Read Online Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote - Free Book Online Page B

compact. Opening it, she took a pinch of snuff, and sniffed it up her wide nose. “Happy Dip, that’s the bestest brand.”
    “Is he awful sick—Mister Sansom?” Joel persisted.
    “Take a pinch,” she said, extending her compact.
    And he accepted, anxious not to offend her. The ginger-colored powder had a scalding, miserable taste, like devil’s pepper; he sneezed, and when water sprang up in his eyes he covered his face ashamedly with his hands.
    “You laughin or cryin, boy?”
    “Crying,” he whimpered, and this came close to truth. “Everybody in the house is stone deaf.”
    “I ain’t deaf, honey,” said Zoo, sounding sincerely concerned. “Have the backache and stomach jitters, but I ain’t deaf.”
    “Then why does everybody act so queer? Gee whiz, every time I mention Mister Sansom you’d think . . . you’d think . . . and in the town . . .” He rubbed his eyes and peeked at Zoo. “Like just now, when I asked if he was really ill . . .”
    Zoo glanced worriedly at the window where fig leaves pressed against the glass like green listening ears. “Miss Amy done tol you he ain’t the healthiest man.”
    The flies buzzed back to the sugar jar, and the ticktuck of the defective clock was loud. “Is he going to die?” said Joel.
    The scrape of a chair. Zoo was up and rinsing pans in a tub with water from a well-bucket. “We friends, that’s fine,” she said, talking over her shoulder. “Only don’t never ax me nothin bout Mister Sansom. Miss Amy the one take care of him. Ax her. Ax Mister Randolph. I ain’t in noways messed up with Mister Sansom; don’t even fix him his vittels. Me and Papadaddy, us got our own troubles.”
    Joel snapped shut the snuff compact, and revolved it in his hands, examining the unique design. It was round and the silver was cut like a turtle’s shell; a real butterfly, arranged under a film of lime glass, figured the lid; the butterfly wings were the luminously misty orange of a full moon. So elegant a case, he reasoned, was never meant for ordinary snuff, but rare golden powders, precious witch potions, love sand.
    “Yessir, us got our own troubles.”
    “Zoo,” he said, “where’d you get this?”
    She was kneeling on the floor cursing quietly as she shoveled ashes out of the stove. The firelight rippled over her black face and danced a yellow light in her foxgrape eyes which now cut sideways questioningly. “My box?” she said. “Mister Randolph gimme it one Christmas way long ago. He make it hisself, makes lotsa pretty dodads long that line.”
    Joel studied the compact with awed respect; he would’ve sworn it was store-bought. Distastefully he recalled his own attempts at hand-made gifts: necktie racks, tool kits, and the like; they were mighty sorry by comparison. He comforted himself with the thought that Cousin Randolph must be older than he’d supposed.
    “I usta been usin it for cheek-red,” said Zoo, advancing to claim her treasure. She dipped more snuff before redepositing it down her dress-front. “But seein as I don’t go over to Noon City no more (ain’t been in two years), I reckoned it’d do to keep my Happy Dip good ’n dry. Sides, no sense paintin up less there’s mens round a lady is innerested in . . . which there ain’t.” A mean expression pinched her face as she gazed at the sunspots freckling the linoleum. “That Keg Brown, the one what landed on the chain gang cause he did me a bad turn, I hope they got him out swingin a ninety-pound pick under this hot sun.” And, as if it were sore, she touched her long neck lightly. “Well,” she sighed, “spec I best get to tendin Papadaddy: I’m gonna take him some hoecake and molasses: he must be powerful hungry.”
    Joel watched apathetically while she broke off a cold slab of cornbread, and poured a preserve jar half-full of thick molasses. “How come you don’t fix yourself a sling-shot, and go out and kill a mess of birds?” she suggested.
    “Dad will probably want me