Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge Jr.

  Then there would rush over her the recollection of a thousand lost days in schoolrooms and schoolhouse yards. And all the children whom her father had taught trooped through her memory, proceeding all (by a second birth) from the archetypal schoolroom into the archetypal Raintree County and thence beyond its borders and down the roads of all the years into the sunlight of a new century.

  But now she must be courageous and hold hard to the perishable moment if she wished to see her father (whose death in some earlier dream she seemed to remember). And in fact, she was opening the door and stepping into the hall between the two rooms of the schoolhouse. In one room her mother taught the elementary classes, and in the other her father taught the advanced pupils. Golden light of the late spring was in the room, it was one of those days when her heart cried out with music, and she seemed able to accomplish anything. There was her brother Wesley at his accustomed desk, and there close by him was the lost Eva, and there—there at the blackboard at the front of the room, turning now with the light of afternoon on his old dark suit, there to be sure was her father touching the blackboard with a piece of chalk.

  —Eva, he would say, will you please go on with the problem from there?

  Such strange, timeleaping dreams, speculations, and endeavors colored the early years at Waycross and slowly formed the Waycross Eva, that grave, great-eyed girl-woman, that reluctant daughter-mother, that little transitional being who was passing through the valley of decision between a self and a self. This passing, like nearly all things human, was made imperceptibly and would go on being made for years, and in a sense too, of course, would never be entirely made, since the earlier Evas and the transitional Evas would all linger on in the deeper layers of Eva’s being.

  Yet there was a moment of self-discovery during these early years in Waycross when Eva herself became clearly aware for the first time that she had crossed a dark valley and was emerging on the farther side. The discovery came in early June of the year 1892 along with one of the great emotional crises of her life. It came suddenly and unexpectedly as a result of a simple thing.

  Little by little she had been forced to give up her claims to physical equality with her brother Wesley. Only in wrestling had she still been able to maintain her old proud feeling of equality. One evening after supper in early June, after a day of small disappointments and frustrations, Eva herself had suggested a match. She hadn’t wrestled Wesley for several weeks, and although she had had to exert every particle of strength to get a fall in their last match, she still believed in her ability to hold her own with him. It was after supper, and they were all out on the back lawn. The children had been running about barefooted. The air was warm and still, and day was ebbing on the level fields. Her father, who had been walking at the rim of the backlot where the young corn was already a hand high, came back to the middle of the yard.

  —All right, he said. Square off.

  Wesley stood before her, lithe and wary, hands on hips, waiting for the signal. His mouth and eyes had the usual set look of stoical confidence. At the signal, they laid hold of each other. Eva gritted her teeth and tugged and pushed and pulled and twisted, trying to use her superior weight to advantage, trying all her tricks one after another. She and Wesley had never wrestled longer for a fall than for that one. After nearly five minutes of struggling, Eva felt her strength going from her, while Wesley remained as lithe and powerful as a wild thing. Just then, when she hardly expected it, he gave her a quick twist, and down she went slapbang on her back.

  Her mother laughed.

  —Well, pshaw! she said. Didn’t you go down, Eva!

  —I just slipped, Eva said, jumping up angry and panting.

  Wesley, as usual, didn’t say anything, but waited, hands on hips, confident-like. All set to make a heroic exertion, Eva laid hold of him and gave a great push. He cut his leg in front of her, dodged, and she threw herself.

  —Well, pshaw, her mother said, smiling one of her rare smiles, aren’t you getting strong, Wesley!

  —There now, that’s enough, her father said. Wesley seems to be feeling his oats tonight.

  —No, please, Eva said. Three best out of five.

  This time, the struggle was longer. Eva lashed herself to a superhuman effort. She groaned, strained, squealed, and thrashed around, but Wesley stuck his tongue between his teeth and this time, without any trick throw, gradually bent her back and back until there was no help for it, and down she went crashbang.

  —Pshaw, her mother said. Don’t they wrestle hard!

  She licked her smooth lips and stood watching the contest with more than her usual interest.

  —Yes, Eva’s father said, when those two lay hold, it’s do or die. Of course, Wesley being the older and a——

  —Let’s try again, Wesley, Eva said, springing up, her voice quavering.

  They struggled again—a long, silent, grim struggle. This time, he threw her on her face.

  —Well, that’s enough now, children, her father said. Let’s have a game of——

  But she was up and trying again. She thought her heart would burst if she didn’t throw Wesley at least once. They were wrestling again, and then again, and again. Each time, he threw her more easily. She lost count of the times.

  —Eva, Eva! her father said. You’re too tired to win now. Wait until you’re rested.

  —No, just once more, she pleaded, her voice breaking. I want to throw him just once.

  Wesley had become an impersonal force that had to be subdued or else there was no longer any hope or joy in life. Tears streamed down her face as she took hold of him for the last time. She began to sob openly.

  —Eva, I’m ashamed of you! her mother said.

  In the middle of that last struggle, Eva found herself wishing that Wesley would let her throw him. And in that instant she knew that she was hopelessly beaten. She knew that she would never be able to throw him again and that she was wrestling him for the last time.

  As she went down, all her anguish and sorrow came forth from her in a great wail that sounded ridiculous even to herself. She didn’t move from where she was thrown, half-lying on her face, her cheeks wet with sweat and tears.

  —Pshaw, Eva, her mother said. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. A great big girl like you! Go on in, and wash your face.

  —Poor child, her father said. Let her be, Esther. She was so proud of her wrestling ability. After all, Eva, you couldn’t expect to beat Wesley forever. He’s a year older than you, child, and he’s bound to get stronger. It’s nature for men to be physically stronger than women. I think it’s extraordinary you’ve held your own with him so long.

  Eva started to say something, but her voice soared off in a series of O sounds, and she didn’t seem to be able to take the one deep breath that would stop them.

  So she lay there, with everyone watching her, she lay there in the soft grass of the back lawn, her outraged, overgrown girl’s body sprawled on the earth. She just wanted to lie there, and she never wanted to have to wrestle anyone again.

  As she cried, she was thinking of all the days and ways of her eager, sexless childhood when she and Wesley had wrestled, and sometimes it was one, sometimes the other who beat. It was all, all over now, the innocent, swift days of the two children playing together, Eva and Wesley, the laughter, the jealousies, the frustrations, the triumphs. And now she realized that during that time they had been as one, she and Wesley, in the close passion of competitors, which is fierce like love and hate. All that time they had been one and wedded to each other by jealousy and emulation. And now they were forever and irrevocably two, boy and girl, brother and sister, man and woman.

  Strangely then into her heart there crept a feeling of tenderness and strong love for her brother that had perhaps been there all the time, and in this last great defeat there was no longer any bitterness but a sorrowful, complete acceptance. And as she lay on the green breast of the earth, even the tears and the sorrow went slowly out of her, leaving her stilled and pe
nsive. The family went away, and she stayed there in the grass a long time, lying on her stomach, her tearstained face propped in her hands. She watched the night come on, filling up the backlot and the cornfield with darkness and flowing around the houses of the town. A train went by during this time; the steady thunder faded down the track to westward. Carts and wagons passed on the National Road. The insect voices of the night began to shrill louder and louder. And the cool dew came on the grass.

  And still she lay, looking out across the growing cornfield and wondering what great tide it was, gentle, inexorable, and strong, flowing up from all the years of all her life that had at last reached and flooded to the full here in this town to which latterly they had come beside the Great Road, and where perhaps her father and mother would live out their days, had found her as it had been fated to find her from the beginning, and had created at last out of all the earlier Evas (perhaps better and braver and more tender than them all) this new and latest Eva.

  Then she looked east and west and thought of the Great Road, the broad straight Road, the National Road, rising upon the plain forever, and flowing in a band of brightness east and west, and of the vast plain beneath the night and of all the lost days of her father’s life that were somehow hovering in this night, and of the terrible and beautiful rhythms of the earth, and of its wandering flowers, and of its ancient tides, moondrawn and flowing out of darkness, and of the great tide of death that must some day come and find her father in this quiet ground between the two roads. And so the darkness came, lapping her with mystery as she lay a long time

  ON THE GREEN EARTH OF RAINTREE COUNTY

  IN THE ATTITUDE OF

  A

  Sphinx Recumbent

  THE PERFESSOR SAID. Yes, I still have it, packed away in a box somewhere. I’ve moved around a good deal since then. As I remember it, it was a hideous daub. ‘Sphinx Recumbent.’ What made you think of it?

  —O, nothing in particular, Mr. Shawnessy said, shoving the telegram from Cassius Carney, received the day before, back into his coatpocket. Just memories of my City days. Fact is, I dreamed about the darn thing last night.

  The Senator’s train was late, and as the crowd slowly dispersed, the Senator walked over to the bench by the station door and sat down fanning his face with his hat. Mr. Shawnessy and the Perfessor flanked him. Inside the Station the telegraph key clickclicked its uncertain but incessant rhythm.

  —Phew! the Senator said. Wish my train would come. What time does Cash come in?

  —Around five, Mr. Shawnessy said. On the Eastbound from Indianapolis.

  —Maybe I’ll get to see him after all, the Senator said. Jesus, John, don’t tell me you mean to stay in this hick town all your life! How do you do it?

  —How do you do it, Garwood? Mr. Shawnessy said. How do you go on playing the part of the Great Commoner?

  —Up there on the rostrum, the Senator said, it’s the noble part of me that speaks. You fellows appeal to my baseness. To tell you the truth, I really appreciate Raintree County when I’m a thousand miles away from it. But if I had to live here for a month, I’d go nuts. It’s so—so goddam wholesome and peaceful. By the way, what is your candid opinion of the program today? Did it go over?

  —You’re safe, the Perfessor said. There’s one born every minute, and each one has a vote.

  —What made you think you needed to pull this big charade, Garwood? Mr. Shawnessy said.

  —I have to take cognizance of this new Populist movement, the Senator said. To be perfectly frank, I’m afraid of it. After winning every political contest I’ve been entered in for thirty years, I don’t intend to get stampeded out of office by this gang of amateur politicians and professional horse-thieves who call themselves the People’s Party.

  —Of which, Mr. Shawnessy said, I’m a member. The People’s Party is made up of the folks who are tired of a government of cynical understandings between politicians and businessmen. As for you, Garwood, you never belonged to the People’s Party—I mean the eternal and usually unorganized People’s Party. You always belonged to just one party, the Party of Yourself, the Party of Garwood B. Jones, and you never had but one platform—the advancement of Garwood B. Jones to the Highest Office Within the Gift of the American People.

  —Not so loud, John, the Senator said, oozing laughter. People will overhear you.

  He leaned back in his chair, mellow and imperturb.

  —Yes, he said, I’ve always sought the advancement of Garwood B. Jones. He’s a magnificent guy, and I like him. But I’ve always furthered this wonderful bastard’s interests in strict observance of the American Way—by giving people what they wanted.

  —By appearing to give them what they wanted, Mr. Shawnessy said. The people want a chance to own their own land, to have economic security, to see government perform its function of protecting the interests of the many instead of the interests of the few. You’ll promise the same things that the People’s Party are promising, to keep your party and yourself in power, and once elected, you’ll go on doing what you’ve done before because it’s the easiest way and because it’s always been successful. You’ll continue to obey the voice of the Big Interests, while wooing the vote of the Little Interests.

  —My dear fellow, the Senator said, using his big voice like a bludgeon, you do me a great injustice. You speak of the so-called Big Interests as if they were gangs of criminals. Who built this vast country? The Big Interests—that’s who. These men are also feathering their own nests—but they’ve discovered that the best way to feather your own nest is to advance the interest of people generally. The honest capitalist like the honest politician is the servant of the people. He’s a man of superior imagination and daring whose ability to do his country good has earned him the just reward of continued power and wealth, by which he can continue to do good. The people know that their best interests lie in the direction of a constitutional government which encourages the Free Exercise of Individual Rights and the Protection of Home Industries.

  —I suppose you perceive, John, the Perfessor said, that we haven’t after all emerged very far from the Great Swamp. What is life in the fairest republic the world has ever seen? What did the martyrs of the Great War die for? Liberty? Justice? Union? Emancipation? The Flag? Hell, no. They died so that a lot of slick bastards could exploit the immense natural and human resources of this nation and become fabulously rich while the vast majority of the people grind their guts out to get a living. They died so that several million poor serfs from the stinking slums and ghettos of Europe could come five thousand miles to wedge themselves into the stinking ghettos and slums of America. Only in America is Survival of the Fittest, the principle of brute struggle for life, erected into a principle of government. In America anyone who can crawl to the top of the pile through daring, guile, and sheer ruthlessness can stay up there until somebody pulls him down.

  —Professor, the Senator said, you read too much. Go out sometime, jerk off your specs, and take a look at this nation. This nation is big enough for everyone in it.

  The Senator was standing now, gesturing forcibly and bringing within the range of his voice a number of citizens who still lingered in the Station and who now began to close in toward the center of sound.

  —This nation is big enough and rich enough for everyone to pursue and realize a worthwhile goal. What is wrong with the principle of self-interest anyway? Rational self-interest, controlled by law, is the basis of a free society. Look at the men who have risen to the top of the pile—the presidents, the statesmen, the financiers. Where did they come from? Out of log cabins and back alleys. Everyone has the same chance, under the aegis of the Constitution. What is America, gentlemen? I will tell you. America is the only nation in the world where mineboys become millionaires, and paperboys become presidents. It is the place where——Pardon me, folks, I’m not making a speech. We are just engaging in that grand old American custom of political disputation. After all, it’s an Election Year.

  —Yo
u’ve got to hand it to Garwood, the Perfessor sighed. He shovels that stuff with a golden pitchfork.

  The Senator sat down again.

  —By the way, John, about that Atlas—I’m beginning to think the whole thing was a fake. Still, there might be something hidden in it somewhere. Suppose you keep it and sift it fine. If you find something worthwhile, let me know. And another thing, John, I’d esteem it a great personal favor if you’d look over this manuscript for a few days and correct any errors of fact relating to the early history of the County, which you know better than anyone—or make any other suggestions that occur to you. Some of it’ll interest you, I’m sure. One of the best things is the story of your homecoming from the War. I quote in full the tender lyric I composed on the occasion of your demise. All handled, of course, with appropriate irony.

  Mr. Shawnessy took the proffered manuscript of Memories of the Republic in War and Peace.

  Leaves of my life—but by another’s hand.

  —To be perfectly frank, John, the Senator went on, I’ll never forgive you for walking in on me that day in my office in Indianapolis. At least you didn’t have to come in reciting the goddam poem.

  Mr. Shawnessy raised a hand in benediction and intoned:

  —Sleep in thy hero grave, beloved boy!

  Sleep well, thou pure defender of the right.

  Far from the battle’s din and rude annoy,

  Our tears shall keep your memory ever bright.

  The Senator laughed and laughed until the tears came to his eyes. He blew his nose and swatted the Perfessor on the back with his free hand. He wiped his eyes and went on wheezing with laughter. Mr. Shawnessy had never seen the Senator so amused before.

  —I’ll never forget the expression on your face, Garwood. It’s the only time in your life I’ve seen you speechless for twenty seconds.

  —Just what did I do? I forget now.

  —You turned completely white, cleared your throat, got up, walked over, put a hand on my arm to see if I was real, sat down again, studied a moment, and said, You spoiled a good poem, sprout.