Fish, Horse, and Is-Was — As I Lay Dying

We are going to town, Vardaman says. Dewey Dell tells him the train in the window won't be sold because it belongs to Santa Claus until next Christmas, when it will shine behind the glass again. Pa and Cash come down the hill, but Jewel is going to the barn. You leave that horse here, Pa says. We'll all go in the wagon with ma, like she wanted. Jewel's eyes look like marbles. He does not stop.

But my mother is a fish, Vardaman thinks. Vernon seen it. He was there. Darl says Jewel's mother is a horse. Then what is your ma, Darl? If I had one, it is was, Darl says, and if it is was, it can't be is. Then I am not, Darl says. But you are, Darl, Vardaman answers. That's why I am not is, Darl says. Are is too many for one woman to foal.

Cash will stop at Tull's on the way back and get on that barn roof. It ain't respectful, Pa says. It's a deliberate flouting of her and of me. Dewey Dell climbs into the wagon with Mrs. Tull's cakes. It's a flouting of the dead, Pa says again. It'll be there come Christmas, Dewey Dell says, shining on the track. Who hears the child's equation when the loudest mourner is counting slights?