agoodmanishardtofind14页

1 A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND Flannery O’Connor The grandmother didnt want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennes- see and she was seizing at every chance to change Baileys mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. “Now look here, Bailey,“ she said, “see here, read this,“ and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldnt take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldnt answer to my conscience if I did.“ Bailey didnt look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the childrens mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbits ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. “The children have been to Florida before,“ the old lady said. “You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee.“ The childrens mother didnt seem to hear her but the eight-year-old boy, John Wesley, a stocky child with glasses, said, “If you dont want to go to Florida, why don’t cha stay at home“ He and the little girl, June Star, were reading the funny papers on the floor. “She wouldnt stay at home to be queen for a day,“ June Star said without raising her yellow head. “Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you“ the grandmother asked. “Id smack his face,“ John Wesley said. “She wouldnt stay at home for a million bucks,“ June Star said. “Afraid shed miss something. She has to go everywhere we go.“ “All right, Miss,“ the grandmother said. “Just re- member that the next time you want me to curl your hair.“ 2 June Star said her hair was naturally curly. The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. She had her big black valise that looked like the head of a hippopotamus in one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it. She didnt intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of her gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself. Her son, Bailey, didnt like to arrive at a motel with a cat. She sat in the middle of the back seat with John Wesley and June Star on either side of her. Bailey and the childrens mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890. The grandmother wrote this d