The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks

by Harington, Donald

  “Ike Whitter,” said the sheriff. “You are a prisoner, under suspicion of murder. Come along peaceable.”

  “Haw,” snorted Ike Whitter. “The devil ye say. You’d better jist slope away from here, sheriff, cause I’m liable to git dangerous toward ary man that would point pistols at me.”

  “I’m only doin my duty,” the sheriff said, somewhat apologetically. “The people of this here county have appointed me to keep order. You have did a crime. Grubbin out a eyeball here and there is one thing, but murder is a hoss of a different feather. It is my bounden duty to remit ye to the county jail.”

  Ike Whitter leered. “Wal, reckon ye got the drap on me.” He held out his wrists. “Put on the handcuffs.”

  The sheriff, in order to fish out his handcuffs, had to return one of his two revolvers to its holster, and as he did so, Ike Whitter slapped the other one out of his hand, then hit the sheriff a swipe on his ear that laid him out, then extracted one of his eyeballs. The sheriff, screaming “Oh, Ike, Lordy, don’t kill me!” made a hasty retreat. When the sheriff returned to Jasper and reported what had happened to him, it aroused so much interest and was considered so newsworthy that a printing press was brought from Harrison and Newton County’s first newspaper, the Jasper Disaster, was established, with a banner headline on its first issue: SHERIFF HALF-BLINDED BY STAY MORE MALEFACTOR.

  Other items reported were scattered incidents of poisoning, arson, shooting, lynching, prostitution and insanity, as well as a few wedding and birthday announcements, and the meeting of the Grange. Copies of the first issue reached Stay More, and one of Ike Whitter’s few cronies read the front page to Ike, who could not read, and Ike was considerably impressed that there was such a thing as a newspaper and even more impressed, and immensely flattered, that he dominated the first issue of it. He took the front page and nailed it to the front of the Ingledew General Merchandise Store, for all eyes to see, but the eyes were not seeing it because they were staying home out of fear of him. He had the town to himself. Willis Ingledew turned the store over to John and went off to see the St. Louis World’s Fair. John Ingledew managed the store for only a few days until Ike Whitter came in and began helping himself to Vienna sausages and crackers and anything else he desired. John went to his father, Isaac, and complained, “Paw, somethin’s got to be done about Ike Whitter.”

  Isaac, as taciturn in his late fifties as he ever was, suggested laconically, “Lynch him.”

  John went around the village, talking to all the men. Most of them did not wish to meddle with Ike Whitter, but John succeeded in recruiting, in addition to his older brothers Denton and Monroe, one Dinsmore, one Chism, one Coe, one Plowright, and one Swain. These eight men took their rifles and coils of rope and marched upon the Ingledew General Store, where they found Ike Whitter and two of his cronies sitting on the porch, eating can after can of confiscated sardines. Ike Whitter had his rifle in his lap, and at the approach of the lynch mob he raised it and began firing at them, wounding one Coe and one Dinsmore. The only place the lynch mob could take cover was Jacob Ingledew’s house, where Jacob’s ladyfriend now lived alone, severely frightened by the sound of gunfire. They told her to take cover in a back room; then they manned the windows of the three front rooms, breaking out the panes and firing across the road at the three doors of the General Store, where Ike and his two cronies lurked and returned the fire. For an hour they fusilladed one another, without any apparent effect on either side, except the shattering of every window in the Ingledew house and in the Ingledew store. Glass was a lot cheaper in those days than it had been when Jacob Ingledew installed the first panes of Stay More, but still it wasn’t so cheap that this wasn’t a terrible waste, and there was one man at least who was mindful of it.

  As John and his lynch mob watched, one of Ike Whitter’s cronies, the one in the left door, came tumbling out through the door of the store, down the steps, and crashed into the dirt of the road, where he lay jumbled and inert. John and his lynch mob stopped firing. After another instant, the other crony in the right door repeated the movements of the first. Then, after a longer pause, Ike Whitter himself came tumbling out through the center door and collapsed into the road. John and his lynch mob rushed to investigate, found Ike Whitter breathing, but just barely, and entered the store just in time to see Isaac Ingledew closing the rear door behind him.

  “Gawdamighty,” each of the eight said quietly. Then they revived and bound Ike Whitter and his cronies, and lynched them. The new Jasper Disaster headlined the event: STAY MORE VIGILANTES PUT NOOSE ON VILLAINS. There would not be any more ruffians in Stay More for years and years.

  But the sheriff, One-eyed Barker, appeared with a warrant for the arrest of John Ingledew and the other vigilantes.

  “What in tarnation for?” John demanded.

  “Violation of the lynch law,” said One-eyed Barker. “It’s a-gin the law to take the law into yore own hands.”

  John and his lynch mob surrendered, were jailed in Jasper, and brought before a judge and jury in the County courthouse. They were represented by Jim Tom Duckworth, a Stay Moron, who, some months previously, had mailed off to St. Louis to purchase the twelve-volume Whitestone’s Easy Jurisprudence and Forensic Medicine Self-Taught. Jim Tom argued before the court that Ike Whitter and his cronies were already half-dead when Isaac Ingledew got through with them, and therefore his clients had not killed them but only half-killed them. Isaac Ingledew was subpoenaed to depone. Since the judge, like the jury and everybody else, knew that Isaac Ingledew was too taciturn to depone, the judge conducted Isaac to his chambers along with the prosecuting attorney and Jim Tom Duckworth, and there he explained that the examination and cross-examination were to be arranged in such a way that Isaac could depone simply by nodding or shaking his head in response to yes-or-no questions. The trial then proceeded. Did Isaac Ingledew enter upon the premises of the Ingledew General Merchandise Store in Stay More, county of Newton, state of Arkansas at the time of the incident hitherto described, gaining entry by means of the rear door of said premises? Isaac nodded. Was Isaac Ingledew’s sole motive or intent the cessation, interruption, or termination of the hostilities, armed conflict, altercation, or contentiousness then in progress? He nodded. Did Isaac Ingledew approach each of the adversaries, combatants or victims, each in turn, each and severally from the rear, catching each by surprise? Isaac shook his head. Then if each was not caught by surprise, was the first one caught by surprise? A nod. The first one, as well as the subsequent two, were seen by the defendants to emerge, come forth, or burst out of their respective doorways in extremely rapid manner, not under their own volition; might it be assumed that Isaac Ingledew had thrown, flang, heaved or chunked each man bodily out through their respective doorways? He nodded. And yet, we may assume, that even being thrown, flang, heaved or chunked out through their respective doorways, and thence downward off the high porch and into the road, would not account for the alleged unconsciousness or alleged half-death of each of the three adversaries, combatants or victims; so is it to be surmised that Isaac Ingledew, before throwing, flinging, heaving or chunking each and several of the aforementioned adversaries, combatants or victims, did first bash in their heads?

  “Objection!” cried Jim Tom Duckworth, leaping to his feet. “The prosecutor is asking the witness a leadin question.”

  “Overruled,” decreed the judge. “Prosecution’s jist tryin to fine out what ole Coon—Mr. Ingledew—actually done to them varmints afore he throwed ’em out. Witness must respond.”

  Isaac nodded.

  Did Isaac Ingledew do other to the adversaries, combatants or victims, than merely bash in their heads? Isaac nodded. Did Isaac perhaps break their arms? Isaac nodded. Furthermore, did Isaac possibly stomp on their toes? Isaac nodded. Furthermore, did Isaac, by any chance, punch, sock, slug or whop the abdomens or regions of the midriffs in such a way as to deflate the lungs and conceivably cause internal injury? Isaac nodded. Was the motive of this sequence of bashing, stompi
ng, breaking, and whopping to deprive the adversaries, combatants or victims of life, or merely to disable them?

  “Objection!” said Jim Tom Duckworth. “The prosecutor is askin two separate questions.”

  “Sustained,” said the judge. “Prosecution will ask one question at a time.”

  Was it to deprive them of life? Isaac shook his head. Was it to merely disable them? Isaac nodded.

  Your witness, the prosecutor said to Jim Tom, and Jim Tom stood before Isaac and asked, “Did ye expect them fellers to git up and lead normal lifes after all what you’d done to ’em?” Isaac shook his head. “Wal, did ye expect ’em to git up by and by or at least be carried off to bed to get well, or part well, and then maybe lead jist sorta normal lifes, maybe walkin on crutches, or carryin a cane, for the rest of their lifes?” Isaac nodded. “How long did ye expect ’em to live, thataway? Aw heck, I fergot I aint suppose to ask questions that caint be answered yes or no. Wal, did ye expect ’em to live to be a hundred?” Isaac shook his head. “Eighty?” Isaac shook his head. “Fifty, at least?” Isaac nodded. Jim Tom turned to the judge. “Yore Honor, as everbody knows, fifty is jist one half of a hundred, so I have done proved my point, namely and likewise, that my clients removed only half of the life of them fellers and this ole gent took the other half.” Jim Tom turned to the jury. “Fine gents of the jury,” he addressed them. “Half is half, as you can plainly see. You kin either both half-punish my clients and Isaac Ingledew, or else only punish half of my clients, and as there is eight of them, you’ll have to decide which four. The defense rests.”

  The jury deliberated for three weeks and a day. They returned a verdict that the lynch law was unconstitutional and was therefore invalid. The judge instructed them that such a decision was not for them to make, or in any case was not their charge. Their charge was to determine whether the defendants were innocent, guilty, or half-guilty, and, if the latter, whether all eight of them were guilty or half-guilty, or whether four of them were guilty and four innocent, and if so, which four. The jury retired once more. They were never seen again. Some folks claimed that three of them had been seen fishing on the Buffalo River, and another one was thought to be living alone in an isolated cabin on Mount Sherman, but this was only hearsay and not admissible. The judge declared a mistrial and everybody went home.

  It was peaceful everywhere after that. Willis Ingledew came home from the St. Louis World’s Fair and resumed managing his general store. To anyone who would listen, Willis could loquaciously boast for hours on end of the wonders he had seen at the fair: the buildings themselves, great palaces of white marble, any one of which was larger than all the buildings of Stay More put together. No one believed this. Willis insisted that there were a thousand white marble statues of people and animals ten times life-size. The Stay Morons shook their heads and looked at Willis out of the corners of their eyes. Willis claimed that on one day of the fair, there were over a million people on the grounds. Everybody knew that there weren’t that many people in the whole world, and they wondered if Willis had taken to strong drink, or perhaps even had become a dope fiend. Willis tried to convince them that there had been an enormous bird cage, covering over an acre, which contained exotic birds of all sizes and colors, but the people told one another that that one was for the birds, and they wondered why Willis was sawing off such whoppers. Willis’s business began to fall off; most people preferred patronizing one of the other general stores rather than listen to Willis tell tall tales about the St. Louis World’s Fair. Even after he shut up about the subject, weeks later, his business was still bad, and he had to lay off his clerk and brother, John.

  Laid off, John had nothing better to do than take his children and go off to see for himself what the St. Louis World’s Fair looked like. He loaded his wife and eight kids into the wagon and drove off up to Springfield, and they took the train from there. They had never seen a train before. Newton County is the only one of Arkansas’ seventy-five counties in which not one mile of railroad track has ever been laid, which perhaps more than any other statistic gives a good idea of how isolated it has always been. At the sight of the train, the children’s jaws dropped open and remained that way for the rest of the trip, which became increasingly awe-inspiring.

  The World’s Fair, sure enough, was everything and more that Willis had said it was. “Uncle Willis didn’t tell the half of it,” remarked one of the boys. But John Ingledew, whatever his shortcomings, was smart. “Now listen to me, younguns,” he told his children on the return trip home. “Don’t breathe a word about that place to nobody, or I’ll whop the whey outen ye.” They had to wait at Jasper for a few days, until the children could close their jaws, before they went on home to Stay More. Whenever anyone asked John about St. Louis, he would reply that it was just like Stay More, except there was more of it. Folks lived in the same kind of houses, he said, but they had a couple of extry general stores, and a bridge across their creek. John won the respect of the town for his truthfulness, whereas Willis was practically disgraced.

  This did not exactly change the expression of doom that was a permanent fixture of John’s face, but it made him feel superior to his younger brother for the first time, and, feeling superior, he established Stay More’s first fraternal organization, Ingledewville Lodge, No. 642, of the Free and Accepted Masonic Order. He could not persuade his father to join, but he signed up all his brothers, plus several Plowrights, Swains, Goes, Dinsmores, Chisms, Duckworths and Whitters, twenty-eight of them in all. None of them protested that the lodge was called Ingledewville Lodge, because that was customary. Everything about Masonry was customary, and some of the customs went all the way back to the knights of the Dark Ages.

  The main custom of Masonry is secrecy, and that was what they liked best about it. The trappings of Masonry might not have been worth much to them, but they were secret, and the secret knowledge of them placed a man above his neighbors. Only the best men of Stay More belonged to the Masons; that was why there were only twenty-eight of them. At first John didn’t even want to invite Willis to join, because Willis was so inferior to him, but they needed a large private room for their Lodge, and the only one available was the back room of Willis’s store, and also they needed a “tiler,” who is the officer standing outside the door during meetings to guard the secrecy of the meetings, so John appointed Willis as tiler. He appointed himself Worshipful Master. The other offices were by election: Denton Ingledew was Senior Warden, Monroe Ingledew was Junior Warden, Long Jack Stapleton was Chaplain, Jim Tom Duckworth was Senior Steward, and so on. There was an office for every man—for example, Deputy Junior Deacon and Adjunct Associate Deputy Junior Steward—and each man had a badge of office which he proudly wore suspended from a ribbon around his neck. They were not so proud of their little lambskin aprons, but that was an essential and sacred garment of Masonry, and besides, they only wore their little aprons during meetings, and the meetings were strictly secret, so none of the womenfolk or the children could see them in their little aprons and laugh at them or point at them. Willis stood outside the door of the back room of his store when the meetings were held, and brandished his ceremonial mace. Nobody ever tried to break in to any of the meetings, but if they had, Willis was supposed to brain them with his ceremonial mace.

  Once the Lodge was established, John wrote off to the national headquarters in Washington asking to be supplied with enough secrets to keep them busy for a year or so. In reply he received a request for a tithe of the dues. He did not know what a tithe was, and none of the other members did either. They figured it was one of the secret words. He answered to headquarters by protesting that he couldn’t very well send a tithe if they wouldn’t send him the secrets first so he could find out what a tithe was and send it to them. This brought a rather sarcastic reply intimating that if John and his Lodge brethren did not know the meaning of tithe, they were perhaps not intelligent enough to be Masons. Stung by this, John rode off to Jasper and asked the county judge what a tithe
is. The judge referred him to the county clerk, who suggested that he ask the sheriff. One-eyed Barker referred him to the county surveyor, who recommended the coroner. The county coroner didn’t know but was pretty sure that the treasurer would know, and sure enough Curgus Young the county treasurer told him what a tithe is. He returned home and conveyed this information to his Lodge brethren. “Men,” he declared, “we’ve solved half the problem. Now if we can just find out what ‘dues’ are.” He was only kidding, of course, because he already knew what dues are, but he did not know how much he should assess. It seemed reasonable that if the national headquarters got ten percent of their dues, then the dues ought to be ten percent of the members’ income. But no member except Willis Ingledew had ever sat down and figured out what his income was, and even Willis’s figures were based on gross rather than net. So John just took off his hat and passed it around among the members, counted up the proceeds, divided that by ten, and sent ten percent, which was $2.15, to Washington. In return he received a protest against his parsimony, but he also received an official kit full of secret words to play with.