Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge

  THE REVEREND MRS. GRAY

  blushing, speaking with grave and sweet decorum,

  —Your majesty, as representative of the ladies of Raintree County, I wish to tender you a cordial token of our gratitude for your ardent efforts in our behalf.

  PERFESSOR

  with malacca cane expertly flipping Mrs. Gray’s back skirts up and gravely reading an inscription embroidered across her bloomers,

  —When this you see, remember me,

  And all our fun at Old Pedee.

  Madame, I accept this festive offering in the spirit in which it is tendered. Henceforth it shall occupy a prominent place in my home as a reminder to me of happy days spent in the old Pedee Academy. And now, folks, time for our geography lesson.

  He touched his pointer to a phrenological chart hanging on a tree; and as he did so, the chart, changing slowly, became a varnished study of the human anatomy and then a map of Raintree County.

  PERFESSOR

  in best classroom manner,

  —Beware, my boy, the Peak of Penis!

  Beware, beware the Mount of Venus,

  The Wandering Isles of Genitalia!

  Beware the Roman Saturnalia

  And all the Paphian Penetralia.

  GIRLS

  naked, dancing with maenad fury, venereal mounds adorned by the ripe tobacco leaf,

  —Some do it chew and some it smoke,

  Whilst some it up their nose do poke!

  JOHNNY

  declining proffered cigars,

  —Sorry. No, thanks. You see, my pa—— Besides, they tell me it’s against the law.

  GARWOOD JONES

  bulky and sleek in new suit, handsome blue eyes smiling, exhaling odor of lotion, holding whiskey bottle,

  —Pure yellow corn that comes by the cup! Come on, fellers, drink up, drink up!

  PERFESSOR

  through megaphone,

  —Ladies and gentlemen, yes-sir-ee, we’re ready to start the huskin’ bee! Workin’ fast on the middle row is young John Shawnessy. Go, boy, go!

  He husked his way down a corn row growing through the court house yard past a series of exnibits while the crowd cheered him on. Nearing the finish line, he was surrounded by girls in costumes of the corn, swaying with cernuous motion.

  CORN MAIDENS

  —Shakamak! Husky lover! Shawny, shockheaded boy! Reder of riddles!

  VOICE

  husky and rehearsed, from within a shrine of pillars, walled with stalks of the ripe corn,

  —With yellow and unloosened hair,

  Clothed in a garment white and fair,

  Inside a green and guarded keep,

  A lovely lady lies asleep.

  No key can turn the twisted lock;

  Yet love comes in and tears her smock.

  He burst through a wall of laughing girls into the shrine where an ear of corn tall as a maiden grew from a treebroad stalk. He tore the green husk down, laying bare the yellow tresses, ripe redtipped breasts, round white belly of

  NELL GAITHER

  entangled in green cornstalks, looking back at him with wistful eyes, in low voice, musical, receding,

  —Let’s do the next liber together, Johnny. Oft was I weary when I toiled with . . .

  He was lying on the bank of the Shawmucky, where he and a great many other young men had been hunting for the fabulous white creature lost in country waters and reported in a famous article of the Free Enquirer.

  WILLIE SHAKESPEARE

  sharpfaced stripling in overalls, straw hat, shirt open at neck, chewing a grass-stem, writing on coarsegrained paper,

  —William Shakespeare, his hand and pen.

  He will be great—but God knows when.

  JOHNNY SHAWNESSY

  —Say, Bill, if it’s not being too personal, what’s the lowdown on your affair with Ann Hathaway? According to the records, she was twenty-six and you were eighteen when the marriage took place, and the first child was born just six months after——

  WILLIE

  —By cock, John, you’re sharp at your sums. Alackalas and welladay, ’twas midsummer madness with too little method that tumbled poor Will in the hay.

  As you like it—and what doth it skill—

  Ann Hathaway—and also a Will.

  Everyone knows poor Will was to blame

  For taming the shrew—and for shrewing the dame.

  GARWOOD JONES

  lying on back, hands under head, blowing smoke rings,

  —Ain’t Nature grand?

  WILLIE

  peering through rushes, pointing at a girl standing naked in green sedge across the river,

  —Ain’t God good to Indiana—fellers, ain’t He, ain’t He though?

  PERFESSOR

  —By the way, Bill, do you think John’s been in there?

  WILLIE

  —Don’t be banal, boy.

  PERFESSOR

  standing up, baseball bat in hand,

  —It’s about time I instructed the local primates in an ingenious game. Now, folks, I trust you all perceive . . .

  The bat in the Perfessor’s hand had shrunk into a starter’s pistol. In the Court House Square, hundreds of people crowded to the starting line.

  OFFICIAL STARTER

  tall black hat, pistol in air,

  —After several delays, folks, we’re ready to start this here dash. Emulate Adam, folks. He set sich a blisterin’ early pace that he started—and dern near finished—the race. (Struggling with pistol) This doggone shootin’ ar’n ain’t wuth a dang. I cain’t seem exactly to git the——

  PISTOL

  —BANG!

  Everyone was running in the Court House Square. Children and dogs ran under the wheels of carriages. Old men ran, waving crutches and shouting hymen. Grandams ran, holding up petticoats and making bony legs blur with speed. Girls in summer dresses ran, emitting high squeaks of excitement, backs gracefully erect, necks and shoulders held with fashionable stiffness, parasols maintained primly over heads.

  FLASH PERKINS

  running a shade ahead of Johnny, white teeth clenched in an insolent grin,

  —Five times runnin’ I won that dash—Perkins, Orville—better known as Flash!

  SOUTHERN BELLE

  shaking her shoulders and twisting her hips,

  —Come on, honey, the weather’s fine down below the mixin’ and the dazin’ line.

  GIRLS

  flinging ecstatic flowers,

  —Goddess, give of your gracious bounty, to the fastest runner in Raintree County!

  Running, his feet were all daubed with mud. He seemed unable to stay up with the other contestants. He was ashamed to see that he was running unclothed like the ancient contenders in the Olympic games. Beside him in the fastgathering murk of the Square was his mother, Ellen Shawnessy. Her white feet glimmered beside him, as she tried to lead him along some darkening path at the end of which was a face of stone or perhaps the mythical Raintree. But he had failed her somehow. He had committed an unpardonable crime. He had done and said pagan, fleshly things and he had known desires that were of the flesh only. For this, he dared not look at her.

  ELLEN SHAWNESSY

  her face a pale stain in the darkness,

  —A great man is a man who does good for other people. What’s this I hear, Johnny, about you and——

  A crowd came by yelling the lustful shout of the mob. At first, Johnny thought that they had come for him, but then he saw that they were full cry in pursuit of a buggy in which a man and woman rode naked.

  PERFESSOR

  lashing horses, chanting in thin sardonic voice above the sullen fury of the mob,

  —Woodman, spare that tree!

  For my head am bendin’ low!

  My country, ’tis of thee!

  Goddammit, Dobbin, go!

  The whole grostesquely comic vision swept past into darkness, and then with a tidal rhythm came flowing back again from darkness. Now the mob bore aloft the body of the Perfessor tied on cros
sed rails, dripping hot tar, bestuck with feathers. The lean, terrible body began to change form, flapped vast birdwings, tore loose from its rotting cross, began to rise slowly over the river.

  PERFESSOR

  beating his condor wings,

  —To John Wickliff Shawnessy, life’s eternal young American, ave atque vale. Awk. Awk. Shawkamawk.

  Green be the grass above thee,

  Friend of my better days.

  None knew thee but to love thee.

  But whiskey never pays.

  It was night along the river. Beams of lantern light accused the darkness. He remembered now why he was here. He had stolen a famous statue by a young American sculptor and had hidden it in his favorite nook beside the river. No doubt the whole County knew of it and was coming to chastise him. In deep grass he tugged at the antique stone and slowly unearthed the marble breasts and back and buttocks of the Venus found in Melos. Pulled loose, it seemed to come alive in his hands, a mature young woman. He strove against her warmfleshed nudity, impeded by a white oarblade, broken, which she held between them. Her green eyes watched him, pensively calm. Her hands played with the planed wood, tracing with featherlight fingertips a legend carven in an antique language. Their slight touch on the oar gave him a remote pleasure, but suddenly the visual pain of beholding their delicate caress became the anguish of his own body, betrayed into spasms of desire. Smiling, the young woman leaned her mouth to his, grazed his lips lightly. The very fury with which he seized her drove her from him. Beneath his hands her twisting waist was barky and rough, her hair was a branch of oak-leaves. And she was gone beside the dark river in which he swam and stumbled through mucky pools and webs of waterweeds. Shocks of corn in near-by fields were flooded with the gray waters. . . .

  He awoke into the risen day, the full sunlight of the morrow. He awoke from the dream with something like relief, for it had been, after all, less innocent than the realities of the day preceding. The Perfessor was safely gone. Best now to laurel this strange being and the memory of his stay in Raintree County with elegiac words and turn resolutely to the future.

  HAIL AND FAREWELL

  (Epic Fragment from the Free Enquirer)

  That a foolish lark ended in unnecessary anguish for many cannot be denied. But this commentator will stake his own honor for it that the lady was returned to the bosom of her spouse as chaste as when she left it. The whole thing appears to have been a sudden improvisation, a mad lark, in which, it is true, the lady acquiesced, but which had for its object nothing more serious than a little frolic at the expense of owl-visaged respectability. The open letter which Professor Stiles addressed some days ago from parts unknown to the columns of this and other Raintree County papers should place the integrity of the lady’s honor beyond any possible suspicion, except such as will always rankle in base minds. And so let us draw the curtain of merciful oblivion upon the name and memory of a man, who whatever . . .

  Professor Jerusalem Webster Stiles left his mark on Raintree County. He left, among other things, columns of print in soon-forgotten newspapers, anguish in some hearts, a dozen pieces of printed skin called diplomas, a defunct institution of higher learning that soon began to be referred to as the Old Academy Building, and some unforeseen complications in the life of Johnny Shawnessy.

  But it was still early summer in Raintree County. The Fourth of July Footrace was coming and had awakened more excitement than any athletic event for years because it appeared that at last Orville (better known as Flash) Perkins had met a challenger worthy of his mettle. Soon everyone was talking about the Race, and the Perfessor began to be forgotten. Johnny Shawnessy put the guilty memory of an afternoon on the banks of the Shawmucky in the back of his mind. Great preparations were forward for the Footrace. Susanna Drake, a Lovely Southern Belle, visiting in the County, had been selected to make the award of oakleaves to the winner. And Johnny had heard from a roundabout source that she had secretly expressed a preference between the Champion and the Challenger.

  A few days before the Fourth, Cash Carney came around and told Johnny that Miss Drake had expressed a desire to include Johnny Shawnessy in an excursion of young people to Paradise Lake in the afternoon of the Fourth, following the Footrace. After perhaps insufficient reflection, Johnny accepted this invitation, the more readily because a few days after the Class Picnic and the Perfessor’s disappearance, he had received a note in the mail, reading:

  Johnny,

  Never try to speak to me again. I will try to forget you, and I beg you to put from your mind

  FOREVER ALL RECOLLECTIONS OF

  YOUR UNWORTHY BUT

  REPENTANT

  NELL

  In the timesoftened valley of the Shawmucky, he stood, retracing with his finger a carven name. From the letters, he dug out a hundred little gray cocoons, blind dwellers in a legend unperceived, a hieroglyph that love and sorrow had wrought in stone.

  The last car of the train rumbled by.

  He opened the cardboard box and laid a handful of cut flowers, roses and lilies, on the mound. Backing away, he gazed at the stone. Its stately form tranquillized the emotion of farewell. Curved whiteness from the river had become a lapidary attitude. By Ovidian magic, young love was changed to stone.

  He walked quickly over to the Shawnessy lot, sickled the five mounds, dropped the remnant flowers by the family monument.

  The train, westward diminishing, wailed at a crossing. He pulled out his watch and read the dial. Eight-five.

  Train doesn’t know the earth it passes over. Train thunders daily down the stretch behind the Old Home Place. Train is a tumult passing. Hoarse voice of train wails in the valley of Danwebster.

  Sleepers in the earth, do you hear the train passing? Do you any longer hear the sound of its diurnal course, beloved sleepers in the earth of Raintree County?

  Listen to the voice of train. The way for it is straight and far across the land. It rushes far and fast across the Nation, passing westward, passing through Raintree County.

  (O, blithe days, o, early agrarian days on the breast of the land! O, Eden of bland repose!)

  Listen! There is a voice of thunder on the land. It is the voice of years and fates, crying at intersections; it is the bullhead beast, who runs on a Cretan maze of iron roads and chases the naked sacrifices hither and thither. The bullgod comes up fast out of the east, under the churning of his round rear haunches. Smell of a blackened ash, odor of hot metal, the frictioning iron parts, blows across the earth of memories.

  (O, sweet young days of the aching but unripped seedpurse. O, tall endeavors. O, innocent, fragrant time.)

  Listen! What voice is calling now, voice of the grooved wheels on the roads of the hurrying days! It is the thunder of the big events. They are coming, full of malice and arrogance, they are coming on hooves of iron, wounding the earth of Raintree County. They will travel straight and far, through the light barriers of the corngold days. Lo! they will drive the young gods, the beautiful young gods, from the river’s reedy marge.

  The day becomes brighter and hotter. In court house squares, the streets of the Nation, the people gather. The train bears its streamer of black smoke, a banner of progress fast and far across the land. Lo! we must keep our appointments. The clock on the Court House Tower is telling the time of day. We have a rendezvous in a train station, there where the thundering express stops a moment in the bright day and lets down out of its smoky womb a procession of remembered faces.

  Listen! great voice of thunder and urgency, voice of titan yesterdays and of still more titanic tomorrows! Do you still bring me tidings, have you still a bundle of headlines to throw down for me, will the face of the most beautiful of women look unexpectedly from a window of the trembling coaches for me? Or do you bring again, as so often before, a somber freight for me, who hearken the voice of your passing here on the breast of the land?

  He walked back through the tangled grass of the Danwebster Graveyard, trying not to step on graves.

  He si
ghed as he pushed through the gates of the graveyard. He was tired. He had rebuilt the classic stones of a lost republic. He had dreamed again the fabric of an antique Raintree County. His eyes smarted from the sweat of this endeavor.

  Hundreds and thousands had travailed at the task. Now they were dead, sleepers in the earth. What did it avail a man, the labor long and hard, the weary road, and many years?

  He climbed up the grade of the railroad, plunged longstriding down the far side, retraced his own trail to the riverbank, crossed on the dam, slightly wetting his feet.

  In the valley of a vanished name, two boys loitered, hunting for relics. In a surrey by the road, a young woman with grave dark eyes looked down the road in motionless profile.

  What creature is it that in the morning of its life . . .

  What were the days of a man? Where did the small brown roads lead him at last? Who could preserve the ancient verities of Raintree County?

  Mr. John Wickliff Shawnessy replaced a sickle, wet with blood of grass, in the back seat of the surrey, where a girl sat lost in a sentimental legend between green cloth covers. Like the forgotten boy named Johnny, he saw her as given to a quest, believing that all books are somehow legend and eternal, each one containing somewhere the talismanic word, the lost engraving, peace. All the intersections of his life had been necessary so that she too might have her morning on this road of memories and be the child and cherisher of Raintree County, his daughter

  Eva

  CLOSED THE BOOK. It had been a noble last page. All the barriers had been burned away.

  The surrey had left the site of Danwebster and the river far behind. She had meant to get a good look at the Old Home Place, where she had been born twelve years ago and had spent the first five years of her life, but she had been too much absorbed in the climax of the story. Now the surrey was almost to Moreland.

  —Through with the book, Eva?

  —Yes.

  She handed the book to Wesley, feeling how precious was the thing she surrendered in a gilded cover. But she would linger in a golden world.

  She would linger in the world of the sentimental novels, where it wasn’t necessary to be Eva Alice Shawnessy, a girl of twelve beginning to be ungracefully a woman. She would linger in the world of her namesake, the most famous child of the Nineteenth Century. In this world, unknown to all, she would be the heroine of beautiful adventures and beautiful deaths. By purity, courage, faith, she would save lives, free races, win the deathless admiration and love of all who knew her, and at last expire in a circle of weeping friends and relatives with the sun lighting a halo around her pale, thin face. Farewell, beloved child! the bright eternal doors have closed after thee; we shall see thy sweet face no more. . . . Then she would have a hundred resurrections of herself like all those other sunny, deathless little girls who appeared in book after book, narratives grave and gay, intended for the entertainment and instruction of all the wellbroughtup little girls of America.