Revelation
Flannery OConnor
The Doctors waiting room, which was very small, was almost full when the Turpins entered and Mrs. Turpin, who was very large, made it look even smaller by her presence. She stood looming at the head of the magazine table set in the center of it, a living demonstration that the room was inadequate and ridiculous. Her little bright black eyes took in all the patients as she sized up the seating situation. There was one vacant chair and a place on the sofa occupied by a blond child in a dirty blue romper who should have been told to move over and make room for the lady. He was five or six, but Mrs. Turpin saw at once that no one was going to tell him to move over. He was slumped down in the seat, his arms idle at his sides and his eyes idle in his head; his nose ran unchecked. Mrs. Turpin put a firm hand on Clauds shoulder and said in a voice that included anyone who wanted to listen, Claud, you sit in that chair there, and gave him a push down into the vacant one. Claud was florid and bald and sturdy, somewhat shorter than Mrs. Turpin, but he sat down as if he were accustomed to doing what she told him to. Mrs. Turpin remained standing. The only man in the room besides Claud was a lean stringy old fellow with a rusty hand spread out on each knee, whose eyes were closed as if he were asleep or dead or pretending to be so as not to get up and offer her his seat. Her gaze settled agreeably on a well-dressed grey-haired lady whose eyes met hers and whose expression said: if that child belonged to me, he would have some manners and move over-theres plenty of room there for you and him too. Claud looked up with a sigh and made as if to rise. Sit down, Mrs. Turpin said. You know youre not supposed to stand on that leg. He has an ulcer on his leg, she explained. Claud lifted his foot onto the magazine table and rolled his trouser leg up to reveal a purple swelling on a plump marble white calf. My! the pleasant lady said. How did you do that? A cow kicked him, Mrs. Turpin said. Goodness! said the lady. Claud rolled his trouser leg down. Maybe the little boy would move over, the lady suggested, but the child did not stir. Somebody will be leaving in a minute, Mrs. Turpin said. She could not understand why a doctor-with as much money as they made charging five dollars a day to just stick their head in the hospital door and look at you-couldnt afford a decent-sized waiting room. This one was hardly bigger than a garage. The table was cluttered with limp-looking magazines and at one end of it there was a big green glass ashtray full of cigarette butts and cotton wads with little blood spots on them. If she had had anything to do with the running of the place, that would have been emptied every so often. There were no chairs against the wall at the head of the room. It had a rectangular-shaped panel in it that permitted a view of the office where the nurse came and went and the secretary listened to the radio. A plastic fern, in a gold pot sat in the opening and trailed its fronds down almost to the floor. The radio was softly playing gospel music. Just then the inner door opened and a nurse with the highest stack of yellow hair Mrs. Turpin had ever seen put her face in the crack and called for the next patient. The woman sitting beside Claud grasped the two arms of her chair and hoisted herself up; she pulled her dress free from her legs and lumbered through the door where the nurse had disappeared. Mrs. Turpin eased into the vacant chair, which held her tight as a corset. I wish I could reduce, she said, and rolled her eyes and gave a comic sigh. Oh, you arent fat, the stylish lady said. Ooooo I am too, Mrs. Turpin said. Claud he eats all he wants to and never weighs over one hundred and seventy-five pounds, but me I just look at something good to eat and I gain some weight, and her stomach and shoulders shook with laughter. You can eat all you want to, cant you, Claud? she asked, turning to him. Claud only grinned. Well, as long as you have such a good disposition, the stylish lady said, I dont think it makes a bit of difference what size you are. You just cant beat a good disposition. Next to her was a fat girl of eighteen or nineteen, scowling into a thick blue book which Mrs. Turpin saw was entitled Human Development. The girl raised her head and directed her scowl at Mrs. Turpin as if she did not like her looks. She appeared annoyed that anyone should speak while she tried to read. The poor girls face was blue with acne and Mrs. Turpin thought how pitiful it was to have a face like that at that age. She gave the girl a friendly smile but the girl only scowled the harder. Mrs. Turpin herself was fat but she had always had good skin, and, though she was forty-seven years old, there was not a wrinkle in her face except around her eyes from laughing too much. Next to the ugly girl was the child, still in exactly the same position, and next to him was a thin leathery old woman in a cotton print dress. She and Claud had three sacks of chicken feed in their pump house that was in the same print. She had seen from the first that the child belonged with the old woman. She could tell by the way they sat- kind of vacant and white-trashy, as if they would sit there until Doomsday if nobody called and told them to get up. And at right angles but next to the well-dressed pleasant lady was a lank-faced woman who was certainly the childs mother. She had on a yellow sweatshirt and wine-colored slacks, both gritty-looking, and the rims of her lips were stained with snuff. Her dirty yellow hair was tied behind with a little piece of red paper ribbon. Worse than niggers any day, Mrs. Turpin thought. The gospel hymn playing was When I looked up and He looked down, and Mrs. Turpin, who knew it, supplied the last line mentally, And wona these days I know Ill we-eara crown. Without appearing to, Mrs. Turpin always noticed peoples feet. The well-dressed lady had on red and grey suede shoes to match her dress. Mrs. Turpin had on her good black patent -leather pumps. The ugly girl had on Girl Scout shoes and heavy socks. The old woman had on tennis shoes and the white-trashy mother had on what appeared to be bedroom slippers, black straw with gold braid threaded through them-exactly what you would have expected her to have on. Sometimes at night when she couldnt go to sleep, Mrs. Turpin would occupy herself with the question of who she would have chosen to be if she couldnt have been herself. If Jesus had said to her before he made her, Theres only two places available for you. You can either be a nigger or white trash, what would she have said? Please, Jesus, please, she would have said, Just let me wait until theres another place available, and he would have said, No, you have to go right now, and I have only those two places so make up your mind. She would have wiggled and squirmed and begged and pleaded but it would have been no use and finally she would have said, All right, make me a nigger then-but that dont mean a trashy one. And he would have made her a near clean respectable Negro woman, herself but black. Next to the childs mother was a redheaded youngish woman, reading one of the magazines and working a piece of chewing gum, hell for leather, as Claud would say. Mrs. Turpin could not see the womans feet. She was not white trash, just common. Sometimes Mrs. Turpin occupied herself at night naming the classes of people. On the bottom of the heap were most colored people, not the kind she would have been if she had been one, but most of them; then next to them not above, just away from were the white-trash; then above them were the home-owners, and above them the home-and-land owners, to which she and Claud belonged, Above she and Claud were people with a lot of money and much bigger houses and much more land. But here the complexity of it would begin to bear in on her, for some of the people with a lot of money were common and ought to be below she and Claud and some of the people who had good blood had lost their money and had to rent and then there some colored people who owned their homes and land as well. There was a colored dentist in town who had two red Lincolns and a swimming pool and a farm with registered whiteface cattle on it. Usually by the time she had fallen asleep all the classes of people were moiling and roiling around in her head, and she would dream they were all crammed in together in a box car, being ridden off to be put in a gas oven. Thats a beautiful clock, she said and nodded to her right. It was a big wall clock, the face encased in a brass sunburst. Yes, its very pretty, the stylish lady said agreeably. And right on the dot too, she added, glancing at her watch. The ugly girl beside her cast an eye upward at the clock, smirked, then looked directly at Mrs. Turpin and smirked again. Then she returned her eyes to her book. She was obviously the ladys daughter because, although they didnt look anything alike as to disposition, they both had the same shape of face and the same blue eyes. On the lady they sparkled pleasantly but in the girls scared face they appeared alternately to smolder and to blaze. What if Jesus had said, All right, you can be white-trash or a nigger or ugly! Mrs. Turpin felt an awful pity for the girl, though she thought it was one thing to be ugly and another to act ugly. The woman with the snuff-stained lips turned around in her chair and looked up at the clock. Then she turned back and appeared to look a little to the side of Mrs. Turpin. There was a cast in one of her eyes. You want to know where you can get you one of them there clocks? she asked in a loud voice. No , I already have a nice clock, Mrs. Turpin said. Once somebody like her got a leg in the conversation, she would be all over it. You can get you one with green stamps, the woman said. Thats most likely where he got hisn. Save you up enough, you can get you most anythang. I got me some joory. Ought to have got you a wash rag and some soap, Mrs. Turpin thought. I get contour sheets with mine, the pleasant lady said. The daughter slammed her book shut. She looked straight in front of her, directly through Mrs. Turpin and on through the yellow curtain and the plate glass window which made the wall behind her. The girls eyes seemed lit all of a sudden with a peculiar light, an unnatural light like night road signs give. Mrs. Turpin turned her head to see if there was anything going on outside that she should see, but she could not see anything. Figures passing cast only a pate shadow through the curtain. There was no reason the girl should single her out for her ugly looks. Miss Finley, the nurse said, cracking the door. The gum-chewing woman got up and passed in front of her and Claud and went into the office. She had on red high-heeled shoes. Directly across the table, the ugly girls eyes were fixed on Mrs. Turpin as if she had some very special reason for disliking her. This is wonderful weather, isnt it? the girls mother said. Its good weather for cotton if you can get the niggers to pick it, Mrs. Turpin said, but niggers dont want to pick cotton any more. You cant get the white folks to pick it and now you cant get the niggers because they got to be right up there with the white folks. They gonna try anyways, the white-trash woman said, leaning forward. Do you have one of those cotton-picking machines? the pleasant lady asked. No, Mrs. Turpin said, they leave half the cotton in the field. We dont have much cotton anyway. If you want to make it farming now, you have to have a little of everything. We got a couple of acres of cotton and a few hogs and chickens and just enough white-face that Claud can look after them himself. One thang I dont want, the white-trash woman said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Hogs. Nasty stinking things, a-gruntin and a-rootin all over the place. Mrs. Turpin gave her the merest edge of her attention. Our hogs are not dirty and they dont stink, she said. Theyre cleaner than some children Ive seen. Their feet never touch the ground. We have a pig-parlor- thats where you raise them on concrete, she explained to the pleasant lady, and Claud scoots them down with the hose every afternoon and washes off the floor. Cleaner by far than that child right there, she thought. Poor nasty little thing. He had not moved except to put the thumb of his dirty hand into his mouth. Mrs. Turpin gave her the merest edge of her attention. Our hogs are not dirty and they dont stink, she said. Theyre cleaner than some children Ive seen. Their feet never touch the ground. We have a pig-parlor- thats where you raise them on concrete, she explained to the pleasant lady, and Claud scoots them down with the hose every afternoon and washes off the floor. Cleaner by far than that child right there, she thought. Poor nasty little thing. He had not moved except to put the thumb of his dirty hand into his mouth. The woman turned her face away from Mrs. Turpin. I know I wouldnt scoot down no hog with no hose, she said to the wall. You wouldnt have no hog to scoot down, Mrs. Turpin said to herself. A-gruntin and a-rootin and a-groanin, the woman muttered. We got a little of everything, Mrs. Turpin said to the pleasant lady. Its no use in having more than you can handle yourself with help like it is. We found enough niggers to pick our cotton this year, but Claud he has to go after them and take them home again in the evening. They cant walk that half a mile. No they cant. I tell you, she said and laughed merrily. I sure am tired of buttering up niggers, but you got to love em if you want em to work for you. When they come in the morning, I run out and I say, How yal this morning? and when Claud drives them off to the field I just wave to beat the band and they just wave back. And she waved her hand rapidly to illustrate. Like you read out of the same book, the lady said, showing she understood perfectly. Child, yes, Mrs. Turpin said. And when they come in from the field, I run out with a bucket of ice water. Thats the way its going to be from now on, she said. You may as well face it. One thang I know, the white-trash woman said. Two thangs I aint going to do: love no niggers or scoot down no hog with no hose. And she let out a bark of contempt. The look that Mrs. Turpin and the pleasant lady exchanged indicated they both understood that you had to have certain things before you could know certain things. But every time Mrs. Turpin exchanged a look with the lady, she was aware that the ugly girls peculiar eyes were still on her, and she had trouble bringing her attention back to the conversation. When you got something, she said, you got to look after it. And when you aint got a thing but breath and britches, she added to herself, you can afford to come to town every morning and just sit on the Court House coping and spit. A grotesque revolving shadow passed across the curtain behind her and was thrown palely on the opposite wall. Then a bicycle clattered down against the outside of the building. The door opened and a colored boy glided in with a tray from the drug store. It had two large red and white paper cups on it with tops on them. He was a tall, very black boy in discolored white pants and a green nylon shirt. He was chewing gum slowly, as if to music. He set the tray down in the office opening next to the fern and stuck his head through to look for the secretary. She was not in there. He rested his arms on the ledge and waited, his narrow bottom stuck out, swaying slowly to the left and right. He raised a hand over his head and scratched the base of his skull. You see that button there, boy? Mrs. Turpin said. You can punch that and shell come. Shes probably in the back somewhere. Is thas right? the boy said agreeably, as if he had never seen the button before. He leaned to the right and put his finger on it. She sometime out, he said and twisted around to face his audience, his elbows behind him on the counter. The nurse appeared and he twisted back again. She handed him a dollar and he rooted in his pocket and made the cha
nge and counted it out to her. She gave him fifteen cents for a tip and he went out with the empty tray. The heavy door swung too slowly and closed at length with the sound of suction. For a moment no one spoke. They ought to send all them niggers back to Africa, the white trash woman said. Thats wher they come from in first place. Oh, I couldnt do without my good colored friends, the pleasant lady said. Theres a heap of things worse than a nigger, Mrs. Turpin agreed. Its all kinds of them just like its all kinds of us. Yes, and it takes all kinds to make the world go round, the lady said in her musical voice. As she said it, the raw-complexioned girl snapped her teeth together. Her lower lip turned downwards and inside out, revealing the pale pink inside of her mouth. After a second it rolled back up. It was the ugliest face Mrs. Turpin had ever seen anyone make and for a moment she was certain that the girl had made it at her. She was looking at her as if she had known and disliked her all her life-all of Mrs. Turpins life, it seemed too, not just all the girls life. Why, girl, I dont even know you, Mrs. Turpin said silently. She forced her attention back to the discussion. It wouldnt be practical to send them back to Africa, she said. They wouldnt want to go. They got it too good here. Wouldnt be what they wanted-if I had anythang to do with it, the woman said. It wouldnt be a way in the world you could get all the niggers back over there, Mrs. Turpin said. Theyd be hiding out and lying down and turning sick on you and wailing and hollering and raring and pitching. It wouldnt be a way in the world to get them over there. They got over here, the trashy woman said. Get back like they got over. It wasnt so many of them then, Mrs. Turpin explained. The woman looked at Mrs. Turpin as if here was an idiot indeed but Mrs. Turpin was not bothered by the look, considering where it came from. Nooo, she said, theyre going to stay here where they can go to New York and marry white folks and improve their color. Thats what they all want to do, every one of them, improve their color. You know what comes of that, dont you? Claud asked. No, Claud, what? Mrs. Turpin said. Clauds eyes twinkled. White-faced niggers, he said with never a smile. Everybody in the office laughed except the white-trash and the ugly girl. The girl gripped the book in her lap with white fingers. The trashy woman looked around her from face to face as if she thought they were all idiots. The old woman in the feed sack dress continued to gaze expressionless across the floor at the high-top shoes of the man opposite her, the one who had been pretending to be asleep when the Turpins came in. He was laughing heartily, his hands still spread out on his knees. The child had fallen to the side and was lying now almost face down in the old womans lap. While they recovered from their laughter, the nasal chorus on the radio kept the room from silence. You go to blank blank And Ill go to mine But well all blank along To-geth-ther, And all along the blank Well help each-other out Smile-ling in any kind of Weath-ther! Mrs. Turpin didnt catch every word but she caught enough to agree with the spirit of the song and it turned her thoughts sober. To help anybody out that needed it was her philosophy of life. She never spared herself when she found somebody in need, whether they were white or black, trash or decent. And of all she had to be thankful for, she was most thankful that this was so. If Jesus had said, You can be high society and have all the money you want and be thin and svelte-like, but you cant be a good woman with it, she would have had to say, Well dont make me that then. Make me a good woman and it dont matter what else, how fat or how ugly or how poor! Her heart rose. He had not made her a nigger or white-trash or ugly! He had made her herself and given her a little of everything. Jesus, thank you! she said. Thank you thank you! Whenever she counted her blessings she felt as buoyant as if she weighed one hundred and twenty- five pounds instead of one hundred and eighty. Whats wrong with your little boy? the pleasant lady asked the white-trashy woman. He has a ulcer, the woman said proudly. He aint give me a minutes peace since he was born. Him and her are just alike, she said, nodding at the old woman, who was running her leathery fingers through the childs pale hair. Look like I cant get nothing down them two but Co Cola and candy. Thats all you try to get down em, Mrs. Turpin said to herself. Too lazy to light the fire. There was nothing you could tell her about people like them that she didnt know already. And it was not just that they didnt have anything. Because if you gave them everything, in two weeks it would all be broken or filthy or they would have chopped it up for lightwood. She knew all this from her own experience. Help them you must, but help them you couldnt. All at once the ugly girl turned her lips inside out again. Her eyes were fixed like two drills on Mrs. Turpin. This time there was no mistaking that there was something urgent behind them. Girl, Mrs. Turpin exclaimed silently, I havent done a thing to you! The girl might be confusing her with somebody else. There was no need to sit by and let herself be intimidated. You must be in college, she said boldly, looking directly at the girl. I see you reading a book there. The girl continued to stare and pointedly did not answer. Her mother blushed at this rudeness. The lady asked you a question, Mary Grace, she said under her breath. I have ears, Mary Grace said. The poor mother blushed again. Mary Grace goes to Wellesley College, she explained. She twisted one of the buttons on her dress. In Massachusetts, she added with a grimace.And in the summer she just keeps right on studying. Just reads all the time, a real book worm. Shes done real well at Wellesley; shes taking English and Math and History and Psychology and Social Studies, she rattled on and I think its too much. I think she ought to get out and have fun. The girl looked as if she would like to hurl them all through the plate glass window. Way up north, Mrs. Turpin murmured and thought, well, it hasnt done much for her manners. Id almost rather to have him sick, the white-trash woman said, wrenching the attention back to herself. Hes so mean when he aint. Look like some children just take natural to meanness. Its some gets bad when they get sick but, he was the opposite. Took sick and turned good. He dont give me no trouble now. Its me waitin to see the doctor, she said. If I was going to send anybody back to Africa, Mrs. Turpin thought, it would be your kind, woman. Yes, indeed, she said aloud, but looking up at the ceiling, Its a heap of things worse than a nigger. And dirtier than a hog, she added to herself I think people with bad dispositions are more to be pitied than anyone on earth, the pleasant lady said in a voice that was decidedly thin. I thank the Lord he has blessed me with a good one, Mrs. Turpin said. The day has never dawned that I couldnt find something to laugh at. Not since she married me anyways, Claud said with a comical straight face. Everybody laughed except the girl and the white trash. Mrs. Turpins stomach shook. Hes such a caution, she said, that I cant help but laugh at him. The girl made a loud ugly noise through her teeth. Her mothers mouth grew thin and tight. I think the worst thing in the world, she said, is an ungrateful person. To have everything and not appreciate it. I know a girl, she said, who has parents who would give her anything, a little brother who loves her dearly, who is getting a good education, who wears the best clothes, but who can never say a kind word to anyone, who never smiles, who just criticizes and complains all day long. Is she too old to paddle? Claud asked. The girls face was almost purple. Yes, the lady said, Im afraid theres nothing to do but leave her to her folly. Some day shell wake up and itll be too late. It never hurt anyone to smile, Mrs. Turpin said. It just makes you feel better all over Of course, the lady said sadly, but there are just some people you cant tell anything to. They cant take criticism. If its one thing I am, Mrs. Turpin said with feeling, Its grateful. When I think who all I could have been besides myself and what all I got, a little of everything, and a good disposition besides, I just feel like shouting, Thank you, Jesus, for making everything the way it is! It could have been different! For one thing, somebody else could have got Claud. At the thought of this, she was flooded with gratitude and a terrible pang of joy ran through her. Oh thank you, Jesus, Jesus, thank you! she cried aloud. The book struck her directly, over her left eye. It struck almost at the same instant that she realized the girl was about to hurl it. Before she could utter a sound, the raw face came crashing across the table toward her, howling. The girls fingers sank like clamps the soft flesh of her neck. She heard the mother cry out and Claud shout, Whoa! There was an instant when she was certain that she was about to be in an earthquake. All at once her vision narrowed and she saw everything as if it were happening in a small room far away, or as if she were looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. Clauds face crumpled and fell out of sight. The nurse ran in, then out, then again. Then the gangling figure of the doctor rushed out of the inner door. Magazines flew this way and that as the table turned over. The girl fell with a thud and Mrs. Turpins vision suddenly reversed itself and she saw everything large instead of small. The eyes of the white-trashy woman were staring hugely at the floor. There the girl, held down on one side by the nurse and on the other by her mother, was wrenching and turning in their grasp. The doctor was kneeling astride her, trying to hold her arm down. He managed after a second to sink a long needle into it. Mrs. Turpin felt entirely hollow except for her heart which swung from side to side as if it were agitated in a great empty drum of flesh. Somebody thats not busy call for the ambulance, the doctor said in the off-hand voice young doctors adopt for terrible occasions. Mrs. Turpin could not have moved a finger. The old man who had been sitting next to her skipped nimbly into the office and made the call, for the secretary still seemed to be gone. Claud! Mrs. Turpin called. He was not in his chair. She knew she must jump up and find him but she felt like someone trying to catch a train in a dream, when everything moves in slow motion and the faster you try to run the slower you go. Here I am, a suffocated voice, very unlike Clauds, said. He was doubled up in the corner on the floor, pale as paper, holding his leg. She wanted to get up and go to him but she could not move. Instead, her gaze was drawn slowly downward to the churning face on the floor, which she could see over the doctors shoulder. The girls eyes stopped rolling and focused on her. They seemed a much lighter blue than before, as if a door that had been tightly closed behind them was now open to admit light and air. Mrs. Turpins head cleared and her power of motion returned. She leaned forward until she was looking directly into the fierce brilliant eyes. There was no doubt in her mind that the girl did know her, know her in some intense and personal way, beyond time and place and condition. What you got to say to me? she asked hoarsely and held her breath, waiting, as for a revelation. The girl raised her head. Her gaze locked with Mrs. Turpins. Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog, she whispered. Her voice was low but clear. Her eyes burned for a moment as if she saw with pleasure that her message had struck its target. Mrs. Turpin sank back in her chair. After a moment the girls eyes closed and she turned her head wearily to the side. The doctor rose and handed the nurse the empty syringe. He leaned over and put both hands for a moment on the mothers shoulders, which were shaking. She was sitting on the floor, her lips pressed together, holding Mary Graces hand in her lap. The girls fingers were gripped like a baby s around her thumb. Go on to the hospital, he said. Ill call and make the arrangements. Now lets see that neck, he said in a jovial voice to Mrs. Turpin. He began to inspect her neck with his first two fingers. Two little moon-shaped lines like pink fish bones were indented over her windpipe. There was the beginning of an angry red swelling above her eye. His fingers passed over this also. Lea me be, she said thickly and shook him off. See about Claud. She kicked him. Ill see about him in a minute, he said and felt her pulse. He was a thin grey-haired man, given to pleasantries. Go home and have yourself a vacation the rest of the day, he said and patted her on the shoulder. Quit your pattin me, Mrs. Turpin growled to herself. And put an ice pack over that eye, he said. Then he went and squatted down beside Claud and looked at his leg. After a moment he pulled him up and Claud limped after him into the office. Until the ambulance came, the only sounds in the room were the tremulous moans of the girls mother, who continued to sit on the floor. The white-trash woman did not take her eyes off the girl. Mrs. Turpin looked straight ahead at nothing. Presently the ambulance drew up, a long dark shadow, behind the curtain. The attendants came in and set the stretcher down beside the girl and lifted her expertly onto it and carried her out. The nurse helped the mother gather up her things. The shadow of the ambulance moved silently away and the nurse came back in the office. That there girl is going to be a lunatic, aint she? the white-trash woman asked the nurse, but the nurse kept on to the back and never answered her. Yes, shes going to be a lunatic, the white-trash woman said to the rest of them. Po critter, the old woman murmured. The childs face was still in her lap. His eyes looked idly out over her knees. He had not moved during the disturbance except to draw one leg up under him. I thank Gawd, the white-trash woman said fervently, I aint a lunatic. Claud came limping out and the Turpins went home. As their pick-up truck turned into their own dirt road and made the crest of the hill, Mrs. Turpin gripped the window ledge and looked out suspiciously. The land sloped gracefully down through a field dotted with lavender weeds and at the start of the rise their small yellow frame house, with its little flower beds spread out around it like a fancy apron, sat primly in its accustomed place between two giant hickory trees. She would not have been startled to see a burnt wound between two blackened chimneys. Neither of them felt like eating so they put on their house clothes and lowered the shade in the bedroom and lay down, Claud with his leg on a pillow and herself with a damp washcloth over her eye. The instant she was flat on her back, the image of a razor-backed hog with warts on its face and horns coming out behind its ears snorted into her head. She moaned, a low quiet moan. I am not, she said tearfully, a wart hog. From hell. But the denial had no force. The girls eyes and her words, even the tone of her voice, low but clear, directed only to her, brooked no repudiation. She had been singled out for the message, though there was trash in the room to whom it might justly have been applied. The full force of this fact struck her only now. There was a woman there who was neglecting her own child but she had been overlooked. The message had been given to Ruby Turpin, a respectable, hardworking, church-going woman. The tears dried. Her eyes began to burn instead with wrath. She rose on her elbow and the washcloth fell into her hand. Claud was lying on his back, snoring. She wanted to tell him what the girl had said. At the same time, she did not wish to put the image of herself as a wart hog from hell into his mind. Hey, Claud, she mutt