Sweat

Delia Jones lives in a small town in Florida. She is a washerwoman: she washes clothes for white families. Every Saturday she collects the dirty clothes with her pony and cart. Every Sunday night, after church, she sorts them, so that she can start early on Monday. She has to. It is her only money.

Tonight she is on the kitchen floor with the clothes, singing quietly. Her husband, Sykes, is out with her pony and cart. Suddenly something long and black falls on her shoulders and slides to the floor. A snake! For a minute she cannot move. Then she sees: it is only Sykes's whip. Sykes is standing in the door, laughing. He knows she is frightened of snakes. That is why he did it.

Then he kicks the clean clothes across the floor. "I told you: no white people's clothes in my house! You go to church and then you work on Sunday. You are a hypocrite!"

And for the first time in fifteen years, Delia stands up to him. She is small and thin, and he is big. "Fifteen years I have been married to you, and fifteen years I have washed clothes. Sweat, sweat, sweat! My sweat paid for this house — not you!" She picks up the heavy iron pan from the stove. Sykes is surprised. For once, he does not hit her. He says he hates thin women, and he goes out to his girlfriend, Bertha.

In bed, Delia remembers fifteen years: the first time he hit her, two months after the wedding; the money he spent in the city; the love she brought, and the nothing he brought. It is too late for love now. But she has her little house, and her flowers. "One day," she says, "Sykes will get what he gives."

It is a hot Saturday in July. The men of the town are sitting on the porch of Joe Clarke's shop. It is too hot to talk. Then Delia drives past with her pony and cart full of clean clothes.

"There goes Delia," one man says. "Rain or sun, every Saturday, she carries those clothes." "She has to, if she wants to eat," says another. "Sykes does nothing." "She was pretty when he married her. He has beaten her enough to kill three women."

They talk about Bertha, Sykes's big, loud girlfriend from another town. Joe Clarke says: "No law can make a man good if he isn't good inside. Some men take a wife like a piece of sugar cane. They squeeze out all the sweetness, and then they throw her away." The men say they should take Sykes to the swamp and beat him. But it is too hot. They buy a watermelon instead.

Then Sykes and Bertha arrive. Sykes buys Bertha soda and sweets, loudly, so that Delia can see. "This is my town," he tells Bertha. "You can have it. And you can have that little house, when I get that woman out of it."

Now Delia and Sykes fight all the time. Bertha even comes to Delia's gate to call Sykes out. Two or three times Delia tries to be friendly. Sykes only laughs.

August. It is so hot that dogs go mad. One day Delia comes home and finds Sykes at the kitchen door with a wooden box. "Look in the box, Delia. I brought you something." Inside is a rattlesnake, six feet long. Delia nearly faints. "Take it away! Please! Kill it!" Sykes laughs. "No. It stays. I know how to handle snakes."

The box stays by the kitchen door. After a few days the snake wakes up. It rattles every time Delia walks past. One day she sees its white teeth in the wire. This time she does not run. She stands and looks at it, full of anger.

That night she says to Sykes: "Take that snake away. You starved me, and I took it. You beat me, and I took it. But this has killed everything inside me." Sykes says the snake stays. Delia stands up. "I hate you, Sykes. I hate you as much as I loved you. Go to your woman. But leave me and my house alone. And if you hit me again, I will go to the police." Sykes shouts terrible things about her body — and leaves.

On Sunday Delia goes to church and comes home singing. The snake's box is quiet. Maybe he took it away! Maybe he is sorry! She carries the lamp into the bedroom to sort the clothes in the big basket by the bed. She opens the basket. The snake is inside.

She runs, and the lamp goes out. She climbs into the hay barn and lies there for an hour, shaking. Then she becomes calm. "I did the best I could," she says. "If things are not right, it is not my fault."

At dawn, Sykes comes home. He breaks the empty box and goes into the dark house. He has no matches — he left them at Bertha's. Delia sits under the bedroom window. Inside, the snake begins to rattle. Sykes cannot see where it is. He jumps onto the bed — and the snake bites him. He screams. Then he calls her name, again and again: "Delia! Delia!"

Delia cannot move. The sun comes up. At last she goes to the door. Sykes is on the floor, his neck swollen, one eye open, full of hope. He sees her. He sees the tubs and the lamp — and he knows that she was at home all night. Delia cannot bear it. The doctor is too far away. She walks to the tree in the garden and waits there in the heat, while inside the house, her husband dies.