The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [122]
“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, everybody 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