get there a lot sooner.”
    He turned his head and glanced down the road behind them, but there was nothing in sight. Then he looked down at the ground he was walking on, counting the steps he took with his right foot, and then his left.
    (First published in the New Yorker )

Candy-Man Beechum
    I T WAS TEN MILES out of the Ogeechee swamps, from the sawmill to the top of the ridge, but it was just one big step to Candy-Man. The way he stepped over those Middle Georgia gullies was a sight to see.
    “Where you goin’, Candy-Man?”
    “Make way for these flapping feet, boy, because I’m going for to see my gal. She’s standing on the tips of her toes waiting for me now.”
    The rabbits lit out for the hollow logs where those stomping big feet couldn’t get nowhere near them.
    “Don’t tread on no white-folks’ toes, Candy-Man,” Little Bo said. “Because the white-folks is first-come.”
    Candy-Man Beechum flung a leg over the rail fence just as if it had been a hoe handle to straddle. He stood for a minute astride the fence, looking at the black boy. It was getting dark in the swamps, and he had ten miles to go.
    “Me and white-folks don’t mix,” Candy-Man told him, “just as long as they leave me be, I skin their mules for them, and I snake their cypress logs, but when the day is done, I’m long gone where the white-folks ain’t are.”
    Owls in the trees began to take on life. Those whooing birds were glad to see that setting sun.
    The black boy in the mule yard scratched his head and watched the sun go down. If he didn’t have all those mules to feed, and if he had had a two-bit piece in his pocket, he’d have liked to tag along with Candy-Man. It was Saturday night, and there’d be a barrelful of catfish frying in town that evening. He wished he had some of that good-smelling cat.
    “Before the time ain’t long,” Little Bo said, “I’m going to get me myself a gal.”
    “Just be sure she ain’t Candy-Man’s, boy, and I’ll give you a helping hand.”
    He flung the other leg over the split-rail fence and struck out for the high land. Ten miles from the swamps to the top of the ridge, and his trip would be done. The bushes whipped around his legs, where his legs had been. He couldn’t be waiting for the back-strike of no swamp-country bushes. Up the log road, and across the bottom land, taking three corn rows at a stride, Candy-Man Beechum was on his way.
    There were some colored boys taking their time in the big road. He was up on them before they had time to turn their heads around.
    “Make way for these flapping feet, boys,” he shouted. “Here I come!”
    “Where you going, Candy-Man?”
    They had to do a lot of running to keep up with him. They had to hustle to match those legs four feet long. He made their breath come short.
    “Somebody asked me where I’m going,” Candy-Man said. “I got me a yellow gal, and I’m on my way to pay her some attention.”
    “You’d better toot your horn, Candy-Man, before you open her door. Yellow gals don’t like to be taken by surprise.”
    “Boy, you’re tooting the truth, except that you don’t know the whyfor of what you’re saying. Candy-Man’s gal always waits for him right at the door.”
    “Saturday-night bucks sure have to hustle along. They have to strike pay before the Monday-morning whistle starts whipping their ears.”
    The boys fell behind, stopping to blow and wheeze. There was no keeping up, on a Saturday night, with the seven-foot mule skinner on his way.
    The big road was too crooked and curvy for Candy-Man. He struck out across the fields, headed like a plumb line for a dishful of frying catfish. The lights of the town came up to meet him in the face like a swarm of lightning bugs. Eight miles to town, and two more to go, and he’d be rapping on that yellow gal’s door.
    Back in the big road, when the big