The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [124]
“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 instant 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