The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 1

by Donald Harington

  Tempted and tried we’re oft made to wonder

  Why it should be thus all the day long

  While there are others living about us

  Never molested though in the wrong.

  and the resplendent, mournful chorus:

  Farther along we’ll know all about it,

  Farther along we’ll understand why;

  Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine,

  We’ll understand it, all by and by.

  The members of the family, instead of sprinkling handfuls of dirt into the grave, substituted flour and corn meal. The headstone bore the inscription, “Now he sleeps,” but some folks weren’t at all too sure of that. Salina Ingledew, well aware of the fact that Jacob’s wife Sarah had followed him out of existence on the day after his death, felt beholden to continue the tradition, and took to her bed, trying hard to give up the ghost, but the ghost would not give. She felt disgraced by this failure, and remained in seclusion for the rest of her life, which lasted and lasted.

  The Beautiful Girl was working as a teller in the bank one day when E.D. returned to Stay More, having broken out of the military jail. He tried to persuade her to run away with him, but she did not want to leave Stay More. He tried to stay more and persuade her to marry him, but Raymond’s five brothers ganged up on him and ran him out of town a second time.

  The Jasper Disaster announced that an amendment had been added to the United States Constitution prohibiting the manufacture, sale or possession of alcoholic beverages. The Stay More Lodge of T.G.A.O.T.U. vowed to resist unto death. But Waymon Chism, just to be safe, moved his operation off up the mountain, to a remote cave concealed by a waterfall.

  Time passed. The Beautiful Girl was feeding her hogs one evening after supper, when E.D. appeared once again, having once again broken out of Fort Leavenworth. Once again he tried to persuade her to run away with him: once again she protested that Stay More was her home. The argument was futile; out of futility he raped her. Then out of further futility, the following day, while she was working alone at the bank during John Ingledew’s lunch hour, he appeared in disguise and pointed a revolver at her, and robbed the bank of eight thousand dollars, and was not seen again for eighteen years.

  The decline of Stay More had begun.

  Chapter thirteen

  Bevis Ingledew was lucky. Although his father had refused to permit him to withdraw his savings in order to build a house for his new bride, Bevis had gone to the bank one day when it was being attended only by the Beautiful Girl, had made out a withdrawal slip, and had said to her, “Goldang it, I’m thirty years old and I got a right to git my own money if I wanter.” The Beautiful Girl had not argued, but had given him the money, although she had later been tongue-lashed for it by John Ingledew. The Beautiful Girl could not possibly have known it then, but she was helping Bevis get the money to build a house wherein Bevis’s firstborn, John Henry, would be delivered, and that that same John Henry would grow up and marry the Beautiful Girl’s own daughter, conceived when E.D. raped her. We all have a way of doing things that turn out to matter, somehow. So when the father of that daughter robbed the bank, all the Ingledews lost their money, except Bevis, who had converted his money into building materials and erected the somewhat modest bungalow illustrated above. If it is not nearly as interesting as most of our earlier structures, perhaps Bevis was not as interesting as most of our earlier Ingledews. Some would argue that his house is a symbol of the beginning of Stay More’s decline.

  Bevis’s bride’s name was Emelda Duckworth; she was a great granddaughter of Elijah Duckworth, one of Stay More’s early settlers, and niece of attorney Jim Tom Duckworth. She had lost her virginity to Bevis’s brother Raymond, and when Raymond became engaged to the Beautiful Girl, Emelda Duckworth turned her attentions to Raymond’s five brothers, but soon discovered that all of them were too woman-shy even to look at her, much less to speak to her or listen to her. Bevis, even though because of his excess of blood he was high-spirited, lighthearted, even frolicsome, was just as woman-shy as his brothers. He was also perhaps the most talkative of all the Ingledews, but he could not talk to girls. He had known Emelda Duckworth all of her life, but he had never spoken to her until the Unforgettable Picnic, and in fact he did not even speak to her there.

  The Unforgettable Picnic got its name from the fact that people still talked about it for years afterward (although nobody remembers it today), and younger generations were always pestering their elders to hold another Unforgettable Picnic, which their elders had to patiently explain to them would be impossible, and so the Unforgettable Picnic acquired even more legendary memorability as one of those things of the past that would never come again. The Unforgettable Picnic was held during the last year of the War, not necessarily as a diversion, because so very few of the participants were even concerned with the War, but because that was the only year in which the Fourth of July happened to occur on the Second Tuesday of the Month, a special coincidence made even more memorable by coinciding with the peak of ’mater-pickin time and the Golden (50th) Reunion of the G.A.R. When the news of the picnic was norated around the county by the Jasper Disaster, everybody made plans to come, but the Stay More T.G.A.O.T.U., sponsors of the picnic, declared in a subsequent issue of the Disaster that the picnic was limited only to residents of Stay More and veterans of the G.A.R. Even so, this was quite a crowd. The Field of Clover was again chosen as the site; dozens of tables, hundreds of chairs were carried into the field. The older women remembered the deplorably lascivious picnic that had occurred in ’mater-pickin time during the Decade of Light, and they cautioned their daughters to go easy on the ’maters preparing dishes for the feast.

  The daughters had not been born during the Decade of Light, and they ignored this caution, but the ’mater somehow wasn’t as potent as it used to be; it made a body feel pretty good but not necessarily lustful. A good clean time was had by all. There was a lot of square dancing, shootin matches, games of Base Ball, as well as several booths and rides. At the most popular of the booths, a canvas wagon cover was hung up with a hole slit in it; people took turns sticking their heads through the hole from one side while from the other side, at a distance of four hats, other people threw rotten (or at least unfresh) eggs, at three eggs for ten cents or to the highest bidder; people would gladly pay more for the privilege of throwing eggs at people they didn’t like, and it was understood that every person had to take his or her turn sticking his or her head through the canvas hole. When John Ingledew’s turn came, a man bid five dollars for three eggs, and hit John’s head with all three of them. When the old woman Whom We Cannot Name was required to take her turn, nobody would pay even ten cents for three eggs, or even accept them free, so none were thrown. When the Beautiful Girl’s turn came, Tearle Ingledew bought the eggs but deliberately missed. When Bevis Ingledew’s turn came, he took it cheerfully, because he was always carefree, although he hoped he had no enemies with good aim. He put his head through the hole and looked up in surprise to see Emelda Duckworth buying the eggs. Why was she mad at him? Because he had been too shy to return her attentions? But he hadn’t been any more shy than E.H., Odell, Tearle and Stanfield, and they hadn’t returned her attentions either. Why didn’t she throw at them? Why pick on me? he silently demanded.

  Suddenly he heard her reply, I’m a-throwin at you ’cause I like ye best. But she hadn’t spoken, and besides she was standing four hats away, and he couldn’t have heard her if she did speak. How had he heard her? It was spooky, and the flesh of Bevis crawled, but because he was lighthearted he managed to smile at her as she wound up for the throw, and he replied to her inside his head, If that be the case, why don’t ye miss my haid clean? Okay, he distinctly heard her voice inside his head, and one by one she threw her eggs, and each one widely missed. Thanks, gal, he voicelessly told her, and she replied, You’re shore welcome. Later, when the big feed was spread and everybody had filled their plates with fried chicken and ’mater dishes and pie, and
sat crosslegged on the grass to eat, Bevis noticed Emelda sitting not too far away, two, three hats away from him, and he decided as an experiment to ask her inside his head, Did you honestly say what you said? Or was I jist imaginin it? Her mute reply was immediate: You heared me, didn’t ye? And besides, I baked that thar pie that you’re eatin a piece of. Bevis looked down at the slice of pie in his fingers as if it were haunted, and his hand began to tremble, so he stuffed the whole piece into his mouth and, being unable to speak, remarked to her soundlessly, I’m a-gittin a bit uneasy, us a-talkin like this, though I got to admit, if we really was talkin, out loud I mean, I couldn’t say a word. She replied with sealed lips, I know. That’s how come I figgered that I’ve never git ye to open your mouth so iffen I was ever gonna talk together with you, we’d have to do it thisaway. Still, Bevis found it difficult to believe that he could hear her so plainly, especially since she was sitting a good little distance away. As a further test, he tried to see if this weird telepathy would work on anybody else. Spotting his brother Tearle, he silently asked, Hey, Tull, have you got the time? but Tearle did not respond. He saw his father and wordlessly yelled at him, Paw, you’re full of shit! but John Ingledew betrayed not a twitch of having heard, although Emelda’s voice entered Bevis’s head: Shame on ye. That aint no way to talk to yore own poppa! He decided that only Emelda could hear him, and he her.

  Kin you read my mind? he telegraphed her, at a loss for any other way of expressing this occult phenomenon. Shore, she replied, which again made him feel uneasy, until he realized that there was nothing he could do about it, so he might as well get used to it, since he was cheerful, lighthearted, an optimist. What color underwear have I got on? he tested her. Red, came her quick reply. Although Bevis was sweating more than usual, he strove to remain cheerful. He tested her with several other questions. How much money did he have in the bank? What was his middle name? How many flapjacks had he eaten for breakfast? She answered all of these correctly, and then she asked him a question, Do you think I’m pretty? Bevis started to assure her that she was, but discovered that he could not; to his great amazement, he found himself replying, ’Naw, not exactly. There’s lots of girls roundabouts who’re a heap sight prettier than you, but on th’other hand you aint so bad. I seen lots worse. Bevis realized with astonishment that in the reading of minds there can be no flattery, no dissembling, no lies. He noticed that Emelda Duckworth was smiling, although her eyes were not on him, so maybe she had not been displeased with his honest answer. Emboldened, he told her, I’d come over there and sit beside ye, but I’m way too shy for that. She replied, I know, and offered, Would it make any difference iffen I was to come over yonder and sit by you? He answered, Wal, I’d git powerful red in the face if ye did, but I reckon I could stand it, so long as you never said nothin out loud. She said, Okay, here I come, but even until that last moment he did not believe that she would actually do it, and when he saw her rise up from the ground and start walking in his direction, he had a strong impulse to run away, and he started to rise but heard her voice inside him say, Don’t git up. I’ll be right thar.

  Participants in the afternoon’s activities at the Unforgettable Picnic could not help but notice, from time to time, all afternoon long, Bevis Ingledew and Emelda Duckworth sitting side by side, alone together in the Field of Clover, never speaking nor touching nor even looking at one another. But the Stay Morons considered it a great achievement on Emelda’s part even to get that close to a shy Ingledew, although they doubted that she would ever get any closer. They pitied both Bevis and Emelda because they were missing so many of the activities and attractions of the Unforgettable Picnic, but if two people could amuse themselves by sitting side by side without speaking for the whole long afternoon, then that was their business, so nobody spoke to Bevis or Emelda or tried to get them up from the ground, not even for one of the main attractions, when a furriner from out of state set up a talking machine and for five cents a head gave his customers the privilege of listening for five minutes to an accurate recording of a Negro being burned to death by a lynch mob, one of the most unforgettable sounds of the Unforgettable Picnic. Years afterwards, someone would always comment on the fact that Bevis Ingledew had never been known to speak to his wife, whereas even old speechless Coon Ingledew had at least been heard to give his wife directions to his house when she first came to Stay More.

  Emelda politely waited until Bevis Ingledew’s face had stopped burning before she “spoke” to him again. And then she “said,” I know it would mortify you iffen we was to hold hands, so let’s us jist play like we’re a-holdin hands. Like this, and she demonstrated: how, by keeping her hands in her lap, and his at his sides, they could pretend that they were actually linking hands and even intertwining their fingers. How does that feel? she asked him. Mighty nice, he replied. Then she suggested, Let’s play like we’re takin a stroll down by the creek, to git away from all these folks. So they pretended that they got up from the ground, linked hands again, and strolled casually across the Field of Clover and into the trees bordering Swains Creek. They pretended that they walked along the bank of the creek until they were out of earshot of the Picnic; Emelda hummed old songs while Bevis skipped pebbles across the surface of the creek, and they went on strolling, and came to a secluded place where they sat on a rock and dangled their feet in the water. It was cool and quiet.

  Emelda told him that if she could read his thoughts then he could read her thoughts too. He protested that he didn’t want to snoop. Go ahead, she invited him. It’s fun. So he invaded her thoughts, and discovered that she was thinking about kissing. He thought of the fact that he had never kissed a girl and was too shy to start, but she invaded his thought and thought that there was really nothing to it, all they had to do was move their heads close enough together so that their lips could touch, and they both thought about that and then pretended to do it, for a long minute. How did that feel? she asked him, and he replied, Mighty fine. The kissing had aroused his procreative instincts. My, my, she exclaimed. Yore jemmison is like iron. Could I pretend like I was a-touchin it? Bevis tried to pretend that he was blushing, but could not. Emelda bargained, You kin make believe you’re squeezin my titties. So they fondled one another in their minds. This petting was interrupted by imagined footsteps and voices approaching. Let’s turn it into dark of night, Bevis suggested, and they were concealed by the disappearance of the sun. The imagined footsteps and voices faded away, cursing the darkness. In the light of stars, Bevis and Emelda could just barely pretend to see one another, so they imagined that they were pretending to feel for one another with their hands. I never heared what doing it was named, Emelda’s voice said inside his head, but whatever it’s called, let’s do it anyhow. Or, I mean, let’s play like we’re a-doin it. Bevis did know what it was called; in fact, he knew close to a hundred different names for it, none of them pretty or even delicate, so he couldn’t tell her, but since she could read his mind she discovered them anyway and was impressed by their number and their aggressive energy, and she exclaimed Oooh! almost as if they were already doing it. Groaning and murmuring, she pretended to lie down on the ground and made believe that she was spreading her arms for him, also her legs. He needed no pretense of encouragement; his mind was raring to go, and he let it go, and it went.

  If any visitor to the Unforgettable Picnic might have happened to glance at the couple sitting silently side by side in the grass of the Field of Clover, the visitor would have noticed, and wondered at, the fact that both of them simultaneously closed their eyes for a long moment, and smiled, as if experiencing rapture. But no visitor happened to be looking at them during their moment.

  When the couple pretended to have rested from their labor of love and returned themselves to the Field of Clover and the Unforgettable Picnic, Bevis was somewhat taken aback to hear Emelda declare: Now you’ve got to marry me. He protested: Aw, heck, we was jist playin like. We never really done it. I aint ruined ye. She suggested, Then let’s play like we�
��re gittin married. He pointed out, It wouldn’t be legal. She thought and thought about that, and he read her thoughts, and their thoughts got mixed up and were interchangeable. Wait here a minute, she told him, and then she actually got up off the ground and went off in search of Brother Long Jack Stapleton; he wasn’t hard to find, as his Magic Bible Shows tent was a central attraction; she had to wait until the show was over before she could speak to him, and then she told him about Bevis Ingledew and herself and what had happened to them, or what they had allowed themselves to believe had happened.

  Brother Stapleton was of course a great respecter of imagination, illusion, make-believe, and he was in sympathy with her situation. He told her just to leave everything up to him and he would take care of it. The conclusion of the Unforgettable Picnic, late in the afternoon, was a triple-feature show by Brother Stapleton: “The Marriage of the Virgin,” with Mary and Joseph dressed in Stay More costumes of the last Century, “The Marriage at Cana,” with more elaborate costumes and orchestral accompaniment, and “The Marriage at Stay More,” which depicted the wedding of Bevis Ingledew and Emelda Duckworth. The bride and groom attended more as spectators than participants, and it made Emelda weep to see herself getting married, and it made Bevis get awful red in the face to see how much he was blushing during the ceremony. He was tortured with suspense, wondering if, when the time came, the man who was Bevis could muster the nerve to say “I do” out loud. The other spectators, which included everybody at the Picnic, were caught up with the show, and cheered the couple on; bets were made among the men; the women who were not weeping made loud exclamations about the beauty of the bride’s gown, which indeed Brother Stapleton had made elegant. Finally the big moment came when the groom was called upon to open his mouth, but he could not. Bevis hated to watch that part. He wanted to cover his face in his hands; at the breaking point he choked back his mortification and yelled at the groom, “Speak up, you damn fool!” and at this urging the groom croaked, “I do,” and the crowd went wild.