Addie Dies Calling for Cash — As I Lay Dying

It's Jewel she wants, Dewey Dell says. Anse explains the boys went for one more load, three dollars, they thought there was time. Addie has not moved in ten days. Then she raises herself and looks out the window at Cash stooping at the board in the failing light, labouring on toward darkness as though the saw illumined its own motion.

You, Cash, she shouts, her voice harsh, strong, and unimpaired. Cash drops the saw and lifts the board for her to see, shaping with his empty hand in pantomime the finished box. She watches without censure or approbation. Then the face disappears. She looks at Vardaman; the two flames in her eyes glare up and go out as though someone leaned down and blew upon them. Dewey Dell keens. Vardaman backs out of the room, his face fading into the dusk like paper on a failing wall.

Cash says she's gone. Anse asks how nigh the coffin is done and tells him to get back to work. The saw begins to snore again. Git up and put supper on, Anse says. Dewey Dell draws the quilt smooth. Anse fumbles the quilt, then says God's will be done. Now I can get them teeth. In the ditch, rain running yellow around the broken wheel, Darl says Jewel, she is dead. Vardaman is about to run from the porch with the fish still cut into not-fish in the dust. What does a child do when death and supper arrive in the same hour?