None of the words, however, was parsimony, so he still didn’t know what that meant. The words were, in alphabetical order: ashlar, brazen pilar, circumambulation, discalceation, esoteric, floor cloth, gauntlet, hele, indented tassel, joined hands, low twelve, northeast corner, omnific, pectoral, quorum, rite, symbol, trowel, unaffiliate, vouching, winding stairs, xenophobe, and zeugma.
The brethren of the Lodge were summoned, Willis was posted outside the door with his mace and a blank look, they donned their little lambskin aprons, discalceated themselves, spread a floor cloth with indented tassel, vouched for one another, holding a trowel in one hand and placing their other hand on their pectorals, joined hands and began to circumambulate from the northeast corner. It was all very esoteric, and lasted until low twelve.
They did that on the Second Tuesday of every Month for over a year, until the novelty began to pall, and John Ingledew passed the hat once more. It had been a drought year, so the tithe of the collection came to only $1.68, which he sent off to headquarters, requesting a new supply of secrets. In return he received another kit with a covering letter execrating his niggardliness, but the kit contained neither “execrating” nor “niggardliness”; in fact, this kit did not contain secret words but secret abbreviations, and headquarters had neglected to include any definitions or explanations of them. The brethren of the Lodge gathered and entertained themselves until low twelve by trying to figure out the meanings.
“F. & A. M.” was easy: “Free and Accepted Masons.” So was “A.D.” for year of the Lord, and “W.M.” for Worshipful Master. They solved “S.T.M.,” Second Tuesday of the Month, and they even solved “M.O.V.P.E.R.,” Mystic Order Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, but they were stumped by “T.G.A.O.T.U.” For hours they considered several possibilities: The Goddamn Alliance of Tear-Uppers, The Gentleman’s Association Opposed to Usury, The Greasy As Oil Tonic Unguent, Timid Geese Always Open Their Umbrellas, Tom’s Goat Ate Oliver’s Turnips Up, The Grinning and Ogling Tipplers’ Union—on into the night the steadfast brethren labored, so obsessed with their object that even when they conversed among themselves their sentences could be abbreviated in the same letters. “They got all our thoughts unstrung,” complained one. “To guess abbreviations often takes understandin,” observed another. “Try givin another one to unravel,” another requested.
The following day John Ingledew wrote to headquarters complaining that the abbreviations had come without any explanation, and he, for one, would sure like to know what the hell T.G.A.O.T.U. stood for. The reply was curt and consisted only of the words themselves: The Grand Architect of the Universe. This struck the brethren of the Lodge as an anticlimactic comedown from some of the more fanciful meanings they had imagined; they liked The Grinning and Ogling Tipplers’ Union a lot better. Some of them wished that John had not bothered to find out the meaning, and now that he had, what was the use of it?
What was the Grand Architect of the Universe? What was an “architect”? For the first time in the history of our study of Ozarks architecture, the Stay Morons began to discuss architects. One of the Masons was certain that an architect is an assemblage of musicians. Another was just as convinced that an architect is a place where weapons and ammunition are stored. A third man scoffed at them and said that to architect means to speak clearly and expressively. A fourth thought that architect is a poison. Another was certain that architect was just a fancy word for mathematics. Another who had done well in geography in school explained that the Architect is the name for the region around the north pole; the region around the south pole is the Antarchitect. Willis Ingledew recalled having seen an architect in the giant bird cage at the World’s Fair in St. Louis; he described its colors and plumage and wingspread, but nobody listened because nobody believed Willis anymore.
Once again, John Ingledew went off to Jasper to seek an answer, but the county treasurer thought an architect was just a member of the architocracy, or upper class; the county coroner discreetly explained than an architect is a portion of the rectum that has slipped out of place; the county surveyor was certain that Architect was a town over in Madison County, but he couldn’t find it on the map; the sheriff had the honesty to admit that he didn’t know, although it sounded like it probably came off of a hay baling machine; the county clerk declared that the architect is the place where archives are kept, and he showed John the architect in the courthouse basement; the county judge knew that “arch” was an indication of highest rank, as in arch-duke or archbishop, so an architect was the highest ranking itect, and an itect is a kind of itch mite that causes scabies.
There was only one thing John could do. Reluctant as he was, he returned to Stay More and knocked on the door of his grandfather’s house, where the woman Whom We Cannot Name now lived alone, on Jacob’s legacy, which had easily borne the expense of replacing all the windows shattered by the ruffians and the lynch mob. John knew the woman only as “Grammaw’s friend,” but he had never before spoken to her. It was known that she had been a city woman and was educated, but that alone made her strange and remote to John. Now she came to the door, and opened it. She was in her eighties, yet still pretty. John asked her what an architect is. She told him. He thanked her, and left.
“Fellers,” John told the next meeting of the Lodge, “it’s just a man who draws up plans for buildings.” They stared at him and at one another. John looked up at the ceiling over their heads. “Who drew up the plans for this building?” He opened the door and spoke to Willis, who was guarding the meeting with his mace. “Willis, did Uncle Lum draw up the plans for this here store?” Willis thought about it, but could not recall having seen any plans. “He was good at figgers,” Willis said, “but he couldn’t draw worth a damn. I reckon he jist built it.” “It aint got no plan to it,” John observed. That is not precisely true, we may protest. But there is a point: who, indeed, planned any of the buildings in this book? Who decided that a door goes here, a window there? How was the pitch of the roof determined? Was the construction totally spontaneous? If not, then perhaps there is a Grand Architect of the Universe. John decided that this was what was meant by the name, or person, or whatever it was. He explained it to his fellow Masons, but they snorted their disapproval and said they liked The Grinning and Ogling Tipplers’ Union a lot better.
One day a postcard came from Masonic headquarters. It asked simply: “Do you believe in The Grand Architect of the Universe?”
John replied with a postcard: “Who is it?”
Back came the answer: “God, or whatever you choose to call Him.”
John assembled the Lodge. “Fellers, reckon we’ll have to take a vote. I don’t believe in God, and I know Denton and Monroe don’t neither, nor Willis, so that makes four of us. How many of the rest of you’uns do?” The vote was taken and came out 11 For, 17 Against. John conveyed this tabulation to headquarters.
Headquarters responded: “Then you may no longer call yourselves Masons.”
The members of Lodge No. 642, F. & A. M., were at first indignant, then saddened, and finally defiant: they would not give up their little lambskin aprons and other ceremonial regalia; they would continue to meet; they would continue their secrecy and their playing with secrets; they would not call themselves Masons.
In my possession is a group photograph of all twenty-eight of them, in two rows, the front row kneeling, the back row standing. It is almost impossible to tell them apart: each man, except John, has a handlebar mustache; all of them, including John, are wearing identical broad-brimmed, flat-topped hats; each man is also wearing his little lambskin apron. Written on the back of the photograph is the date and the legend, “The Grinning and Ogling Tipplers’ Union,” although not one of the men in the photograph is either grinning or ogling; all of them are absolutely deadpan. Also written on the back of the photograph is the name of the photographer: “Willard Studios.”
When Eli Willard arrived in Stay More for the umpteenth time, bringing a big camera and a portable lab, ever
ybody noticed something mighty peculiar about his wagon, but it took them a while to figure it out: there weren’t any horses pulling the wagon.
Chapter eleven
It suddenly occurs to me, at the sight of Eli Willard driving up in the first horseless carriage to appear in Stay More, that our investigation has been essentially pastoral and yet we have not dwelt upon very many pastures, let alone the architecture for storing pasturage, namely, the barn. Hence, to remedy that oversight, the illustration to the left. There were many barns in Stay More in the last Century, but they were rather flimsy affairs. The barn of Denton and Monroe Ingledew belongs to our Century, although the design of it is possibly ancient. Denton and Monroe were not the architects; they were only the builders. Who gave them the design?
This barn stood (and still stands) on the sophisticated structural principle known as the cantilever; it is cantilevered all around, front, back, sides. This is as “modern” as Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Falling Water” house, but while the cantilevering of the latter is mostly for appearance’s sake, the cantilevering of this humble barn is purely functional: it provides additional protection from the rain and sun for the livestock. Who taught the principle of the cantilever to Denton and Monroe? There were not, at this time, any other cantilevered structures in Stay More, or in Newton County.
From a distance, this barn has some resemblance to the Ingledew dogtrot, which might possibly have inspired it, but that building was not cantilevered. The “dogtrot” here is a horsetrot, or rather a horsewalk, high enough for a wagonload of hay to be pulled into it and transferred to the lofts of the two cribs, yes, two, bigeminal not necessarily as male and female, although it was not merely coincidence that all of the cows kept in the left crib happened to be females while all of the horses stabled in the right crib were males. According to family tradition, quite possibly apocryphal, there was one of the horses, once upon a time, who carried on a sustained affair with one of the cows. Who told Denton and Monroe about bigeminality? Their grandfather, Jacob? I doubt it. Man naturally knows how to build good and true buildings, honest and unselfconscious. Or perhaps there is a Grand Architect of the Universe, after all.
But what does this barn have to do with Eli Willard’s horseless carriage? Well, on a more practical level, it was the place where he parked the carriage during a sudden heavy rainstorm, because the carriage, an early Oldsmobile, had no top—and thus converting the barn temporarily into Stay More’s first garage. On a heavy-handed symbolic level, the barn is the most pastoral of structures, and the coming of the automobile signaled the decline of the pastoral age. Indeed, when Eli Willard drove into the barn between the two cribs for horses and cows, the horses reared up whinnying and snorting and broke the gates of their stalls, and the cows gave sour milk for a week afterwards. But this reaction was as nothing compared with the first appearance of his automobile in the center of town, where tethered horses broke their reins and ran away, horses and mules hitched to wagons stampeded, all of the dogs of Stay More howled until they were hoarse, children screamed, women fainted, and the brass clock, which Eli Willard had sold sixty-odd years before, said PRONG.
Eli Willard must have been in his eighties now; a man of that age would be denied a driver’s license today, but he still had two good eyes and two good ears and a strong pair of hands to hold the wheel with which he steered the machine. He came to a stop in front of the Ingledew General Merchandise Store, and everybody who had not fainted or was not tending to those who had, crowded into the road, keeping a safe distance from the vehicle, except for the bravest of the Ingledews, Swains, Plowrights, Coes, Dinsmores, Chisms, Duckworths and Whitters, one man of each, who approached the machine warily after Eli Willard had cut off its engine, and who got down on their knees and stuck their heads under it to see how it was put together. Eli Willard gave a squeeze to a large rubber bulb attached to a brass horn pointing downward, and the resultant sound produced eight bruised heads, one each to an Ingledew, Swain, Plowright, Coe, Dinsmore, Chism, Duckworth and Whitter. Each of them rose and shouted his favorite epithet at Eli Willard.
“Sorry, gentlemen,” said the octogenarian from Connecticut. “I couldn’t resist. Where I come from, it is considered the height of rudeness to examine the mechanisms of another’s motorcar.”
“Gawdeverallmighty!” exclaimed a Swain, “hit aint a man nor a beast, hit’s a thang!”
“Whatever on earth is the world a-comin to?” asked a Dinsmore.
“Hit aint even got a bridle on it!” observed a Coe.
“Is that all of it?” wondered a Plowright. “Aint there any more to it?”
“Lookit them thar tars,” said a Chism, and kicked one. “Rubber tars! What’s inside ’em? Straw?”
“Air,” said Eli Willard.
“Air!” exclaimed all eight of them incredulously, and one demanded, “How d’ye git the air in ’em?”
Eli Willard demonstrated his tire pump.
“If that aint the beatinest thang ever I seed!” one exclaimed, and each man had to try it for himself, squirting air into his eyes, mouth and ears.
An Ingledew put his ear to the hood. “She was rattlin and runnin. But she’s quiet as daybreak now. Is she dead?”
Eli Willard took off his coat, retarded the spark, inserted the crank and spun it. The engine leaped to life. The men backed away, and the ring of the crowd keeping its distance expanded to more distance. The exertion of spinning the crank wearied the old man, and he sat down on the running board to rest for a few moments. Then he stood up slowly and addressed the crowd, delivering his spiel for the taking of their photographs. “Fifty cents for one person or a couple, a dollar for a group. Step right this way.”
No one stepped. He took from the rear of his vehicle the large camera and tripod, and began setting them up. Once more he appealed to the crowd, “Doesn’t anybody have fifty cents to get photographed?” No one responded. “Sharp and clear pictures, card mounted,” he said. “None of your fuzzy tintypes. Developed on the spot.” He gestured at his portable developing laboratory. But no one came forward. “All right,” he said, “twenty-five cents. Two bits. I don’t make any profit at that price, but I’m not going to just give them away.” Still no one moved, until, edging her way through the crowd, came the figure of an old but pretty woman. She went up to Eli Willard and placed a half dollar in his hand.
“Ah,” Eli Willard said, smiling and recognizing her. “Sarah’s friend. Step right over here.” He positioned her, then put his head under the hood of his camera, made adjustments, and took her picture. While he was developing it, he asked her, “And how is Sarah?” She did not answer, but from the look in her eyes he understood that Sarah was not. “And Jacob too?” The woman gave the ghost of a nod. Eli Willard brushed away a tear while he finished developing the picture. He mounted it on a stiff card and showed it to her. She was satisfied with it. As she was returning to her home, the crowd closed in on her and insisted on seeing the photograph. She gave it to them, and they passed it from hand to hand, smudging it with their fingers, so that by the time it had circulated among all of them and had come back to her, it was defaced. She returned it to Eli Willard. “Let me make you another one, without charge,” he offered, and while he was making it, he noticed that the others no longer formed a crowd but were getting into a queue; many of them dashed to their homes to don their best clothes and rushed right back.
The Masons—or, now, The Grinning and Ogling Tipplers’ Union—were already dressed for their monthly meeting, so after photographing Sarah’s friend again, he made the group photograph which I have mentioned of T.G.A.O.T.U., at their request moving his tripod around to the rear of the Ingledew store, where they could put on their little lambskin aprons in relative privacy. “Mason!” Eli Willard exclaimed, but John Ingledew explained to him that they were miscreant or reprobate Masons who now called themselves by another name. That name was not revealed to Eli Willard, but even so he tried all his tricks to get them to grin or ogle at the in
stant he took their picture. He made comical faces at them, told a couple of hilarious jokes, and even related what the farmer’s daughter said to the traveling salesman, all without avail: the twenty-eight men are expressionless in that photograph.
All day he made photographs. He offered a choice of fake backdrops, painted on canvas: one was of Niagara Falls, with a real barrel in front of it that the subject could sit in and appear to have gone over the falls in; another featured a stampede of buffalo bearing down on the subject from behind; another featured an automobile that the subject appeared to be driving; another showed a lavish mansion and acres of gardened estate that the subject could appear to be the owner of; the last—not very popular at Stay More—was the interior of the White House office of the President of the United States. Eli Willard photographed all of the Ingledews, except Isaac, who was unwilling, so we do not know what that patriarch looked like; we can only guess, by subtracting the looks of Salina, who was photographed, from those of all their children, all of whom were photographed, Perlina in a double shot with Long Jack Stapleton, and John in a group photograph with Sirena and all of their children. Since Eli Willard’s camera was portable, he was able, at their request, to photograph the Ladies’ Quilting Bee Society at work on one of their spectacular star pattern quilts, the two dentists at work with patients in their chairs, the two doctors at work with patients on their tables, Willis at work as postmaster, and other “candid” images which form a valuable documentary record of life in Stay More early in our Century.
The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks Page 27