{"id":77,"date":"2021-10-29T11:15:29","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T15:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/chapter\/the-distributed-proofreaders-canada-ebook-of-their-eyes-were-watching-god-by-zora-neale-hurston-6\/"},"modified":"2022-01-28T11:20:16","modified_gmt":"2022-01-28T16:20:16","slug":"7","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/chapter\/7\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 7","rendered":"Chapter 7"},"content":{"raw":"
<\/div>\r\n

The<\/span> years took all the fight out of Janie\u2019s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul. No matter what Jody did, she said nothing. She had learned how to talk some and leave some. She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels. Sometimes she stuck out into the future, imagining her life different from what it was. But mostly she lived between her hat and her heels, with her emotional disturbances like shade patterns in the woods\u2014come and gone with the sun. She got nothing from Jody except what money could buy, and she was giving away what she didn\u2019t value.<\/p>\r\n

Now and again she thought of a country road at sun-up and considered flight. To where? To what? Then too she considered thirty-five is twice seventeen and nothing was the same at all.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cMaybe he ain\u2019t nothin\u2019,\u201d she cautioned herself, \u201cbut he is something in my mouth. He\u2019s got tuh be else Ah ain\u2019t got nothin\u2019 tuh live for. Ah\u2019ll lie and say he is. If Ah don\u2019t, life won\u2019t be nothin\u2019 but uh store and uh house.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

She didn\u2019t read books so she didn\u2019t know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop. Man attempting to climb to painless heights from his dung hill.<\/p>\r\n

Then one day she sat and watched the shadow of herself going about tending store and prostrating itself before Jody, while all the time she herself sat under a shady tree with the wind blowing through her hair and her clothes. Somebody near about making summertime out of lonesomeness.<\/p>\r\n

This was the first time it happened, but after a while it got so common she ceased to be surprised. It was like a drug. In a way it was good because it reconciled her to things. She got so she received all things with the stolidness of the earth which soaks up urine and perfume with the same indifference.<\/p>\r\n

One day she noticed that Joe didn\u2019t sit down. He just stood in front of a chair and fell in it. That made her look at him all over. Joe wasn\u2019t so young as he used to be. There was already something dead about him. He didn\u2019t rear back in his knees any longer. He squatted over his ankles when he walked. That stillness at the back of his neck. His prosperous-looking belly that used to thrust out so pugnaciously and intimidate folks, sagged like a load suspended from his loins. It didn\u2019t seem to be a part of him anymore. Eyes a little absent too.<\/p>\r\n

Jody must have noticed it too. Maybe, he had seen it long before Janie did, and had been fearing for her to see. Because he began to talk about her age all the time, as if he didn\u2019t want her to stay young while he grew old. It was always \u201cYou oughta throw somethin\u2019 over yo\u2019 shoulders befo\u2019 you go outside. You ain\u2019t no young pullet no mo\u2019. You\u2019se uh ole hen now.\u201d One day he called her off the croquet grounds. \u201cDat\u2019s somethin\u2019 for de young folks, Janie, you out dere jumpin\u2019 round and won\u2019t be able tuh git out de bed tuhmorrer.\u201d If he thought to deceive her, he was wrong. For the first time she could see a man\u2019s head naked of its skull. Saw the cunning thoughts race in and out through the caves and promontories of his mind long before they darted out of the tunnel of his mouth. She saw he was hurting inside so she let it pass without talking. She just measured out a little time for him and set it aside to wait.<\/p>\r\n

It got to be terrible in the store. The more his back ached and his muscle dissolved into fat and the fat melted off his bones, the more fractious he became with Janie. Especially in the store. The more people in there the more ridicule he poured over her body to point attention away from his own. So one day Steve Mixon wanted some chewing tobacco and Janie cut it wrong. She hated that tobacco knife anyway. It worked very stiff. She fumbled with the thing and cut way away from the mark. Mixon didn\u2019t mind. He held it up for a joke to tease Janie a little.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cLooka heah, Brother Mayor, whut yo\u2019 wife done took and done.\u201d It was cut comical, so everybody laughed at it. \u201cUh woman and uh knife\u2014no kind of uh knife, don\u2019t b\u2019long tuhgether.\u201d There was some more good-natured laughter at the expense of women.<\/p>\r\n

Jody didn\u2019t laugh. He hurried across from the post office side and took the plug of tobacco away from Mixon and cut it again. Cut it exactly on the mark and glared at Janie.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI god amighty! A woman stay round uh store till she get old as Methusalem and still can\u2019t cut a little thing like a plug of tobacco! Don\u2019t stand dere rollin\u2019 yo\u2019 pop eyes at me wid yo\u2019 rump hangin\u2019 nearly to yo\u2019 knees!\u201d<\/p>\r\n

A big laugh started off in the store but people got to thinking and stopped. It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile. It was like somebody snatched off part of a woman\u2019s clothes while she wasn\u2019t looking and the streets were crowded. Then too, Janie took the middle of the floor to talk right into Jody\u2019s face, and that was something that hadn\u2019t been done before.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cStop mixin\u2019 up mah doings wid mah looks, Jody. When you git through tellin\u2019 me how tuh cut uh plug uh tobacco, then you kin tell me whether mah behind is on straight or not.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWha\u2014whut\u2019s dat you say, Janie? You must be out yo\u2019 head.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cNaw, Ah ain\u2019t outa mah head neither.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYou must be. Talkin\u2019 any such language as dat.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYou de one started talkin\u2019 under people\u2019s clothes. Not me.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhut\u2019s de matter wid you, nohow? You ain\u2019t no young girl to be gettin\u2019 all insulted \u2019bout yo\u2019 looks. You ain\u2019t no young courtin\u2019 gal. You\u2019se uh ole woman, nearly forty.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYeah, Ah\u2019m nearly forty and you\u2019se already fifty. How come you can\u2019t talk about dat sometimes instead of always pointin\u2019 at me?\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201c\u202f\u2019Tain\u2019t no use in gettin\u2019 all mad, Janie, \u2019cause Ah mention you ain\u2019t no young gal no mo\u2019. Nobody in heah ain\u2019t lookin\u2019 for no wife outa yuh. Old as you is.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cNaw, Ah ain\u2019t no young gal no mo\u2019 but den Ah ain\u2019t no old woman neither. Ah reckon Ah looks mah age too. But Ah\u2019m uh woman every inch of me, and Ah know it. Dat\u2019s uh whole lot more\u2019n you<\/span> kin say. You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but \u2019tain\u2019t nothin\u2019 to it but yo\u2019 big voice. Humph! Talkin\u2019 \u2019bout me<\/span> lookin\u2019 old! When you pull down yo\u2019 britches, you look lak de change uh life.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cGreat God from Zion!\u201d Sam Watson gasped. \u201cY\u2019all really playin\u2019 de dozens tuhnight.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWha\u2014whut\u2019s dat you said?\u201d Joe challenged, hoping his ears had fooled him.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cYou heard her, you ain\u2019t blind,\u201d Walter taunted.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cAh ruther be shot with tacks than tuh hear dat \u2019bout mahself,\u201d Lige Moss commiserated.<\/p>\r\n

Then Joe Starks realized all the meanings and his vanity bled like a flood. Janie had robbed him of his illusion of irresistible maleness that all men cherish, which was terrible. The thing that Saul\u2019s daughter had done to David. But Janie had done worse, she had cast down his empty armor before men and they had laughed, would keep on laughing. When he paraded his possessions hereafter, they would not consider the two together. They\u2019d look with envy at the things and pity the man that owned them. When he sat in judgment it would be the same. Good-for-nothing\u2019s like Dave and Lum and Jim wouldn\u2019t change place with him. For what can excuse a man in the eyes of other men for lack of strength? Raggedy-behind squirts of sixteen and seventeen would be giving him their merciless pity out of their eyes while their mouths said something humble. There was nothing to do in life anymore. Ambition was useless. And the cruel deceit of Janie! Making all that show of humbleness and scorning him all the time! Laughing at him, and now putting the town up to do the same. Joe Starks didn\u2019t know the words for all this, but he knew the feeling. So he struck Janie with all his might and drove her from the store.<\/p>","rendered":"

<\/div>\n

The<\/span> years took all the fight out of Janie\u2019s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul. No matter what Jody did, she said nothing. She had learned how to talk some and leave some. She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels. Sometimes she stuck out into the future, imagining her life different from what it was. But mostly she lived between her hat and her heels, with her emotional disturbances like shade patterns in the woods\u2014come and gone with the sun. She got nothing from Jody except what money could buy, and she was giving away what she didn\u2019t value.<\/p>\n

Now and again she thought of a country road at sun-up and considered flight. To where? To what? Then too she considered thirty-five is twice seventeen and nothing was the same at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe he ain\u2019t nothin\u2019,\u201d she cautioned herself, \u201cbut he is something in my mouth. He\u2019s got tuh be else Ah ain\u2019t got nothin\u2019 tuh live for. Ah\u2019ll lie and say he is. If Ah don\u2019t, life won\u2019t be nothin\u2019 but uh store and uh house.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t read books so she didn\u2019t know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop. Man attempting to climb to painless heights from his dung hill.<\/p>\n

Then one day she sat and watched the shadow of herself going about tending store and prostrating itself before Jody, while all the time she herself sat under a shady tree with the wind blowing through her hair and her clothes. Somebody near about making summertime out of lonesomeness.<\/p>\n

This was the first time it happened, but after a while it got so common she ceased to be surprised. It was like a drug. In a way it was good because it reconciled her to things. She got so she received all things with the stolidness of the earth which soaks up urine and perfume with the same indifference.<\/p>\n

One day she noticed that Joe didn\u2019t sit down. He just stood in front of a chair and fell in it. That made her look at him all over. Joe wasn\u2019t so young as he used to be. There was already something dead about him. He didn\u2019t rear back in his knees any longer. He squatted over his ankles when he walked. That stillness at the back of his neck. His prosperous-looking belly that used to thrust out so pugnaciously and intimidate folks, sagged like a load suspended from his loins. It didn\u2019t seem to be a part of him anymore. Eyes a little absent too.<\/p>\n

Jody must have noticed it too. Maybe, he had seen it long before Janie did, and had been fearing for her to see. Because he began to talk about her age all the time, as if he didn\u2019t want her to stay young while he grew old. It was always \u201cYou oughta throw somethin\u2019 over yo\u2019 shoulders befo\u2019 you go outside. You ain\u2019t no young pullet no mo\u2019. You\u2019se uh ole hen now.\u201d One day he called her off the croquet grounds. \u201cDat\u2019s somethin\u2019 for de young folks, Janie, you out dere jumpin\u2019 round and won\u2019t be able tuh git out de bed tuhmorrer.\u201d If he thought to deceive her, he was wrong. For the first time she could see a man\u2019s head naked of its skull. Saw the cunning thoughts race in and out through the caves and promontories of his mind long before they darted out of the tunnel of his mouth. She saw he was hurting inside so she let it pass without talking. She just measured out a little time for him and set it aside to wait.<\/p>\n

It got to be terrible in the store. The more his back ached and his muscle dissolved into fat and the fat melted off his bones, the more fractious he became with Janie. Especially in the store. The more people in there the more ridicule he poured over her body to point attention away from his own. So one day Steve Mixon wanted some chewing tobacco and Janie cut it wrong. She hated that tobacco knife anyway. It worked very stiff. She fumbled with the thing and cut way away from the mark. Mixon didn\u2019t mind. He held it up for a joke to tease Janie a little.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooka heah, Brother Mayor, whut yo\u2019 wife done took and done.\u201d It was cut comical, so everybody laughed at it. \u201cUh woman and uh knife\u2014no kind of uh knife, don\u2019t b\u2019long tuhgether.\u201d There was some more good-natured laughter at the expense of women.<\/p>\n

Jody didn\u2019t laugh. He hurried across from the post office side and took the plug of tobacco away from Mixon and cut it again. Cut it exactly on the mark and glared at Janie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI god amighty! A woman stay round uh store till she get old as Methusalem and still can\u2019t cut a little thing like a plug of tobacco! Don\u2019t stand dere rollin\u2019 yo\u2019 pop eyes at me wid yo\u2019 rump hangin\u2019 nearly to yo\u2019 knees!\u201d<\/p>\n

A big laugh started off in the store but people got to thinking and stopped. It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile. It was like somebody snatched off part of a woman\u2019s clothes while she wasn\u2019t looking and the streets were crowded. Then too, Janie took the middle of the floor to talk right into Jody\u2019s face, and that was something that hadn\u2019t been done before.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop mixin\u2019 up mah doings wid mah looks, Jody. When you git through tellin\u2019 me how tuh cut uh plug uh tobacco, then you kin tell me whether mah behind is on straight or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWha\u2014whut\u2019s dat you say, Janie? You must be out yo\u2019 head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNaw, Ah ain\u2019t outa mah head neither.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must be. Talkin\u2019 any such language as dat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou de one started talkin\u2019 under people\u2019s clothes. Not me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhut\u2019s de matter wid you, nohow? You ain\u2019t no young girl to be gettin\u2019 all insulted \u2019bout yo\u2019 looks. You ain\u2019t no young courtin\u2019 gal. You\u2019se uh ole woman, nearly forty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, Ah\u2019m nearly forty and you\u2019se already fifty. How come you can\u2019t talk about dat sometimes instead of always pointin\u2019 at me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u202f\u2019Tain\u2019t no use in gettin\u2019 all mad, Janie, \u2019cause Ah mention you ain\u2019t no young gal no mo\u2019. Nobody in heah ain\u2019t lookin\u2019 for no wife outa yuh. Old as you is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNaw, Ah ain\u2019t no young gal no mo\u2019 but den Ah ain\u2019t no old woman neither. Ah reckon Ah looks mah age too. But Ah\u2019m uh woman every inch of me, and Ah know it. Dat\u2019s uh whole lot more\u2019n you<\/span> kin say. You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but \u2019tain\u2019t nothin\u2019 to it but yo\u2019 big voice. Humph! Talkin\u2019 \u2019bout me<\/span> lookin\u2019 old! When you pull down yo\u2019 britches, you look lak de change uh life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat God from Zion!\u201d Sam Watson gasped. \u201cY\u2019all really playin\u2019 de dozens tuhnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWha\u2014whut\u2019s dat you said?\u201d Joe challenged, hoping his ears had fooled him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou heard her, you ain\u2019t blind,\u201d Walter taunted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh ruther be shot with tacks than tuh hear dat \u2019bout mahself,\u201d Lige Moss commiserated.<\/p>\n

Then Joe Starks realized all the meanings and his vanity bled like a flood. Janie had robbed him of his illusion of irresistible maleness that all men cherish, which was terrible. The thing that Saul\u2019s daughter had done to David. But Janie had done worse, she had cast down his empty armor before men and they had laughed, would keep on laughing. When he paraded his possessions hereafter, they would not consider the two together. They\u2019d look with envy at the things and pity the man that owned them. When he sat in judgment it would be the same. Good-for-nothing\u2019s like Dave and Lum and Jim wouldn\u2019t change place with him. For what can excuse a man in the eyes of other men for lack of strength? Raggedy-behind squirts of sixteen and seventeen would be giving him their merciless pity out of their eyes while their mouths said something humble. There was nothing to do in life anymore. Ambition was useless. And the cruel deceit of Janie! Making all that show of humbleness and scorning him all the time! Laughing at him, and now putting the town up to do the same. Joe Starks didn\u2019t know the words for all this, but he knew the feeling. So he struck Janie with all his might and drove her from the store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"menu_order":7,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[49],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-77","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/77\/revisions\/136"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/77\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/theireyeswerewatchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}