Anse Takes the Ten Dollars — As I Lay Dying

When he saw the money Dewey Dell said it is not my money, it does not belong to me. Anse asked whose then. She claimed it was Cora Tull's money, Mrs. Tull's, from selling cakes. Ten dollars for two cakes, he said. You never had them cakes, it is a lie, it was them Sunday clothes in that package. She told him not to touch it and said if he takes it he is a thief.

Anse answered with wounded fatherhood. My own daughter accuses me of being a thief. He said he fed and sheltered her seventeen years and that his own daughter calls him a thief over her dead mother's grave. Dewey Dell kept saying pa pa and if it were hers God knows he could have it. Where did you get ten dollars, he asked. Did you come by it so shameful you dare not? She said it was give to me to buy something with but she could not name what.

He called it just a loan, said his children deny him after he gave without stint, and told dead Addie it was lucky for you you died, Addie. God knows it is. Then he took the money and went out. Dewey Dell could not say female trouble or Lafe or the drugstore that failed twice. If a parent wins a money fight with grave talk, what leaves the room when the bill is already in their pocket?