THE LESTERS HEARD DUDE blowing the horn far down the tobacco road long before the new automobile came within sight, and they all ran to the farthest corner of the yard, and even out into the broom-sedge, to see Dude and Bessie arrive. Even the old grandmother was excited, and she waited behind a chinaberry tree to be among the first to see the new car.
“Here they come!” Jeeter shouted. “Just look at them! It’s a brand-new automobile, all right—just look at that shiny black paint! Great-day-in-the-morning! Just look at them coming yonder!”
Dude was driving about twenty miles an hour, and he was so busy blowing the horn he forgot to slow down when he turned into the yard. The car jolted across the ditch, throwing Bessie against the top three or four times in quick succession, and breaking several leaves of the rear spring. Dude slowed down then, and the automobile rolled across the yard and came to a stop by the side of the house.
Jeeter was the first to reach the new motor car. He had run behind it while Dude was putting on the brakes, and he had held to the rear mudguard while trying to keep up with it. Ellie May and Ada were not far behind. The grandmother came as quickly as she could.
“I never seen a finer-looking automobile in all my days,” Jeeter said. “It sure does make me happy again to see such a handsome machine. Don’t you reckon you could take me for a little trip, Bessie? I sure would like to go off in it for a piece.”
Bessie opened the door and got out. The first thing she did was to take the bottom of her skirt and rub the dust off of the front fenders.
“I reckon we can take you riding in it some time,” she said. “When me and Dude gets back, you can go riding.”
“Where is you and Dude going to, Bessie?”
“We’re going to ride around like married folks,” she said proudly. “When folks get married, they always like to take a little ride together somewhere.”
Ada and Ellie May inspected the car with stifled admiration. Both of them then gathered up the bottoms of their skirts and shined the doors and fenders. The new automobile shone in the bright sun like a looking-glass when they had finished.
Dude climbed over the door and ordered his mother and sister away from the car.
“You and Ellie May will be ruining it,” he said. “Don’t put your hands on it and don’t stand too close to it.”
“Did you and Dude get married in Fuller?” Jeeter asked Bessie.
“Not all the way,” she said. “I got leave of the county, however. It cost two dollars to do that little bit.”
“Ain’t you going to get a preacher to finish doing it?”
“I is not! Ain’t I a preacher of the gospel? I’m going to do it myself. I wouldn’t allow no Hard-shell Baptist to fool with us.”
“I knowed you would do it the right way,” Jeeter said. “You sure is a fine woman preacher, Sister Bessie.”
Bessie moved towards the front porch, twisting the marriage license in her hands. Every one else was still looking at the new automobile. Ellie May and Ada stood at a safe distance so Dude would not run them away with a stick. The old grandmother had gone behind a china-berry tree again, awed by the sight.
Dude walked around in a circle so he could see all sides of the car. He wanted to be certain that nobody put his hands on the car and dulled its lustre.
Jeeter sat down on his heels and admired it.
Bessie had gone half way up the front steps, and she was trying to attract Dude’s attention. She coughed several times, scraped her feet on the boards, and rapped on the porch with her knuckles. Jeeter heard her, and he looked around to find out what she was doing.
“By God and by Jesus!” he said, jumping to his feet. “Now wasn’t that just like a fool man?”
The others turned around and looked at Bessie. Ellie May giggled from behind a chinaberry tree.
“Ada,” Jeeter said, “Sister Bessie is wanting to go in the house. You go show her in.”
Ada went inside and threw open the blinds. She could be heard dragging chairs around the room and pushing the beds back into the corners.
“Didn’t you and Dude stop off in the woods coming back from Fuller?” he asked Bessie.
“We was in a hurry to get back here,” she said. “I mentioned it, sort of, to Dude, but he was blowing the horn so much he couldn’t hear me.”
“Dude,” Jeeter said, “don’t you see how bad Sister Bessie is wanting to go in the house? You go in there with her—I’ll keep my eye on the automobile.”
While Dude was being urged to go into the house, Bessie went slowly across the porch to the door, waiting to see if Dude were following.
Ellie May drew herself up on her toes and tried to look into the bedroom through the open window. Ada was still busily engaged in straightening up the room, and every few minutes she would push a chair across the floor and jerk an end of one of the beds into a new position.
“What is they going to do in there, Ma?” Ellie May asked.
Ada came to the window and leaned out. She pushed Ellie May’s hands from the sill and motioned to her to go away.
“Sister Bessie and Dude is married,” she said. “Now you go away and stop trying to see inside. You ain’t got no business seeing of them.”
After her mother had left the window, Ellie May again raised herself on the sill and looked inside.
Dude had gone as far as the front door, but he lingered there to take one more look at the automobile. He stood there until Ada came out and pushed him inside and made him go into the room with Bessie.
There was barely any furniture in the room. Besides the three double beds, there was a wobbly dresser in the corner, which was used as a washstand and a table. Over it, hanging on the wall was a cracked mirror. In the opposite end of the room was the fireplace. A broom-sedge sweeper stood behind the door, and another one, completely worn out, was under Ada’s bed. There were also two straight-back chairs in the room. As there were no closets in the house, clothes were hanging on the walls by nails that had been driven into the two-by-four uprights.
The moment Dude walked into the room, Bessie slammed the door, and pulled him with her. She took the marriage license from her skirt pocket and held it in front of her.
“You hold one end, Dude, and I’ll hold the other.”
“What you going to do?”
“Marry us, Dude,” she said.
“Didn’t you get that all done at the courthouse in Fuller?”
“That wasn’t all. I’m doing the balance now.”
“When is we going to take a ride?” he asked.
“It won’t be so very long now. We want to stay here a little while first. We got plenty of time to ride around, Dude.”
“You going to let me drive it all the time?”
“Sure, you can drive it all the time. I don’t know how to drive it, noway.”
“You ain’t going to let nobody else drive it, is you?”
“You is the only one who can drive it, Dude,” she said. “But we got to hurry and finish marrying. You hold your end of the license while I pray.”
Dude stood beside her, waiting for the prayer to be finished. She prayed silently for several minutes while he stood in front of her.
“I marry us man and wife. So be it. That’s all, God. Amen.”
There was a long silence while they looked at each other.
“When is we going for a ride?” Dude said.
“We is married now, Dude. We is finished being married. Ain’t you glad of it?”
“When is we going for a ride?”
“I got to pray now,” she said. “You kneel down on the floor while I make a little prayer.”
They knelt down to pray. Dude got down on all fours, looking straight into Bessie’s nose while her eyes were closed.
“Dear God, Dude and me is married now. We is wife and husband. Dude, he is an innocent young boy, unused to the sinful ways of the country, and I am a woman preacher of the gospel. You ought to make Dude a preacher, too, and let us use our new automobile in taking trips all over the country to pray for sinners. You ought to learn him how to be a fine preacher so we can make all the goats into sheep. That’s all this time. We’re in a hurry now. Save us from the devil and make a place for us in heaven. Amen.”
There was a rustle of skirts as Sister Bessie jumped to her feet and began running excitedly around the room. She came back and pulled at Dude, making him put his arms around her waist.
Outside in the yard, Jeeter and Ellie May had been standing on their toes looking in through the window to see what Dude and Bessie were doing. There were no curtains over the windows, and the board blinds had had to be opened so there would be light in the room.
Dude stood for several minutes watching Bessie as she tried to pull him across the room. She finally sat down on one of the beds and attempted to make him sit beside her.
“You ain’t going to sleep now, is you?” he asked her. “It ain’t time to go to bed yet. It ain’t no more that noontime now.”
“Just for now,” she said. “We can go out again after a while and take a ride in the automobile.”
Dude ran to the window to look at the car. For the moment, he had completely forgotten about it. When he reached the window, he saw Jeeter and Ellie May holding to the sill with the ends of their fingers and trying to see inside.
“What you doing that for?” he asked Jeeter. “What you want to look at?”
Jeeter turned away and looked out over the brown broom-sedge. Ellie May ran around to the back of the house and tip-toed into the hall through the kitchen.
Bessie came to the window and pulled Dude around until he faced her. Then she made him go back and sit down on the bed.
Suddenly, without knowing how it happened, Dude found himself on the bed with a quilt over him. Bessie had locked her arms around him so tightly that he could not move in any direction.
Outside, he heard a ladder scrape against the weatherboards. Jeeter had found the ladder under the crib and had brought it to the window.