It was a long half minute that old Ranee, without speaking, stood there, soaking his soul in the sight of a Faxons discomfiture, and when he spoke he grated the words as though he had grit in his mouth.
Looky here you, he ordered, and the boy, as though forced to obey by a will stronger than his own, lifted his head and looked at him.
Mister Fleming, he answered, what what is it you want with me Mister Fleming?
Mister Fleming Mister Fleming, mimicked the older man, catching at his words, Mister Fleming, huh? Well, you know mighty good and well, I reckin, whut it is I want with you. I want to see if youre as white-livered as the rest of your low-flung, hound-dawg, chicken-hearted breed used to be. And I reckin you are.
Mister Fleming, huh? Well, from now on thats whut it better be and dont you fail to call me by them entitlements either. The next time I come by I reckin you better take off your hat to me too. Do you hear me, plain, whut Im a-sayin? You
He called him the unforgivable, unatonable name the fighting word, than which, by the standards of that community and those people, no blow with a clenched fist could be in one twentieth part so grievous an injury; yes, it was worse than a hundred blows of a fist. So at that, the onlookers gave back a little, making way for the expected rush and grapple. But there was no forward rush by the younger man, no grapple with the older.
Young Jim Faxon took it he just stood and took it without a word or a step. Old Ranee looked at him and laughed out his contempt in a derisive chuckle and then he turned and slouched off, without looking back, as though he disdained to watch for a rear attack from so puny and spineless an enemy. It all started and happened and was over with in a minute or less. The last of the spilt lady peas were still spattering down upon the rough bricks of the market and running away and hiding themselves in cracks. Young Jim, his head on his breast and his shamed eyes looking down at nothing, was fumbling again with his wares and Ranee Flemings hunching shoulders were vanishing at the end of the shed.
People talked about it that night and for days after. It was not a thing to forget a man near grown who lacked the sand to resent that insult. A fist fight might have been forgotten, even a fist fight between these two heritors of a feud instinct, but not this. Some of the younger fellows didnt see, they said, how Jim Faxon could hold his head up again and look people in the eye. And Jim didnt hold his head up not as high as he had held it before this happened. Broody-eyed and glum and tight-lipped, he tended Miss Puss Whitleys truck patch and brought his products to market every morning. He had always been quiet and sparing of speech; now he was quiet to the point almost of dumbness.
A month and more went by, and old Ranee didnt ride in from Gum Spring, and then the Christmas came. Christmas Day fell on a Monday so that the Christmas itself properly started on the Saturday before. It was a warm and a green Christmas as most of them are in that climate, mild enough at midday for folks to sit on their front porches and just cold enough at night to beard the grass with a silver-gray frost rime. Languid looking house flies crawled out in the afternoons and cleaned their gummy wings while they sunned themselves on the southern sides of stables. The Christmas feeling was in the air. At the wharfboat lay the Clyde, deep laden for her annual jug-trip, with thousands of bottles and jugs and demi-johns consigned to the dry towns up the river. There was a big sidewalk trade going on in fire crackers and rockets, the Christinas and not the Fourth being the time for squibbing of crackers in the South, the market, though, was the busiest place of all. It fairly milled with people. Every huckster needed four hands, and still he wouldnt have had enough.
Jimmy Faxon had little Emmy Hardin helping him through the hours when the pressure was greatest and the customers came fastest. She kept close to him, with little nestling motions, and yet there was something protecting in her attitude, as though she would stand between him and any danger, or any criticism. The looks she darted at him were fairly caressing. Through the jam appeared Ranee Fleming, elbowing his way roughly. His face above his straggly whiskers was red with temper and with liquor. His cotton shirt was open at the throat so that his hairy chest showed. His shapeless gray jeans trousers gray originally but now faded and stained to a mud color were both beltless and
suspenderless, and were girthed tightly about his middle by the strap at the back. From much ramming of his hands into the pockets, they were now crowded down far upon his hips, showing an unwontedly long expanse of shirt; and this gave to him an abnormally short-legged, long-waisted look.
A lot of those little fuzzy parasitic pods called beggar-lice were stuck thick upon his bagged knees so thick they formed irregular patterns in grayish green. He wore no coat nor waistcoat, but an old mud-stiffened overcoat was swung over his shoulders with the arms tied loosely around his neck and the skirts dangling in folds behind him; and cuckleburrs clung to a tear in the lining. He was a fit model of unclean and unwholesome ferocity.