Flannery O'Connor Complete Short Stories by Flannery O’Connor

coming. If one came, it would mean God had gone out of His way to get one. It would mean God was really interested. He had a sudden fear one wouldn’t come; it was a whole fear quick.
    One will come, he told himself. God was interested in him because he was a very unusual child. He went on. The streets were deserted now. He guessed one wouldn’t come. Maybe God didn’t have confidence in—no, God did. Lord, please send me a beggar! he implored. He squinched his face rigid and strained his muscles in a knot and said, “Please! one right now”; and the minute he said it—the minute—Hetty Gilman turned around the corner before him, heading straight to where he was.
    He felt almost like he had when he ran into the tree.
    She was walking down the street right toward him. It was just like the turkey lying there. It was just as if she had been hiding behind a house until he came by. She was an old woman whom everybody said had more money than anybody in town because she had been begging for twenty years. She sneaked into people’s houses and sat until they gave her something. If they didn’t, she cursed them. Nevertheless, she was a beggar. Ruller walked faster. He took the dime out of his pocket so it would be ready. His heart was stomping up and down in his chest. He made a noise to see if he could talk. As they neared each other, he stuck out his hand. “Here!” he shouted. “Here!”
    She was a tall, long-faced old woman in an antique black cloak. Her face was the color of a dead chicken’s skin. When she saw him, she looked as if she suddenly smelled something bad. He darted at her and thrust the dime into her hand and dashed on without looking back.
    Slowly his heart calmed and he began to feel full of a new feeling—like being happy and embarrassed at the same time. Maybe, he thought, blushing, he would give all his money to her. He felt as if the ground did not need to be under him any longer. He noticed suddenly that the country boys’ feet were shuffling just behind him, and almost without thinking, he turned and asked graciously, “You all wanta see this turkey?”
    They stopped where they were and stared at him. One in front spit. Ruller looked down at it quickly. There was real tobacco juice in it! “Wheered you git that turkey?” the spitter asked.
    â€œI found it in the woods,” Ruller said. “I chased it dead. See, it’s been shot under the wing.” He took the turkey off his shoulder and held it down where they could see. “I think it was shot twice,” he went on excitedly, pulling the wing up.
    â€œLemme see it here,” the spitter said.
    Ruller handed him the turkey. “You see down there where the bullet hole is?” he asked. “Well, I think it was shot twice in the same hole, I think it was. . . .” The turkey’s head flew in his face as the spitter slung it up in the air and over his own shoulder and turned. The others turned with him and together they sauntered off in the direction they had come, the turkey sticking stiff out on the spitter’s back and its head swinging slowly in a circle as he walked away.
    They were in the next block before Ruller moved. Finally, he realized that he could not even see them any longer, they were so far away. He turned toward home, almost creeping. He walked four blocks and then suddenly, noticing that it was dark, he began to run. He ran faster and faster, and as he turned up the road to his house, his heart was running as fast as his legs and he was certain that Something Awful was tearing behind him with its arms rigid and its fingers ready to clutch.

The Train
    Thinking about the porter, he had almost forgotten the berth. He had an upper one. The man in the station had said he could give him a lower and Haze had asked didn’t he have no upper ones; the man said sure if that was what he wanted, and gave him an upper one. Leaning back on