The Early Stories of Truman Capote Read Free

wood—and make it snappy too. I want to make the vittels before it’s all dark. We can’t have anybody seein’ us. Go on there, hurry up.”
    Tim obeyed the orders and set about gathering the wood. His thin shoulders drooped from the strain, and his gaunt features stood out with protruding bones. His eyes were weak but sympathetic; his rose-bud mouth puckered slightly as he went about his labor.
    Neatly he piled the wood while Jake cut strips of bacon and put them in a grease-coated pan. Then, when the wood was ready to be fired, he searched through his overalls for a match.
    “Damn it, where did I put those matches? Where are they, you ain’t got ’em, have you, kid? Nuts, I didn’t think so; ah, here they are.” He drew a paper of matches from a pocket, lit one, and protected the tiny flame with his rough hands.
    Tim put the pan with the bacon over the small fire that was rapidly catching. The bacon remained still for a minute or so and then a tiny crackling sound started, and the bacon was frying. A very rancid odor came from the meat. Tim’s sick face turned sicker from the fumes.
    “Gee, Jake, I don’t know whether I can eat any of this junk or not. It doesn’t look right to me. I think it’s rancid.”
    “You’ll eat it or nothin’. If you weren’t so stingy with that piece of change you got, we could a got us somethin’ decent to eat. Why, kid, you got a whole ten bucks. It doesn’t take that much to get home on.”
    “Yes, it does, I’ve got it all figured out. The train fare will cost me five bucks, and I want to get a new suit for about three bucks, then I want to git Ma somethin’ pretty for about a dollar or so; and I figure my food will cost a buck. I want to git lookin’ decent. Ma an’ them don’t know I been bummin’ around the country for the last two years; they think I’m a traveling salesman—that’s what I wrote them; they think I’m just coming home now to stay a while afore I start out on a little trip somewhere.”
    “I ought to take that money off you—I’m mighty hungry—I might take that piece of change.”
    Tim stood up, defiant. His weak, frail body was a joke compared to the bulging muscles of Jake. Jake looked at him and laughed. He leaned back against a tree and roared.
    “Ain’t you a pretty somethin’? I’d jes’ twist that mess of bones you call yourself. Jes’ break every bone in your body, only you been pretty good for me—stealin’ stuff for me an’ the likes of that—so I’ll let you keep your pin money.” He laughed again. Tim looked at him suspiciously and sat back down on a rock.
    Jake took two tin plates from a sack, put three strips of the rancid bacon on his plate and one on Tim’s. Tim looked at him.
    “Where is my other piece? There were four strips. You’re supposed to get two an’ me two. Where is my other piece?” he demanded.
    Jake looked at him. “I thought you said that you didn’t want any of this rancid meat.” Putting his hands on his hips he said the last eight words in a high, sarcastic, feminine voice.
    Tim remembered, he had said that, but he was hungry, hungry and cold.
    “I don’t care. I want my other piece. I’m hungry. I could eat just about anything. Come on, Jake, gimme my other piece.”
    Jake laughed and stuck all the three pieces in his mouth.
    Not another word was spoken. Tim went sulkily over in a corner, and, reaching out from where he was sitting, he gathered pine twigs, neatly laying them along the ground. Finally, when this job was finished, he could stand the strained silence no longer.
    “Sorry, Jake, you know how it is. I’m excited about getting home and everything. I’m really very hungry too, but, gosh, I guess all there is to do is to tighten up my belt.”
    “The hell it is. You could take some of that jack you got and go get us a decent meal. I know what you’re thinkin’. Why don’t we steal some food? But hell, you don’t catch me stealin’ anything in this burg. I heard from