The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 1

by Donald Harington

  One of the few utterances of Jacob Ingledew that found its way into recorded history was by virtue of Powell Clayton’s memoirs, written in his eighties after a distinguished career as governor and later U.S. Senator from Arkansas. Clayton reminisced about the day of his inauguration in midsummer, waiting in his carriage, seated beside the outgoing governor. He described the outgoing governor: mild blue eyes, tangled beard, long wavy locks of the mountaineer, wearing a suit of plain homespun. Clayton was wearing, by contrast, a suit of full broadcloth, with frock coat and wide wing collar; and he was wearing fine kid gloves. As the outgoing governor got into the carriage, he took a long look at the gloves, and then, Clayton recalled, Jacob Ingledew remarked, “Well, I reckon I never saw anyone but you wearing gloves in July! Only dudes do that!” To which Clayton, by his account, retorted, “Governor, it’s not the garb that makes the man; but in deference to you and especially in view of the character of the work I am about to enter upon today, which will require handling without gloves, I will now remove mine.” Clayton also wrote of being invited to Jacob’s office after the inauguration, where the ex-governor fished a gallon stone jug out of a barrel of straw and offered Clayton a drink of mountain dew. Clayton had good cause to recall the incident, because it was the only expression of goodwill the mountaineers ever gave him.

  Jacob hired a carriage to take him home to Stay More. When he entered it, he found Sarah and his daughters already there. He also found his ladyfriend there, dressed for travel and holding her hat-box in her lap.

  “Where do ye think you’re a-headin?” he asked her.

  “She’s goin with us, Jake!” Sarah exclaimed. “I ast her to, and she said she would! I jist couldn’t never git along without her!”

  Jacob took his seat. It was crowded, five of them in a carriage meant for four, and it was a long way to Stay More. “Hhmmph,” he was moved to comment. But as the carriage pulled away from the governor’s mansion and moved north out of the city of Little Rock, he began to chuckle, and then to laugh.

  “What’s so funny, Jake?” Sarah asked.

  He gained control of himself and replied, “Nothin. I’m jist right glad to git out of that town.”

  “Me too,” said Sarah.

  “Me too,” chorused their daughters.

  And, “Me too,” said the ladyfriend. It is one of the few things we have heard her say; it is all we will.

  Our illustration for this chapter is of a house which is, therefore, trigeminal rather than bigeminal, a treble rather than a duple, although I doubt if anybody ever consciously thought of the symbolism of it: that the left door, as we face the house, is Sarah’s, the center door, Jacob’s, the right door, Whom We Cannot Name’s. There were interior connecting doors between the center and both sides. A later occupant, in our century, removed the partition between the left and center chambers, making one large living room, and that is the way it may be seen today. Jacob, in concession to the amenities of his ladyfriend’s former environment, constructed the first “outhouse” or privy in Stay More. Heretofore, everybody in Stay More had simply “gone out” and used the woods or bushes, or the open, and children were taught not to foul a path lest they get a “sty” on their bottoms or cause the death of their sisters. The expression “go out” was so clearly understood that one might even remark of an incontinent child or drunken man, “He went out in his britches.” But now, on a little knoll behind his house, Jacob built Stay More’s first privy, which was also trigeminal, in a way: it had three holes, the possible significance of which I must leave to the speculation of my students. The people of Stay More thought that Jacob was “puttin on airs” by constructing a privy, but they did not think anything unseemly about his ladyfriend. To all of them, forever, she was only “Sarey’s friend,” or “Aunt Sarey’s friend,” or “Grammaw Sarey’s friend,” or “Great-Grammaw Sarey’s friend.” Indeed, the only words on her tombstone are “Sarah’s Friend.” But she was not to die until well into our own century. Jacob himself lived until the first year of our century, and Sarah survived him by one day. The words on Jacob’s tombstone are: “He done his damndest.” Harry Truman, the only Ozarker ever to make it all the way to the Presidency, liked to quote those words, and requested that they be put on his own tombstone, although for some reason they were not.

  The buildings in our study thus far have been medieval, with gable roofs; Jacob’s trigeminal house is a hip-roofed Victorian example of “steamboat gothic.” Facing the main road in the exact center of downtown Stay More, it is…

  But we have had enough, for now, of the generation of Jacob; if generations generate, we must move on.

  Chapter eight

  Being taciturn, Isaac Ingledew (called—never to his face—“Colonel Coon” for the rest of his life), became a miller, and here we see his mill. A miller didn’t have to talk if he didn’t feel like it, although most millers did. Isaac’s customers chatted and gossiped freely with one another, while he ground their grain and meal in silence. Whenever something went wrong with the machinery in his mill, he would cuss profusely and obscenely, but otherwise he kept his mouth shut. People came from miles in every direction to Isaac’s mill, but everyone knew that Colonel Coon did not enjoy speech, and no one tried to draw him out. Still they could not help wondering whether he ever spoke at least to his wife. It is something of a miracle that Isaac Ingledew had a wife. But he did. Her name was Salina Denton, naturally pronounced “Sleeny,” and she was a real “looker,” as they said of her. Isaac Ingledew came across her, or chanced upon her, or stumbled into her life, toward the end of the War, when he and his men (or rather man, a lone major who remained the last infantryman in Colonel Coon’s command at that late juncture) were pursuing the remnants of the Confederate army in Newton County, a band of three bushwhackers.

  Although small in numbers, this band was still wreaking havoc from one end of the county to the other, terrorizing helpless women and children and old men, and Isaac and his one-man army were determined, although outnumbered, to wipe them out. They caught and killed one of the three after the band had raided the Denton cabin, thereby equalizing the two armies, and while his major went off in pursuit of the other two, Isaac inspected the damage to the Denton cabin, and found Salina Denton cowering there, alone, in ranting hysterics. He wanted to calm her down, but, being taciturn, he didn’t know what to say. He tried to pat her on the back, but when he did so, she began to climb him. He set her down gently but she climbed him again. Again he set her down, but again she climbed him, and by this time he became aroused, to put it mildly. So the third time she climbed him, he did not set her down, although she went on raving. He was, we should remember, a giant of a man, and while there was nothing exactly small about Salina Denton, he supported her easily. Apparently the act or deed brought her to her senses, for afterward she said calmly, “Whar am I?” and then she looked at him and said, “Who are you? And what’s thet out fer?” Hastily he buttoned himself and fled.

  He and his major spent the next year tracking down and killing the two remnants of the Confederate Army, and then they declared the War won and went home. Isaac planted most of the eighty acres his father had given him in wheat and corn, and began the construction of his mill, assisted by his brother Lum and his Swain uncles. He had finished one door of the mill when a girl appeared, on foot, barefoot, holding an infant in her arms. It took him a moment to recognize and remember her, but still he did not even say “Howdy.” She did, however, and then she held out the infant to him and asked, “Do ye wanter take a gander at yore son?” Isaac took a gander at the baby, and even chucked it under the chin; he tried to mumble “Cootchycoo,” but the words would not come. And then he said to Salina the only thing that anybody ever heard him say to her publicly. Gesturing across the valley at the distant knoll where the dogtrot house his father had given him was located, he declared, “That’s my place up yonder.” Salina and her baby moved in. The infant boy was named Denton Ingledew, after his mother’s last name. Turning b
ack to his work, Isaac built another door on the mill, and thus we might think of the mill as being also bigeminal in symbolism of the new union, but in this particular case we know that the bigeminality was strictly functional: one door was for people going into the mill, the other door was for people coming out.

  Isaac worked that day until well past dark, deliberately postponing going home to his woman, to whom he did not know what else to say. But inevitably he had to go home, where Salina was waiting with a pretty fine supper she had fixed. While he ate it, Isaac couldn’t think of a blessed thing to say, but that was all right, because Salina, by contrast with her husband, was just about the most talkative person who ever lived in Stay More. That night she began: “My name’s Sleeny Denton, and I’m seventeen year old, and I’ve got two older brothers and three older sisters that have all done flew the roost, and we lived up Right Prong Holler all our life, my daddy and mom were gone visitin kinfolks in Demijohn that day ye came, that’s how come ye didn’t meet ’em, and I’d jist had the everlastin wits skeered out o’ me by them bushwhackers that lit far to the house, ’till you come and run ’em off, and then done what ye done, which I have to say I didn’t mind a bit, it was the most fun, I’m tellin ye, and I wouldn’t care if ye did it again soon as ye git done eatin, although not in the same room with the baby, because I’m strict about that, you’ll find, but aint he the cutest little spadger ever ye saw, looks jist lak ye, same eyes and all, ’though I think his nose kinder favors my daddy’s, and he’s got Mom’s ears, but you kin jist tell by lookin at him that he’ll grow up to be big and strong lak you, why, my, I never seed ary man in my life as big and strong as you, it’s a sin to Moses how big and strong, and I tole my daddy what yore uniform looked lak, and ast my daddy what did them bars on yore collar mean, and my daddy said them bars meant ye were a colonel! and my sakes alive! if I haven’t always wanted to marry me a colonel! why, when I was jist a little chicky I used to tell my playmates I was a-fixin to marry me a colonel when I got growed up, and now jist look at me! I’ve done went and done it!”

  After Isaac had finished eating, he stood up, belched to signify his satisfaction with the meal, and began stretching. While he was stretching, Salina, first putting the baby into the other house of the dogtrot, climbed him. She was not hysterical now, but she went on talking, a blue streak, the whole time he did her, although her words were interlaced with coos and burbles and were terminated by a squeal. Thus their second-born, Monroe Ingledew, was conceived. In fact, one of the few things of distinction about John Ingledew, their third son, apart from his being the father of the next great wave of Ingledews in our ongoing saga, was that he was the first of Isaac’s and Salina’s children to be conceived when his parents were in a horizontal rather than a vertical position, for it took them that long to discover, albeit accidentally, that it was possible to do it while lying down. It may be noted in passing that Isaac Ingledew was the only Ingledew male who never again got the frakes. He worked hard, but not hard enough to get the frakes, or, if he did work hard enough to get the frakes, Salina’s hearty, refreshing sensuality gave him immunity.

  He was, as I say, a miller. He was not the first; we may have glimpsed, chapters back, the rude gristmill of Zachariah Dinsmore, which was a primitive “tub wheel” mill, on Swains Creek. Isaac’s mill was on Banty Creek, near its mouth where it empties into Swains Creek, where it was swiftest, swift enough to power the large undershot wheel that powered the grindstone. But soon after he had built the mill, Banty Creek went dry. Rather than turn the whole mill structure around so that its wheel would be in Swains Creek (which wouldn’t have worked anyway—or, rather, it would have turned the wheel in the opposite direction, and, Isaac realized, unground the meal), he decided to convert to steam power. A boiler and an engine and the necessary machinery would cost him a thousand dollars, which he did not have. Reticently he asked his father, recently retired from the governorship, for a loan, but Jacob claimed that he had spent all his money building his trigeminal house, a lame excuse, but Isaac, being taciturn, did not argue.

  Learning that the cities suffered a scarcity of bacon, Isaac took his gun into the woods and slaughtered five hundred razorback hogs, dressed them with the help of his wife and brother, and carted them off to Springfield, Missouri, where he easily sold them for more than enough to purchase the boiler and engine and machinery, which he purchased there and carted back to Stay More and installed in the smaller building which may be seen in the rear of our illustration. It was the first engine in Newton County, one of the first engines in all of the Arkansas Ozarks. He brought with him from Springfield a fireman, named Toliver Cole, or Cole Toliver (it is not certain which), to operate the engine. There was still enough water in Banty Creek to fuel the boiler.

  Everyone in Stay More, and half the populaces of Parthenon and Jasper, gathered at The Ingledew Grist Co. to watch the first firing of the engine. Toliver Cole (or Cole Toliver) was impressed with the size of his audience, and for the occasion he wore a top hat, cutaway, and spats, although in place of a tie he wore his usual red bandana. Fifteen girls fell in love with him, so he could take his pick, and afterwards picked Rachel Ingledew, Isaac’s young sister, who became Mrs. Cole, or Mrs. Toliver. But the ceremony of the firing was awesome, horrifying, well worth the trip to those who had come from a distance. Lum Ingledew, Isaac’s brother, was given the concession, and did a brisk business in sassafrasade, jujubes, and folding fans. As the engine started up, women fanned themselves, and prayed, or fainted. Grown men trembled and wiped their sweating palms on their shirtfronts. Children screamed, dogs howled, birds flew away. It was the Second Tuesday of the Month, and up the hill at the Ingledew dogtrot, the old Eli Willard clock said PRONG, unnoticed, unheard.

  Strange to relate, Isaac’s business fell off. People reverted to laboriously pounding their grain in stone mortars, Indian-fashion. Being taciturn, Isaac could not go around asking people why they would not patronize his mill. Were they actually afraid of his engine? At any rate, he had to lay off his new brother-in-law, who went back to Springfield, taking Rachel with him. For days, weeks, Isaac sat in his captain’s chair on the porch of his mill, waiting for customers. He would go home late in the evening, and Salina would climb him and make him feel better, momentarily, but she never asked him, “How’s business?” and even if she had, he could not have told her. He kept a fire lighted under his boiler, and checked the pressure gauge now and then, but never threw the switch to start the engine.

  Gradually, the people, although they did not want to patronize his mill, began to miss the chatting and gossip that they had indulged in while waiting for Colonel Coon to grind their grain, and one by one, sackless or with their gunnysacks empty, they began coming back to his mill and sitting on his porch and chatting and gossiping with one another. Isaac sat among them, listening, yearning to open his mouth and ask them why they did not patronize his mill any longer. Were they afraid of his engine? Would they bring their grain to him if he threw out the engine and moved the mill around so that its wheel was in Swains Creek? What about earplugs? Or what if he offered to pick up and deliver their grain so that they did not have to see, let alone hear, the engine? But he could not ask these things. And because he never spoke, the people began to take his presence for granted, they began to feel that he was only an inanimate fixture, and they began to talk about him as if he were not there.

  It is amazing how much a man can learn about himself in this fashion. Isaac learned that he was well-belovèd to them all. He learned how much the men envied him because of his beautiful wife Salina, and how much the women envied Salina because she had “caught” a big, strong, handsome man like Isaac. He learned that there was not a man in Newton County who was willing to fight him, on a dare, or for any amount of money. He learned that all of the men had dreams, nearly every night, involving amatory sport with Salina, and that the women had dreams involving the same with Isaac. But he did not learn why neither the men nor the women, nor the children, wo
uld bring their grain to be ground in his mill.

  In time, his own fields of wheat and corn were ripe for harvest, and he harvested them, and hauled the grain to his mill, and built up the fire under his boiler, and hooked up his engine, and ground his grain and meal. The people left the porch of the mill and drifted off, and did not come back until he had shut down the engine. Birds, rats and mice infested his mill and ate through the gunny-sacks and devoured his grain and meal and flour, but fled when he started the engine again. It was a choice: no pests but no people, or people and pests. He opted for the latter, and let the birds, rats and mice have his grain. By and by, he became almost content, sitting among the people, listening to them talk about him. The seasons passed, seedtime, grain and harvest. But after another harvest, the people began to complain among themselves about the back breaking job of grinding their grain in stone mortars, Indian-fashion. Isaac listened to their grumblings for as long as he could stand it, and then he reviewed in his mind his stock of choice profanities until he had picked the one that seemed to him choicest and most profane. He stood up and uttered it, loudly. Then he asked,

  “How come y’all don’t bring yore #@%&*# grain to my #@%&*# mill?”

  The people grew silent, staring at one another and at Isaac. All of them suddenly realized that he was there, where they had forgotten that he had been. This embarrassed them greatly, and they remembered all the things they had said about him, and they all began to get very red in the face, and to slink down in their chairs, and one by one they put their tails between their legs and crept away. Soon each of them returned, carrying upon their backs or their mules’ backs gunnysacks filled with grain. Isaac fired his engine and ground their grain, and grew prosperous over the years, running the mill day and night; he had to hire two helpers and train a new fireman. It was not until his old age, in our own century, after Stay More had seen the coming of a newer and commoner kind of self-propelled engine, that Isaac Ingledew finally learned the reason why people had ever been reluctant to come to his mill: not that they were afraid of the sight or sound of his engine, but rather, as his middle-aged daughter Drussie expressed it to him one day, “I reckon folks back in them old-timey days just couldn’t stand fer no kind of PROG RESS.”