Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge

T. D. had a hard time bringing the crowd to order. Some ladies vocalized a few temperance songs. T. D. gave a speech, but was heckled all the way through by a hoarse voice in the back of the house. When T. D. made the first call for volunteers to come up and take the Total Abstinence Pledge, a young man came down the aisle aided and encouraged by a group of companions. Watching from the wings, Johnny saw that it was Flash Perkins, the undefeated champion runner of the County.

  —I wanna take pledge, Flash said in a loud, hoarse voice.

  —My dear boy, T. D. said mildly, I want no one but sober men to take this pledge.

  —If yuh wan’ no one but sober men, what’s use havin’ ’em take it? Flash said.

  The crowd applauded. T. D. tried to explain.

  —Then I wanna make testimonial, Flash said. Wanna testify that I been drunk fer two weeks. I have drank beer, wine, whiskey, and hair-ile. Friend, I’m drunk. I defy any man here to drink much as I have and walk straight. I can still outrace any man in this here County.

  —Please, T. D. said, you’re disturbing the Rally. Will some friend of this young man’s please——

  —I ain’ disturbin’ no rally, Flash said. Wanna make lil testimonial. Wanna tell folks how I got into thish disrespectibubble condition so’s they can avoid same mistake.

  —Well, all right, T. D. said. Go ahead.

  —When I small boy, Flash said, I sick of the colic. My parents took me emminunt physician in these parts, I mean respected gennulman now on stage fore y’all, Mr. T. D. Shawnessy. Medicine he give me contained brandy, folks, at least a halfpint. I drank it then, when I small and unsuspectin’ infant, and I been drinkin’ ever since.

  The crowd laughed. Flash laughed too, baring his white bright teeth. He held his hard belly and laughed a high, hooting laugh that ended in an Indian whoop. Laughing with head thrown back, he walked up the aisle. No one touched him.

  Cash Carney reached out, caught T. D.’s coattails, and pulled him gently through the curtain.

  —Dim the lights, Cash said. Let’s have the Play. Meanwhile, I’ll go down and get those hoodlums out of here.

  T. D. went back out and read the playbill to the audience.

  FATHER, COME OUT OF THAT OLD SALOON

  or

  Drink, Crime, Adultery, Poverty, Death,

  and Damnation by

  John Wickliff Shawnessy

  BELLE BRAYDON, a beautiful spirited girl........Miss Nell Gaither

  WILLIAM WORTH, a virtuous young man from the country.........................Mr. John Wickliff Shawnessy

  FERDIE FAIRWEATHER, a villainous fellow......Mr. Garwood Jones

  PEACHES MONROE, a Girl of the Town..........Miss Fanny Rider

  MR. WEBSTER WEAKLY, an intemperate Father...............................Mr. Ezekiel Shawnessy

  PHOEBE WEAKLY, his hapless daughter........Miss Faith Shawnessy

  BARNEY BILGE, a bartender......................Mr. Jake Dryer

  Habitués of the Saloon....................Messers Bob Parsons, Ezra Joiner, Nat Franklin, and Waldo Pierce

  Male Quartette composed of: Messers Jake Dryer, Nat Franklin, Bob Parsons, and John Wickliff Shawnessy.

  Original Lyrics by Mr. John Wickliff Shawnessy and sung by members of the cast and the Male Quartette.

  ACT I

  In Barney Bilge’s Barroom

  ACT II

  Scene One: A railroad track in a lonely part of the country

  Scene Two: Back at the Barroom

  ACT III

  Down by the Railroad Track

  The hollow womb of the Opera House rumored applause as Johnny Shawnessy walked out of the dressing room and into the darkened wings, wandering vaguely toward the other side of the stage where the ladies’ dressing room was.

  For weeks, he had envisioned to himself an impossibly beautiful thing. It was that some time he would be hunting behind the scenes in the Opera House, when no one else was there, and he would find his way to a forbidden room where the ladies changed their clothes, a neglected closet where costumes and greasepaints were stored. There through the halfopen door he would see Nell Gaither in among the hanging costumes, river-naked in the glow of the gaslight. Her hair, parted in the middle, would be bound up to show her ears, her face would be smouldering with a thin mask of paint and powder. Invitation would be in her eyes as she looked back at him over her shoulder allowing him to see the supple column of her back.

  In fact, he now saw Nell coming out of the door of the ladies’ dressing room. She walked over to him.

  —Johnny, she said, I’m so scared. Feel my hands.

  He took her hands. They were cold and sweating like his own.

  —If I remember my first line, I’ll be all right.

  —Think how I feel, Johnny said. I wrote this darn play. I wish now I never had.

  —It’s a wonderful play, honest! How do you like my costume, Johnny?

  —Very becoming, he said.

  —Is my make-up on straight?

  She held her face up, tilted toward a weak illumination shed through joints in the scenery. Her face, pertly composed with paint and powder, filled him with despair. It was not the face of the loving one, shy, with averted eyes.

  —You look beautiful, Nell, he said, but laughed a little to show he didn’t mean anything by it.

  Garwood Jones was stomping around through the angles that held up the scenery. He wore a big black mustache with oiled points and a black derby. T. D. was calling from the front. The crowd was applauding. Johnny ran to the left wing. The curtains rolled back. The Play was on.

  The scene was the interior of a Saloon, where habitués leaned against the bar, among them an old man who laughed drunkenly and rolled his head on the counter:

  WILLIAM WORTH

  entering, addressing the old man,

  —You seem happy, sir. But consider that there are doubtless those who are rendered desperately unhappy by your behavior.

  FATHER

  —Ah, yes, alas! Poor little Phoebe! But then I’ll not think of that now. Give us another glass, bartender. Fill it up, and let’s forget our troubles, boys. Laugh with me, boys, laugh!

  WILLIAM

  moving to front of stage with piano accompaniment and singing,

  —Laugh if you will, and drink your fill

  Of the cup that is crowned with foam.

  But the day will come when the demon rum

  Will lay you in the loam.

  Some day a girl with a little curl

  Who once to you was dear

  Will point to that den of degraded men

  And say, as she drops a tear:

  From the wings entering came Phoebe, thin, forlorn, her corn-colored hair down and trailing.

  PHOEBE

  singing in a high sweet voice,

  —O Father, come out of that old Saloon.

  They say you are full of gin.

  They say you’ve been drinking there since noon,

  And are sunk in the sink of sin.

  O Father, hearken, dear Father, ’tis I,

  And my heart will be breaking soon,

  Unless you list to my plaintive cry:—

  Come out of that old Saloon!

  From this classic opening in the best and purest tradition of the American Temperance Drama, Johnny Shawnessy’s play proceeded according to a well-defined formula. So in the Raintree County Opera House, in a box of quaint and timeless postures called a stage, the Honest Country Boy made his visit to the Wicked City to find his beloved engaged in a Menial Capacity. In the name of the Cold Water Army, he refused the Proffered Glass. The Little Golden-haired Girl came seeking her Drunken Father, and the Male Quartette assisted her in captivating waltztime. The Bigamous and Glittering Villain proposed marriage to the Virtuous but Misguided Heroine, who was estranged from her True Love by an Unfortunate Misunderstanding. Down by the Railroad Tracks, the Hissing Villain dragged the Unwilling Heroine into the path of the Approaching Train to Force her Virtue. Meanwhile, the Inept but Upri
ght Hero was tempted by a Girl of the Town to Drown his Sorrows in the Lethean Wine. Warned by the sound of the train whistle, he appeared in time to Foil the Villain, who even with a pistol was no match for the Intrepid Strength of Indignant Virtue. The cardboard train ran swiftly across the scene, missed the Shrieking Heroine, and mangled the Prostrate Villain. And back in the barroom, the Play achieved the classic ending:

  WILLIAM

  to assembled cast, minus Ferdie,

  —And I attribute whatever success I have had to my inflexible resolution never to touch a drop of intoxicating beverage.

  Father and others promised to reform, and the two lovers discovered that their correspondence had been intercepted by the bartender.

  BARTENDER

  —I destroyed all those letters before the young lady had a chance to read them. I am heartily sorry for my nefarious conduct, and in retribution I am going to turn my saloon into a respectable eating house.

  WILLIAM

  taking Belle’s hand and singing,

  —I came to the City, a vagrant day,

  In the bloom of my blithesome youth,

  And I sought in the City great and gray

  The beautiful bird of Truth.

  I sought her along the wide, wide streets,

  The glimmering parks and lawns,

  Through all of the City’s dim retreats

  And under its lonely dawns.

  CHORUS

  entire cast,

  —O beautiful, beautiful singing bird

  That I sought in my happy youth.

  O marvellous song that touched and stirred

  My heart with the love of Truth.

  WILLIAM

  second verse,

  —And many a year I spent at last

  In the City’s swallowing void,

  Till it seemed’ that my youthful dream were past

  And its delicate form destroyed.

  Then I decided no more to roam,

  And I turned me with a will

  Back to the hills of my native home

  Where the bird was singing still.

  FATHER

  coming forward, after second chorus,

  —A toast to the lovers!

  PHOEBE

  —But, Father, you promised!

  FATHER

  with a subtle smile,

  —A toast to the lovers in that most beneficial of all beverages, that most excellent of elixirs, that plenteous and replenishing draft, that transparent restorer of our strength, which God has lavished upon mankind in such copious quantities. Bartender, bring me a glass of water!

  Now while the Play lived its brief existence before the footlights, life had pressed darkly around it from behind the scenes. Between the first two acts, while the scenery was being shifted, unknown to the audience who watched the Play, the Playwright and Principal Actor had climbed a winding metal stair hung like a ladder from the loft of the stage. From the crow’s nest at the top, in a tangle of old curtains and cables, though well hidden himself, the Playwright had looked down on the whole cluttered world behind the scenes, musing, while puppet-like the figures of the stage crew and the cast moved on grotesquely shortened bodies below.

  From his perch he had seen Nell Gaither emerge from the ladies’ dressing room in a far corner of the backstage area. The steep angle of his vision had emphasized the feminine bulge of hip and bustle line. Her shoulders and waist had swayed slenderly as she hesitated a moment by the door and then walked slowly toward an obscure corner of the stage, where she appeared to be alone, standing in silhouette against an unused sceneshift of woodland and river scenery. But she had hardly come there when as if by appointment a figure, whose bulky shoulders were hugely enhanced by the downward angle of vision had moved confidently out of a near-by maze of partitions and found its way into the same corner. There the first figure had melted passively into it. The Playwright had heard a stifled giggle and a mellow bass chuckle.

  There had been no doubt about it. Garwood Jones was kissing Nell Gaither in that obscure corner of the Opera House, as no doubt he had done many times before during rehearsals. And even at that distance, the Playwright could tell that Garwood’s hands were not unfamiliar with the place where a slender back began its downward curve into Raintree County’s most beautiful twin mounds.

  In greasepaint, bowtie, and straw skimmer, simulating the honest boy from the country, Johnny Shawnessy had clung unhappily to his lofty perch and watched the villain of the Play kiss the willing heroine. So life, an intemperate comedy, had giggled and guffawed at his genteel little temperance farce.

  He had felt all along that he had miscast the parts. He had early begun to envy Garwood the role of villain. It was much the more exciting role—or perhaps Garwood himself made it that way with his authoritative baritone and his big sleek body, which was now masterfully pushing and throbbing against the little Venus with a Raintree County face.

  And at that moment Johnny Shawnessy’s love had reached such a furious peak of unfulfillment that he had felt like shutting his eyes and hurling himself down from his high mast upon the little backstage world to shatter it to bits.

  Instead, he had watched until Garwood and Nell separated, then carefully shinnied back to the floor to await the opening of the Second Act.

  Now that the Play was over, the curtain opened again to reveal the entire cast singing ‘O Father, Come Out of That Old Saloon.’ T. D. was out before the crowd exhorting them to come forward and take the Total Abstinence Pledge. The gasyellowed walls of the Opera House rang with young joyous voices. In greasepaint and green gown, Nell Gaither swayed in time to the music between Johnny Shawnessy and Garwood Jones, who were holding each a hand. And for this rhythmical moment, it seemed to Johnny that the anguish of his frustrate love became an ecstasy, as of possession.

  —O Father, hearken, dear Father, ’tis I,

  And my heart will be breaking soon,

  Unless you list to my plaintive cry:—

  —Fire! Fire! yelled a red-faced man who had been standing on the stage like an actor, waving his arms and trying to make himself heard above the song.

  This too was a dream of something implausible like the Play, and a dream too was the deadheavy hush that fell on the Opera House, and like a dream the lazy drift of smoke from the wings, and like a dream the crackling sheet of flame.

  As fire roared from the vague world of the wings, the pit of the Opera House became a whirlpool of faces and frenzied arms. Johnny, Nell, Garwood, and the other performers ran wildly about looking for water. There was nothing but some jugs of colored water that had been used to simulate liquor in the Play. Johnny threw it at the flames, but the next moment he was driven clear off the stage. As he and the other performers climbed out through a rear window, he heard gas explode, wood smash, glass splinter, women scream.

  And then there was running to and fro, the sound of firebells ringing, the sight of the firemen coming down the street pulling their new wagon and unrolling hose. The last few people came out of the darkened, roaring womb of the Opera House with singed hair, torn clothes, bleeding faces.

  Apparently no one had been seriously hurt, but there was nothing anyone could do about the Opera House except to watch it burn. The whole County seemed to be there in a vast circle filling up streets and yards for blocks back, cheering the newly organized fire department. Everyone looked happy and excited. Men performed prodigies of valor and strength. Flash Perkins, who an hour before had been almost too drunk to stand, risked his life over and over. Everyone was vastly pleased with the new firewagon. It added a great deal to the interest and excitement of the occasion.

  Johnny stood close to Nell and several other members of the cast, all talking excitedly.

  —Ain’t the new firewagon a beauty! someone said.

  —It’s wonderful, Nell said.

  —No building in Raintree County ever burned down so efficiently, Johnny said.

  The Opera House was a big broad torch roaring straight-up
and casting light down the roads for miles.

  —It’s like a pillar of fire by night, T. D. said.

  Johnny felt that he must devour this spectacle and possess it all, the dense firelit faces of the crowd, the gay terror of the springing fire, the glistening helmets of the firemen, the shining perfection of the new firewagon. The Play itself had been leading to this great torch of flame in which the yellow interiors of the Opera House were consumed forever.

  It was late at night before the Opera House collapsed in ash and smoking timbers. People began to go home, agreeing that the fire was by far the most successful exhibit at the County Fair.

  —It was a wonderful play, Johnny, Nell said. I enjoyed being in it.

  She was leaning out of Garwood’s buggy. Her face had rivulets of sweat through the greasepaint, her hair hung wispily around her cheeks, her eyes had stains of darkness under them, and her fruity mouth above her small pointed chin looked particularly luscious.

  —Let’s go, my proud beauty, Garwood said.

  He shook the reins and took her away.

  T. D. came up with a small shabby man.

  —I want you all to meet Mr. Gruber, T. D. said. He came around after the fire and took the Temperance Pledge. He’s the only one that did.

  They all looked at Mr. Gruber. He was little, and he had a red nose and watery eyes. He took off his hat and shook hands with Ellen Shawnessy.

  —Well, T. D. said, it’s a start.

  As they were driving home, T. D. said,

  —People are more interested now in politics than anything else. And of course the fire broke up the whole shebang just when it was about to do the most good.

  In the back seat the young people were singing songs from the Play.

  —I went to the City, a vagrant day,

  In the bloom of my blithesome youth. . . .

  Johnny heard the whistle of a train coming along the branch line behind the Home Place and past the south bend of the Shawmucky. He thought of the river running in the night, treebordered, faintly shining; of the alien engine passing close to its waters, screaming alarm, emergency, disaster; of Nell Gaither’s pretty calves beneath her dress; of her candid face upturned and smeared with greasepaint. And of Garwood Jones, that enormously competent young man, so vigorous in obtaining his objectives, crowding his face against her face.