See Colonel Sartoris." (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.)
"I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!" The Negro appeared. "Show these
gentlemen out."
II
So SHE vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished
their fathers thirty years before about the smell.
That was two years after her father's death and a short time after her
sweetheart--the one we believed would marry her --had deserted her.
After her father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went
away, people hardly saw her at all. A few of the ladies had the temerity to
call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the place was
the Negro man--a young man then--going in and out with a market
basket.
"Just as if a man--any man--could keep a kitchen properly, "the ladies
said; so they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another
link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty
Griersons.
A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty
years old.
"But what will you have me do about it, madam?" he said.
"Why, send her word to stop it," the woman said. "Isn't there a law? "
"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Judge Stevens said. "It's probably just a
snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about
it."
The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who
came in diffident deprecation. "We really must do something about it,
Judge. I'd be the last one in the world to bother Miss Emily, but we've got
to do something." That night the Board of Aldermen met--three
graybeards and one younger man, a member of the rising generation.
"It's simple enough," he said. "Send her word to have her place cleaned
up. Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don't. .."
"Dammit, sir," Judge Stevens said, "will you accuse a lady to her face of
smelling bad?