Light in August

by William Faulkner

A man. All men. He will pass up a hundred chances to do good for one chance to meddle where meddling is not wanted. He will overlook and fail to see chances, opportunities, for riches and fame and well doing, and even sometimes for evil. But he wont fail to see a chance to meddle Then his tongue found words, he listening, perhaps with the same astonishment that she did: “Only I wouldn’t set too much store by... store in...” thinking She is not listening. If she could hear words like that she would not be getting down from this wagon, with that belly and that fan and that little bundle, alone, bound for a place she never saw before and hunting for a man she ain’t going to ever see again and that she has already seen one time too many as it is “—any time you are passing back this way, tomorrow or even tonight...”