“He stop when we git off de place,” Dilsey said. “He smellin hit. Dat’s whut hit is.”
“Smell whut, mammy?” Luster said.
“You go git dat cap,” Dilsey said. Luster went on. They stood in the cellar door, Ben one step below her. The sky was broken now into scudding patches that dragged their swift shadows up out of the shabby garden, over the broken fence and across the yard. Dilsey stroked Ben’s head, slowly and steadily, smoothing the bang upon his brow. He wailed quietly, unhurriedly. “Hush,” Dilsey said, “Hush, now. We be gone in a minute. Hush, now.” He wailed quietly and steadily.
Luster returned, wearing a stiff new straw hat with a coloured band and carrying a cloth cap. The hat seemed to isolate Luster’s skull, in the beholder’s eye as a spotlight would, in all its individual planes and angles. So peculiarly individual was its shape that at first glance the hat appeared to be on the head of someone standing immediately behind Luster. Dilsey looked at the hat.
“Whyn’t you wear yo old hat?” she said.
“Couldn’t find hit,” Luster said.
“I bet you couldn’t. I bet you fixed hit last night so you couldn’t find hit. You fixin to ruin dat un.”
“Aw, mammy,” Luster said, “Hit aint gwine rain.”
“How you know? You go git dat old hat en put dat new un away.”
“Aw, mammy.”