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Short Story
5

A GOOD MAN IS
HARD TO FIND

by Flannery
O'Connor

From:Flannery O'Connor: Collected
Works the Library of America

Flannery
O'Connor 1925-1964

(c)1953, 1954

p137

THE
GRANDMOTHER didn't want to go to Florida. She
wanted to visit some of her connections in east
Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to
change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she
lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the
edge of his chair at the table, bent over the
orange sports section of the Journal. "Now look
here, Bailey," she said, "see here, read this,"
and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and
the other rattling the newspaper at his bald
head. "Here this fellow that calls himself The
Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed
toward Florida and you read here what it says he
did to these people. Just you read it. I
wouldn't take my children in any direction with
a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't
answer to my conscience if I did."

Bailey
didn't look up from his reading so she wheeled
around then and faced the children's mother, a
young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad
and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around
with a green head-kerchief that had two points
on the top like rabbit's ears. She was sitting
on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out
of a jar. "The children have been to Florida
before," the old lady said. "You all ought to
take them somewhere else for a change so they
would see different parts of the world and be
broad. They never have been to east Tennessee."

The
children's mother didn't seem to hear her but
the eight-year-old boy, John Wesley, a stocky
child with glasses, said, "If you don't want to
go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?" He and
the little girl, June Star, were reading the
funny papers on the floor.

"She
wouldn't stay at home to be queen for a day,"
June Star said without raising her yellow head.

"Yes and
what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit,
caught you?" the grandmother asked.

"I'd
smack his face," John Wesley said.

"She
wouldn't stay at home for a million bucks," June
Star said. "Afraid she'd miss something. She has
to go everywhere we go."

138

"All
right, Miss," the grandmother said. "Just
remember that the next time you want me to curl
your hair."

June Star
said her hair was naturally curly.

The next
morning the grandmother was the first one in the
car, ready to go. She had her big black valise
that looked like the head of a hippopotamus in
one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a
basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it. She
didn't intend for the cat to be left alone in
the house for three days because he would miss
her too much and she was afraid he might brush
against one of the gas burners and accidentally
asphyxiate himself. Her son, Bailey, didn't like
to arrive at a motel with a cat.

She sat
in the middle of the back seat with John Wesley
and June Star on either side of her. Bailey and
the children's mother and the baby sat in front
and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with
the mileage on the car at 55890. The grandmother
wrote this down because she thought it would be
interesting to say how many miles they had been
when they got back. It took them twenty minutes
to reach the outskirts of the city.

The old
lady settled herself comfortably, removing her
white cotton gloves and putting them up with her
purse on the shelf in front of the back window.
The children's mother still had on slacks and
still had her head tied up in a green kerchief,
but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw
sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the
brim and a navy blue dress with a small white
dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were
white organdy trimmed with lace and at her
neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth
violets containing a sachet. In case of an
accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway
would know at once that she was a lady.

She said
she thought it was going to be a good day for
driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she
cautioned Bailey that the speed limit was
fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen
hid themselves behind billboards and small
clumps of trees and sped out after you before
you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out
interesting details of the scenery: Stone
Mountain; the blue granite that in some places
came up to both sides of the highway; the
brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with
purple; and the various crops

139

that made
rows of green lace-work on the ground. The trees
were full of silver-white sunlight and the
meanest of them sparkled. The children were
reading comic magazines and their mother had
gone back to sleep.

"Let's go
through Georgia fast so we won't have to look at
it much," John Wesley said.

"If I
were a little boy," said the grandmother, "I
wouldn't talk about my native state that way.
Tennessee has the mountains and Georgia has the
hills."

"Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping
ground," John Wesley said, "and Georgia is a
lousy state too."

"You said
it," June Star said.

"In my
time," said the grandmother, folding her thin
veined fingers, "children were more respectful
of their native states and their parents and
everything else. People did right then. Oh look
at the cute little pickaninny!" she said and
pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of
a shack. "Wouldn't that make a picture, now?"
she asked and they all turned and looked at the
little Negro out of the back window. He waved.

"He
didn't have any britches on," June Star said.

"He
probably didn't have any," the grandmother
explained. "Little niggers in the country don't
have things like we do. If I could paint, I'd
paint that picture," she said.

The
children exchanged comic books.

The
grandmother offered to hold the baby and the
children's mother passed him over the front seat
to her. She set him on her knee and bounced him
and told him about the things they were passing.
She rolled her eyes and screwed up her mouth and
stuck her leathery thin face into his smooth
bland one. Occasionally he gave her a faraway
smile. They passed a large cotton field with
five or six graves fenced in the middle of it,
like a small island. "Look at the graveyard!"
the grandmother said, pointing it out. "That was
the old family burying ground. That belonged to
the plantation."

"Where's
the plantation?" John Wesley asked.

"Gone
With the Wind," said the grandmother. "Ha. Ha."

When the
children finished all the comic books they had
brought, they opened the lunch and ate it. The
grandmother ate a peanut butter sandwich and an
olive and would not let

I40

the
children throw the box and the paper napkins out
the window. When there was nothing else to do
they played a game by choosing a cloud and
making the other two guess what shape it
suggested. John Wesley took one the shape of a
cow and June Star guessed a cow and John Wesley
said, no, an automobile, and June Star said he
didn't play fair, and they began to slap each
other over the grandmother.

The
grandmother said she would tell them a story if
they would keep quiet. When she told a story,
she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was
very dramatic. She said once when she was a
maiden lady she had been courted by a Mr. Edgar
Atkins Teagarden from Jasper, Georgia. She said
he was a very good-looking man and a gentleman
and that he brought her a watermelon every
Saturday afternoon with his initials cut in it,
E. A. T. Well, one Saturday, she said, Mr.
Teagarden brought the watermelon and there was
nobody at home and he left it on the front porch
and returned in his buggy to Jasper, but she
never got the watermelon, she said, because a
nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials, E.
A. T.! This story tickled John Wesley's funny
bone and he giggled and giggled but June Star
didn't think it was any good. She said she
wouldn't marry a man that just brought her a
watermelon on Saturday. The grandmother said she
would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden
because he was a gentleman and had bought
Coca-Cola stock when it first came out and that
he had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy
man.

They
stopped at The Tower for barbecued sandwiches.
The Tower was a part stucco and part wood
filling station and dance hall set in a clearing
outside of Timothy. A fat man named Red Sammy
Butts ran it and there were signs stuck here and
there on the building and for miles up and down
the highway saying, TRY RED SAMMY'S FAMOUS
BARBECUE. NONE LIKE FAMOUS RED SAMMY'S! RED SAM!
THE FAT BOY WITH THE HAPPY LAUGH. A VETERAN! RED
SAMMY'S YOUR MAN!

Red Sammy
was lying on the bare ground outside The Tower
with his head under a truck while a gray monkey
about a foot high, chained to a small chinaberry
tree, chattered nearby. The monkey sprang back
into the tree and got on the

141

highest limb as soon as
he saw the children jump out of the car and run
toward him.

Inside,
The Tower was a long dark room with a counter at
one end and tables at the other and dancing
space in the middle. They all sat down at a
board table next to the nickelodeon and Red
Sam's wife, a tall burnt-brown woman with hair
and eyes lighter than her skin, came and took
their order. The children's mother put a dime in
the machine and played "The Tennessee Waltz,"
and the grandmother said that tune always made
her want to dance. She asked Bailey if he would
like to dance but he only glared at her. He
didn't have a naturally sunny disposition like
she did and trips made him nervous. The
grandmother's brown eyes were very bright. She
swayed her head from side to side and pretended
she was dancing in her chair. June Star said
play something she could tap to so the
children's mother put in another dime and played
a fast number and June Star stepped out onto the
dance floor and did her tap routine.

"Ain't
she cute?" Red Sam's wife said, leaning over the
counter. "Would you like to come be my little
girl?"

"No I
certainly wouldn't," June Star said. "I wouldn't
live in a broken-down place like this for a
minion bucks!" and she ran back to the table.

"Ain't
she cute?" the woman repeated, stretching her
mouth politely.

"Arn't
you ashamed?" hissed the grandmother.

Red Sam
came in and told his wife to quit lounging on
the counter and hurry up with these people's
order. His khaki trousers reached just to his
hip bones and his stomach hung over them like a
sack of meal swaying under his shirt. He came
over and sat down at a table nearby and let out
a combination sigh and yodel. "You can't win,"
he said. "You can't win," and he wiped his
sweating red face off with a gray handkerchief.
"These days you don't know who to trust," he
said. "Ain't that the truth?"

"People
are certainly not nice like they used to be,"
said the grandmother.

"Two
fellers come in here last week," Red Sammy said,
"driving a Chrysler. It was a old beat-up car
but it was a good one and these boys looked all
right to me. Said they worked

142

at the
mill and you know I let them fellers charge the
gas they bought? Now why did I do that?"

"Because
you're a good man!" the grandmother said at
once.

"Yes'm, I
suppose so," Red Sam said as if he were struck
with this answer.

His wife
brought the orders, carrying the five plates all
at once without a tray, two in each hand and one
balanced on her arm. "It isn't a soul in this
green world of God's that you can trust," she
said. "And I don't count nobody out of that, not
nobody," she repeated, looking at Red Sammy.

"Did you
read about that criminal, The Misfit, that's
escaped?" asked the grandmother.

"I
wouldn't be a bit surprised if he didn't attact
this place right here," said the woman. "If he
hears about it being here,I wouldn't be none
surprised to see him. If he hears it's two cent
in the cash register, I wouldn't be a tall
surprised if he . . ."

"That'll
do," Red Sam said. "Go bring these people their
Co'-Colas," and the woman went off to get the
rest of the order.

"A good
man is hard to find," Red Sammy said.
"Every- thing is getting terrible. I remember
the day you could go off and leave your screen
door unlatched. Not no more."

He and
the grandmother discussed better times. The old
lady said that in her opinion Europe was
entirely to blame for the way things were now.
She said the way Europe acted you would think we
were made of money and Red Sam said it was no
use talking about it, she was exactly right. The
children ran outside into the white sunlight and
looked at the monkey in the lacy chinaberry
tree. He was busy catching fleas on himself and
biting each one carefully between his teeth as
if it were a delicacy.

They
drove off again into the hot afternoon. The
grand- mother took cat naps and woke up every
few minutes with her own snoring. Outside of
Toombsboro she woke up and recalled an old
plantation that she had visited in this
neighborhood once when she was a young lady. She
said the house had six white columns across the
front and that there was an avenue of oaks
leading up to it and two little wooden trellis

143

arbors on
either side in front where you sat down with
your suitor after a stroll in the garden. She
recalled exactly which road to turn off to get
to it. She knew that Bailey would not be willing
to lose any time looking at an old house, but
the more she talked about it, the more she
wanted to see it once again and find out if the
little twin arbors were still standing. "There
was a secret panel in this house," she said
craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that
she were, "and the story went that all the
family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came
through but it was never found . . ."

"Hey!"
John Wesley said. "Let's go see it! We'll find
it! We'll poke all the woodwork and find it! Who
lives there? Where do you turn off at? Hey Pop,
can't we turn off there?"

"We never
have seen a house with a secret panel!" June
Star shrieked. "Let's go to the house with the
secret panel! Hey Pop, can't we go see the house
with the secret panel!"

"It's not
far from here, I know," the grandmother said.
"It wouldn't take over twenty minutes."

Bailey
was looking straight ahead. His jaw was as rigid
as a horseshoe. "No," he said.

The
children began to yell and scream that they
wanted to see the house with the secret panel.
John Wesley kicked the back of the front seat
and June Star hung over her mother's shoulder
and whined desperately into her ear that they
never had any fun even on their vacation, that
they could never do what THEY wanted to do. The
baby began to scream and John Wesley kicked the
back of the seat so hard that his father could
feel the blows in his kidney.

"All
right!" he shouted and drew the car to a stop at
the side of the road. "Will you all shut up?
Will you all just shut up for one second? If you
don't shut up, we won't go anywhere.

"It would
be very educational for them," the grandmother
murmured.

"All
right," Bailey said, "but get this: this is the
only time we're going to stop for anything like
this. This is the one and only time."

"The dirt
road that you have to turn down is about a mile
back," the grandmother directed. "I marked it
when we passed."

144

"A dirt
road," Bailey groaned.

After
they had turned around and were headed toward
the dirt road, the grandmother recalled other
points about the house, the beautiful glass over
the front doorway and the candle-lamp in the
hall. John Wesley said that the secret panel was
probably in the fireplace.

"You
can't go inside this house," Bailey said. "You
don't know who lives there."

"While
you all talk to the people in front, I'll run
around behind and get in a window," John Wesley
suggested.

"We'll
all stay in the car," his mother said. They
turned onto the dirt road and the car raced
roughly along in a swirl of pink dust. The
grandmother recalled the times when there were
no paved roads and thirty miles was a day's
journey. The dirt road was hilly and there were
sudden washes in it and sharp curves on
dangerous embankments. All at once they would be
on a hill, looking down over the blue tops of
trees for miles around, then the next minute,
they would be in a red depression with the
dust-coated trees looking down on them.

"This
place had better turn up in a minute," Bailey
said, "or I'm going to turn around."

The road
looked as if no one had traveled on it in
months.

"It's not
much farther," the grandmother said and just as
she said it, a horrible thought came to her. The
thought was so embarrassing that she turned red
in the face and her eyes dilated and her feet
jumped up, upsetting her valise in the corner.
The instant the valise moved, the newspaper top
she had over the basket under it rose with a
snarl and Pitty Sing,the cat, sprang onto
Bailey's shoulder.

The
children were thrown to the floor and their
mother, clutching the baby, was thrown out the
door onto the ground; the old lady was thrown
into the front seat. The car turned over once
and landed right-side-up in a gulch off the side
of the road. Bailey remained in the driver's
seat with the cat-gray-striped with a broad
white face and an orange nose-clinging to his
neck like a caterpillar.

As soon
as the children saw they could move their arms
and legs, they scrambled out of the car,
shouting, "We've had an ACCIDENT!" The
grandmother was curled up under the

145

dashboard, hoping she was injured so that
Bailey's wrath would not come down on her all at
once. The horrible thought she had had before
the accident was that the house she had
remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in
Tennessee.

Bailey
removed the cat from his neck with both hands
and flung it out the window against the side of
a pine tree. Then he got out of the car and
started looking for the children's mother. She
was sitting against the side of the red gutted
ditch, holding the screaming baby, but she only
had a cut down her face and a broken shoulder.
"We've had an ACCIDENT!" the children screamed
in a frenzy of delight.

"But
nobody's killed," June Star said with
disappointment as the grandmother limped out of
the car, her hat still pinned to her head but
the broken front brim standing up at a jaunty
angle and the violet spray hanging off the side.
They all sat down in the ditch, except the
children, to recover from the shock. They were
all shaking.

"Maybe a
car will come along," said the children's mother
hoarsely.

"I
believe I have injured an organ," said the
grandmother, pressing her side, but no one
answered her. Bailey's teeth were clattering. He
had on a yellow sport shirt with bright blue
parrots designed in it and his face was as
yellow as the l shirt. The grandmother decided
that she would not mention that the house was in
Tennessee.

The road
was about ten feet above and they could see only
the tops of the trees on the other side of it.
Behind the ditch they were sitting in there were
more woods, tall and dark and deep. In a few
minutes they saw a car some distance away on top
of a hill, coming slowly as if the occupants
were watching them. The grandmother stood up and
waved both arms dramatically to attract their
attention. The car continued to come on slowly,
disappeared around a bend and appeared again,
moving even slower, on top of the hill they had
gone over. It was a big black battered
hearse-like automobile. There were three men in
it.

It came
to a stop just over them and for some minutes,
the driver looked down with a steady
expressionless gaze to where they were sitting,
and didn't speak. Then he turned his

146

head and
muttered something to the other two and they got
out. One was a fat boy in black trousers and a
red sweat shirt with a silver stallion embossed
on the front of it. He moved around on the right
side of them and stood staring, his mouth partly
open in a kind of loose grin. The other had on
khaki pants and a blue striped coat and a gray
hat pulled down very low, hiding most of his
face. He came around slowly on the left side.
Neither spoke.

The
driver got out of the car and stood by the side
of it, looking down at them. He was an older man
than the other two. His hair was just beginning
to gray and he wore silver- rimmed spectacles
that gave him a scholarly look. He had a long
creased face and didn't have on any shirt or
undershirt. He had on blue jeans that were too
tight for him and was holding a black hat and a
gun. The two boys also had guns.

"We've
had an ACCIDENT!" the children screamed.

The
grandmother had the peculiar feeling that the
bespectacled man was someone she knew. His face
was as familiar to her as if she had known him
au her life but she could not recall who he was.
He moved away from the car and began to come
down the embankment, placing his feet carefully
so that he wouldn't slip. He had on tan and
white shoes and no socks, and his ankles were
red and thin. "Good afternoon," he said. "I see
you all had you a little spill."

"We
turned over twice!" said the grandmother.

"Once","
he corrected. "We seen it happen. Try their car
and see will it run, Hiram," he said quietly to
the boy with the gray hat.

"What you
got that gun for?" John Wesley asked. "Whatcha
gonna do with that gun?"

"Lady,"
the man said to the children's mother, "would
you mind calling them children to sit down by
you? Children make me nervous. I want all you
all to sit down right together there where
you're at."

"What are
you telling US what to do for?" June Star asked.

Behind
them the line of woods gaped like a dark open
mouth. "Come here," said their mother.

"Look
here now," Bailey began suddenly, "we're in a
predicament! We're in . . ."

147

The
grandmother shrieked. She scrambled to her feet
and stood staring. "You're The Misfit!" she
said. "I recognized you at once!"

"Yes'm,"
the man said, smiling slightly as if he were
pleased in spite of himself to be known, "but it
would have been better for all of you, lady, if
you hadn't of reckernized me."

Bailey
turned his head sharply and said something to
his mother that shocked even the children. The
old lady began to cry and The Misfit reddened.

"Lady,"
he said, "don't you get upset. Sometimes a man
says things he don't mean. I don't reckon he
meant to talk to you thataway."

"You
wouldn't shoot a lady, would you?" the
grandmother said and removed a clean
handkerchief from her cuff and began to slap at
her eyes with it.

The
Misfit pointed the toe of his shoe into the
ground and made a little hole and then covered
it up again. "I would hate to have to," he said.

"Listen,"
the grandmother almost screamed, "I know you're
a good man. You don't look a bit like you have
com- mon blood. I know you must come from nice
people!"

"Yes
mam," he said, "finest people in the world."
When he smiled he showed a row of strong white
teeth. "God never made a finer woman than my
mother and my daddy's heart was pure gold," he
said. The boy with the red sweat shirt had come
around behind them and was standing with his gun
at his hip. The Misfit squatted down on the
ground. "Watch them children, Bobby Lee," he
said. "You know they make me nervous." He looked
at the six of them huddled together in front of
him and he seemed to be embarrassed as if he
couldn't think of anything to say. "Ain't a
cloud in the sky," he remarked, looking up at
it. "Don't see no sun but don't see no cloud
neither."

"Yes,
it's a beautiful day," said the grandmother.
"Listen," she said, "you shouldn't call yourself
The Misfit because I know you're a good man at
heart. I can just look at you and tell "

"Hush!"
Bailey yelled. "Hush! Everybody shut up and let
me handle this!" He was squatting in the
position of a runner about to sprint forward but
he didn't move.

148

"I
prechate that, lady," The Misfit said and drew a
little circle in the ground with the butt of his
gun.

"It'll
take a half a hour to fix this here car," Hiram
called, looking over the raised hood of it.

"Well,
first you and Bobby Lee get him and that little
boy to step over yonder with you," The Misfit
said, pointing to Bailey and John Wesley. "The
boys want to ast you some- thing," he said to
Bailey. "Would you mind stepping back in them
woods there with them?"

"Listen,"
Bailey began, "we're in a terrible predicament!
Nobody realizes what this is," and his voice
cracked. His eyes were as blue and intense as
the parrots in his shirt and he remained
perfectly still.

The
grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim as
if she were going to the woods with him but it
came off in her hand. She stood staring at it
and after a second she let it fall on the
ground. Hiram pulled Bailey up by the arm as if
he were assisting an old man. John Wesley caught
hold of his father's hand and Bobby Lee
followed. They went off toward the woods and
just as they reached the dark edge, Bailey
turned and supporting himself against a gray
naked pine trunk, he shouted, "I'll be back in a
minute, Mamma, wait on me!"

"Come
back this instant!" his mother shrilled but they
all disappeared into the woods.

"Bailey
Boy!" the grandmother called in a tragic voice
but she found she was looking at The Misfit
squatting on the ground in front of her. "I just
know you're a good man," she said desperately.
"You're not a bit common!"

"Nome, I
ain't a good man," The Misfit said after a
second as if he had considered her statement
carefully, "but I ain't the worst in the world
neither. My daddy said I was a different breed
of dog from my brothers and sisters. 'You know,'
Daddy said, 'it's some that can live their whole
life out without asking about it and it's others
has to know why it is, and this boy is one of
the latters. He's going to be into every-
thing!'" He put on his black hat and looked up
suddenly and then away deep into the woods as if
he were embarrassed again. "I'm sorry I don't
have on a shirt before you ladies," he said,
hunching his shoulders slightly. "We buried our
clothes that we had on when we escaped and we're
just

I49

making do
until we can get better. We borrowed these from
some folks we met," he explained.

"That's
perfectly all right," the grandmother said.
"Maybe Bailey has an extra shirt in his
suitcase."

"I'll
look and see terrectly," The Misfit said.

"Where
are they taking him?" the children's mother
screamed.

"Daddy
was a card himself," The Misfit said. "You
couldn't put anything over on him. He never got
in trouble with the Authorities though. Just had
the knack of handling them."

"You
could be honest too if you'd only try," said the
grandmother. "Think how wonderful it would be to
settle down and live a comfortable life and not
have to think about some- body chasing you all
the time."

The
Misfit kept scratching in the ground with the
butt of his gun as if he were thinking about it.
"Yes'm, somebody is always after you," he
murmured.

The
grandmother noticed how thin his shoulder blades
were just behind-his hat because she was
standing up looking down on him. "Do you ever
pray?" she asked.

He shook
his head. All she saw was the black hat wiggle
between his shoulder blades. "Nome," he said.

There was
a pistol shot from the woods, followed closely
by another. Then silence. The old lady's head
jerked around. She could hear the wind move
through the tree tops like a long satisfied
insuck of breath. "Bailey Boy!" she called.

"I was a
gospel singer for a while," The Misfit said. "I
been most everything. Been in the arm service,
both land and sea, at home and abroad, been
twict married, been an undertaker, been with the
railroads, plowed Mother Earth, been in a
tornado, seen a man burnt alive oncet," and he
looked up at the children's mother and the
little girl who were sitting close together,
their faces white and their eyes glassy; "I even
seen a woman flogged," he said.

"Pray,
pray," the grandmother began, "pray, pray . . ."

"I never
was a bad boy that I remember of," The Misfit
said in an almost dreamy voice, "but somewheres
along the line I done something wrong and got
sent to the penitentiary. I was buried alive,"
and he looked up and held her attention to him
by a steady stare.

150

"That's
when you should have started to pray," she said
"What did you do to get sent to the penitentiary
that first time?"

"Turn to
the right, it was a wall," The Misfit said,
looking up again at the cloudless sky. "Turn to
the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a
ceiling, look down it was a floor. I forget what
I done, lady. I set there and set there, trying
to remember what it was I done and I ain't
recalled it to this day. Oncet in a while, I
would think it was coming to me, but it never
come."

"Maybe
they put you in by mistake," the old lady said
vaguely.

"Nome,"
he said. "It wasn't no mistake. They had the
papers on me."

"You must
have stolen something," she said.

The
Misfit sneered slightly. "Nobody had nothing I
wanted," he said. "It was a head-doctor at the
penitentiary said what I had done was kill my
daddy but I known that for a lie. My daddy died
in nineteen ought nineteen of the epidemic flu
and I never had a thing to do with it. He was
buried in the Mount Hopewell Baptist churchyard
and you can go there and see for yourself."

"If you
would pray," the old lady said, "Jesus would
help you."

"That's
right," The Misfit said.

"Well
then, why don't you pray?" she asked trembling
with delight suddenly.

"I don't
want no hep," he said. "I'm doing all right by
myself."

Bobby Lee
and Hiram came ambling back from the woods.
Bobby Lee was dragging a yellow shirt with
bright blue parrots in it.

"Thow me
that shirt, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. The
shirt came flying at him and landed on his
shoulder and he put it on. The grandmother
couldn't name what the shirt reminded her of.
"No, lady," The Misfit said while he was
buttoning it up, "I found out the crime don't
matter. You can do one thing or you can do
another, kill a man or take a tire off his car,
because sooner or later you're going to forget
what it was you done and just be punished for
it."

151

The
children's mother had begun to make heaving
noises as if she couldn't get her breath.
"Lady," he asked, "would you and that little
girl like to step off yonder with Bobby Lee and
Hiram and join your husband?"

"Yes,
thank you," the mother said faintly. Her left
arm dangled helplessly and she was holding the
baby, who had gone to sleep, in the other. "Hep
that lady up, Hiram," The Misfit said as she
struggled to climb out of the ditch, "and Bobby
Lee, you hold onto that little girl's hand."

"I don't
want to hold hands with him," June Star said.
"He reminds me of a pig."

The fat
boy blushed and laughed and caught her by the
arm and pulled her off into the woods after
Hiram and her mother.

Alone
with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she
had lost her voice. There was not a cloud in the
sky nor any sun. There was nothing around her
but woods. She wanted to tell him that he must
pray. She opened and closed her mouth several
times before anything came out. Finally she
found herself saying, "Jesus. Jesus," meaning,
Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying
it, it sounded as if she might be cursing.

"Yes'm,"
The Misfit said as if he agreed. "Jesus shown
everything off balance. It was the same case
with Him as with me except He hadn't committed
any crime and they could prove I had committed
one because they had the papers on me. Of
course," he said, "they never shown me my
papers. That's why I sign myself now. I said
long ago, you get you a signature and sign
everything you do and keep a copy of it. Then
you'll know what you done and you can hold up
the crime to the punishment and see do they
match and in the end you'll have something to
prove you ain't been treated right. I call
myself The Misfit," he said, "because I can't
make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone
through in punishment."

There was
a piercing scream from the woods, followed
closely by a pistol report. "Does it seem right
to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and
another ain't punished at all?"

"Jesus!"
the old lady cried. "You've got good blood! I
know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come
from nice

152

people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not
to shoot a lady. I'll give you all the money
I've got!"

"Lady,"
The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the
woods, "there never was a body that give the
undertaker a tip."

There
were two more pistol reports and the grandmother
raised her head like a parched old turkey hen
crying for water and called, "Bailey Boy, Bailey
Boy!" as if her heart would break.

"Jesus
was the only One that ever raised the dead," The
Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done
it. He shown everything off balance. If He did
what He said, then it's nothing for you to do
but thow away everything and follow Him, and if
He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but
enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way
you can-by killing somebody or burning down his
house or doing some other meanness to him. No
pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice
had become almost a snarl.

"Maybe He
didn't raise the dead," the old lady mumbled,
not knowing what she was saying and feeling so
dizzy that she sank down in the ditch with her
legs twisted under her.

"I wasn't
there so I can't say He didn't," The Misfit
said. "I wisht I had of been there," he said,
hitting the ground with his fist. "It ain't
right I wasn't there because if I had of been
there I would of known. Listen lady," he said in
a high voice, "if I had of been there I would of
known and I wouldn't be like I am now." His
voice seemed about to crack and the
grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She
saw the man's face twisted close to her own as
if he were going to cry and she murmured, "Why
you're one of my babies. You're one of my own
children!" She reached out and touched him on
the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a
snake had bitten him and shot her three times
through the chest. Then he put his gun down on
the ground and took off his glasses and began to
clean them.

Hiram and
Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over
the ditch, looking down at the grandmother who
half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with
her legs crossed under her like a child's and
her face smiling up at the cloudless sky.

153

Without
his glasses, The Misfit's eyes were red-rimmed
and pale and defenseless-looking. "Take her off
and thow her where you shown the others," he
said, picking up the cat that was rubbing itself
against his leg.

"She was
a talker, wasn't she?" Bobby Lee said, sliding
down the ditch with a yodel.

"She
would of been a good woman," The Misfit said,
"if it had been somebody there to shoot her
every minute of her life."

"Some
fun!" Bobby Lee said.

"Shut up,
Bobby Lee" The Misfit said. "It's no real
pleasure in life."

ARABY

by James Joyce

North Richmond
Street, being blind, was a quiet street except
at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School
set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two
storeys stood at the blind end, detached from
its neighbours in a square ground. The other
houses of the street, conscious of decent lives
within them, gazed at one another with brown
imperturbable faces.
The former tenant of our
house, a priest, had died in the back
drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long
enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste
room behind the kitchen was littered with old
useless papers. Among these I found a few
paper-covered books, the pages of which were
curled and damp: The Abbot, by Walter
Scott, The Devout Communicant, and The
Memoirs of Vidocq. I liked the last best
because its leaves were yellow. The wild garden
behind the house contained a central apple-tree
and a few straggling bushes, under one of which
I found the late tenant's rusty bicycle-pump. He
had been a very charitable priest; in his will
he had left all his money to institutions and
the furniture of his house to his
sister.
When the short days of winter came,
dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners.
When we met in the street the houses had grown
sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour
of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps
of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The
cold air stung us and we played till our bodies
glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street.
The career of our play brought us through the
dark muddy lanes behind the houses, where we ran
the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the
cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping
gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to
the dark odorous stables where a coachman
smoothed and combed the horse or shook music
from the buckled harness. When we returned to
the street, light from the kitchen windows had
filled the areas. If my uncle was seen turning
the corner, we hid in the shadow until we had
seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan's sister
came out on the doorstep to call her brother in
to his tea, we watched her from our shadow peer
up and down the street. We waited to see whether
she would remain or go in and, if she remained,
we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's
steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her
figure defined by the light from the half-opened
door. Her brother always teased her before he
obeyed, and I stood by the railings looking at
her. Her dress swung as she moved her body, and
the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to
side.
Every morning I lay on the floor in the
front parlour watching her door. The blind was
pulled down to within an inch of the sash so
that I could not be seen. When she came out on
the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall,
seized my books and followed her. I kept her
brown figure always in my eye and, when we came
near the point at which our ways diverged, I
quickened my pace and passed her. This happened
morning after morning. I had never spoken to
her, except for a few casual words, and yet her
name was like a summons to all my foolish
blood.
Her image accompanied me even in
places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday
evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go
to carry some of the parcels. We walked through
the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and
bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers,
the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on
guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal
chanting of street-singers, who sang a
come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a
ballad about the troubles in our native land.
These noises converged in a single sensation of
life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice
safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang
to my lips at moments in strange prayers and
praises which I myself did not understand. My
eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell
why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed
to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought
little of the future. I did not know whether I
would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to
her, how I could tell her of my confused
adoration. But my body was like a harp and her
words and gestures were like fingers running
upon the wires.

One evening I went
into the back drawing-room in which the priest
had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there
was no sound in the house. Through one of the
broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the
earth, the fine incessant needles of water
playing in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or
lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful
that I could see so little. All my senses seemed
to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I
was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms
of my hands together until they trembled,
murmuring: 'O love! O love!' many
times.
At last she spoke to me. When she
addressed the first words to me I was so
confused that I did not know what to answer. She
asked me was I going to Araby.
I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would
be a splendid bazaar; she said she would love to
go.
'And why can't you?' I asked.
While
she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and
round her wrist. She could not go, she said,
because there would be a retreat that week in
her convent. Her brother and two other boys were
fighting for their caps, and I was alone at the
railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her
head towards me. The light from the lamp
opposite our door caught the white curve of her
neck, lit up her hair that rested there and,
falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It
fell over one side of her dress and caught the
white border of a petticoat, just visible as she
stood at ease.
'It's well for you,' she
said.
'If I go,' I said, 'I will bring you
something.'
What innumerable follies laid
waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that
evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious
intervening days. I chafed against the work of
school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the
classroom her image came between me and the page
I strove to read. The syllables of the word
Araby
were called to me through the silence in which
my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern
enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to
the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was
surprised, and hoped it was not some Freemason
affair. I answered few questions in class. I
watched my master's face pass from amiability to
sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle.
I could not call my wandering thoughts together.
I had hardly any patience with the serious work
of life which, now that it stood between me and
my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly
monotonous child's play.
On Saturday morning
I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the
bazaar in the evening. He was fussing at the
hallstand, looking for the hat-brush, and
answered me curtly:

'Yes, boy, I
know.'
As he was in the hall I could not go
into the front parlour and lie at the window. I
felt the house in bad humour and walked slowly
towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw
and already my heart misgave me.
When I came
home to dinner my uncle had not yet been home.
Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock
for some time and, when its ticking began to
irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the
staircase and gained the upper part of the
house. The high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms
liberated me and I went from room to room
singing. From the front window I saw my
companions playing below in the street. Their
cries reached me weakened and indistinct and,
leaning my forehead against the cool glass, I
looked over at the dark house where she lived. I
may have stood there for an hour, seeing nothing
but the brown-clad figure cast by my
imagination, touched discreetly by the lamplight
at the curved neck, at the hand upon the
railings and at the border below the
dress.
When I came downstairs again I found
Mrs Mercer sitting at the fire. She was an old,
garrulous woman, a pawnbroker's widow, who
collected used stamps for some pious purpose. I
had to endure the gossip of the tea-table. The
meal was prolonged beyond an hour and still my
uncle did not come. Mrs Mercer stood up to go:
she was sorry she couldn't wait any longer, but
it was after eight o'clock and she did not like
to be out late, as the night air was bad for
her. When she had gone I began to walk up and
down the room, clenching my fists. My aunt
said:
'I'm afraid you may put off your bazaar
for this night of Our Lord.'
At nine o'clock
I heard my uncle's latchkey in the hall door. I
heard him talking to himself and heard the
hallstand rocking when it had received the
weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these
signs. When he was midway through his dinner I
asked him to give me the money to go to the
bazaar. He had forgotten.
'The people are in
bed and after their first sleep now,' he
said.
I did not smile. My aunt said to him
energetically:
'Can't you give him the money
and let him go? You've kept him late enough as
it is.'
My uncle said he was very sorry he
had forgotten. He said he believed in the old
saying: 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull
boy.' He asked me where I was going and, when I
told him a second time, he asked me did I know
The Arab's Farewell to his Steed. When I
left the kitchen he was about to recite the
opening lines of the piece to my aunt.
I held
a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down
Buckingham Street towards the station. The sight
of the streets thronged with buyers and glaring
with gas recalled to me the purpose of my
journey. I took my seat in a third-class
carriage of a deserted train. After an
intolerable delay the train moved out of the
station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous
houses and over the twinkling river. At Westland
Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the
carriage doors; but the porters moved them back,
saying that it was a special train for the
bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage.
In a few minutes the train drew up beside an
improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to
the road and saw by the lighted dial of a clock
that it was ten minutes to ten. In front of me
was a large building which displayed the magical
name.
I could not find any sixpenny entrance
and, fearing that the bazaar would be closed, I
passed in quickly through a turnstile, handing a
shilling to a weary-looking man. I found myself
in a big hall girded at half its height by a
gallery. Nearly all the stalls were closed and
the greater part of the hall was in darkness. I
recognized a silence like that which pervades a
church after a service. I walked into the centre
of the bazaar timidly. A few people were
gathered about the stalls which were still open.
Before a curtain, over which the words Café
Chantant were written in coloured lamps, two
men were counting money on a salver. I listened
to the fall of the coins.
Remembering with
difficulty why I had come, I went over to one of
the stalls and examined porcelain vases and
flowered tea-sets. At the door of the stall a
young lady was talking and laughing with two
young gentlemen. I remarked their English
accents and listened vaguely to their
conversation.
'O, I never said such a
thing!'
'O, but you did!'
'O, but I
didn't!'
'Didn't she say that?'
'Yes. I
heard her.'
'O, there's a... fib!'

Observing me, the
young lady came over and asked me did I wish to
buy anything. The tone of her voice was not
encouraging; she seemed to have spoken to me out
of a sense of duty. I looked humbly at the great
jars that stood like eastern guards at either
side of the dark entrance to the stall and
murmured:
'No, thank you.'
The young lady
changed the position of one of the vases and
went back to the two young men. They began to
talk of the same subject. Once or twice the
young lady glanced at me over her shoulder.
I
lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay
was useless, to make my interest in her wares
seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly
and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I
allowed the two pennies to fall against the
sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from
one end of the gallery that the light was out.
The upper part of the hall was now completely
dark.
Gazing up into the darkness I saw
myself as a creature driven and derided by
vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and
anger.

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