"Fact is, Bandershanks, fall of the year is the only time folks in the settlement have any cash to speak of. See, when they sell cotton, they can settle up what they owe me. 'Course I have to turn right around, get on Jake, and go to town to straighten up my own debts. Most times, there's not much left. But thank the Good Lord, looks like crops are pretty good this year. I'm expecting to come out even—maybe better." "Papa, we gonna count candy?" "Gal! I see what sort of inventory you'd take! Get your head out of that showcase, hon, before you break my lid!" "I ain't gonna break nothing, Papa." "It'll be one piece of candy today! That's all. You want an all-day sucker or a gumdrop?" "I want a jawbreaker!" "Which color?" "I can't see 'em." Papa held me up so I could poke my head farther into the wide glass case. "Give me yellow!" "One yellow jawbreaker coming up!" "Papa? Lemme have a green one too? Please?" "Good grannies! Just this one time, now mind you." Papa started laughing as soon as I popped the hard candy balls into my mouth. "You look just like a little fox squirrel toting two big hickory nuts!" My mouth was so stretched I couldn't answer a word. I could move my tongue, but not my lips. And I wanted to tell Papa the candy tasted so much like lemonade that I didn't mind my cheeks being funny as a squirrel's. "Want to do a little dusting for me now?" I nodded my head. "The feather duster's right over yonder in the corner, hanging on a nail. See it?" I nodded my head again. "Start up there at the front window, hon. And while you do that, I'm gonna be back in the back straightening up the sacks of oats and cow feed." I began brushing up and down on the window panes. A feather broke off the side of the duster and fluttered to the floor. I stooped to pick it up, but I didn't know what to do with it, so I just put it on the windowsill. Then, I looked out the window—down toward Mister Hansen's gin, on past Mister Goode's grist mill, and up the road toward home. "Pa—" I had to grab both candy balls out of my mouth. "Papa, yonder comes somebody riding on a little bitty mule with a dog following him." Papa came over and looked out between the window bars. "That's Ned Roberts, Bandershanks. I don't reckon you know him. He lives over across the creek on Mister Ward Lawson's place. Or I should say the old Crawford home-place. Ward's just renting it. And that's not a little mule Ned's riding. That's a jack, a donkey. Some folks would call it a 'jackass.' But you don't say that, Bandershanks. It don't sound pretty." "Ooh, Papa, look how fat that dog is!" We watched Ned and his donkey and the bulged-out dog come on up the slope. It took them a long time. They stopped at the edge of the porch, where Ned tied the fuzzy, slow-walking donkey to one corner of Jake's hitching rail, but he was careful not to let the donkey stand close to Jake. A good thing, Papa said, for Jake could, and would, kick him.