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| He laid two fingers down in his palm in rhythm, as
though he gently placed each word there side by side. "I says, 'Maybe it
ain't a sin. Maybe it's just the way folks is. Maybe we been whippin' the
hell out of ourselves for nothin'." An' I thought how some sisters took
to beatin' theirselves with a three-foot shag of bobwire. An' I thought
how maybe they liked to hurt themselves, an' maybe I like to hurt myself.
Well, I was layin' under a tree when I figured that out, and I went to
sleep. And it come night, an' it was dark when I come to. They was a coyote
squawkin' near by. Before I knowed it, I was sayin' out loud, 'The hell
with it! There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff
people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks
do is nice, and some ain't nice, but that's as far as any man got a right
to say.'" He paused and looked up from the palm of his hand, where he had
laid down the words.
Joad was grinning at him, but Joad's eyes were sharp and interested, too. "You give her a goin'-over," he said. "You figured her out." Casy spoke again, and his voice rang with pain and confusion. "I says, 'What's this call, this sperit?' An' I says, 'It's love. I love people so much I'm fit to bust, sometimes.' An' I says, 'Don't you love Jesus?' Well, I thought an' thought, an' finally I says, 'No, I don't know nobody name' Jesus. I know a bunch of stories, but I only love people. An' sometimes I love 'em fit to bust, an' I want to make 'em happy, so I been preachin' somepin I thought would make 'em happy.' An' then - I been talkin' a hell of a lot. Maybe you wonder about me using bad words. Well, they ain't bad to me no more. They're jus' words folks use, an' they don't mean nothing bad with 'em. Anyways, I'll tell you one more thing I thought out; an' from a preacher it's the most unreligious thing, and I can't be a preacher no more because I thought it an' I believe it." "What's that?" Joad asked. Casy looked shyly at him. "If it hits you wrong, don't take no offense at it, will you?" "I don't take no offense 'cept a bust in the nose," said Joad. "What did you figger?" "I figgered about the Holy Sperit and the Jesus road. I figgered, 'Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,' I figgered, 'maybe it's all men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy Sperit - the human sperit - the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of.' Now I sat there thinkin' it, an' all of a suddent - I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it." Joad's eyes dropped to the ground, as though he could not meet the naked honesty in the preacher's eyes.
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