The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [126]
Eli Willard was summonsed, to appear as soon as the rain stopped. But the rain lasted for several days before stopping, and by then the dirt road was a morass of mud. The motorcar was mired hopelessly before it had gone fifty feet from the barn. Laughing, Monroe Ingledew offered, for a small consideration, to hitch a team of his horses to the motorcar and get it out. The horses performed this task contemptuously but successfully. Eli Willard paid Monroe the small consideration, and drove on. He had not gone far, however, when he got stuck again, up to the hubs. One of the Swain men hitched a team to him and pulled him out, for a slight fee. In front of the Plowrights’ house, another team extricated him from the ooze, in return for a freewill donation. The Dinsmores accepted a trifling premium. The Chisms required only a scant compensation. The Duckworths’ bill was insignificant. But Eli Willard realized that at his present rate of travel he would take weeks to reach Jasper, so he persuaded the Whitters, after they had hauled his motorcar out of the mud for a pittance, to accept a substantial reward in return for pulling him all the way to the Jasper courthouse, which they did, people pointing and laughing all along the route. Eli Willard hired one of the lawyers hanging around the courthouse to represent him.
There was no jury; the judge alone heard the case. “Yore Honor,” Jim Tom began, “my client the plaintiff here, with the help of his brother a-sittin over thar, built a mighty fine barn up to Stay More, with a sorta open passway right through the middle of it for the purpose of drivin a team and wagon into the barn under cover to unload the hay and put it up in the two lofts either side of the passway. The defendant, thar, on the date mentioned, did unlawfully operate a self-propelled vee hickle, or hossless kerridge, that’s it yonder a-settin right out thar through the winder, in such a manner as to enter the aforementioned passway, with the intent to, or fer the purpose of, gittin in out a the rain, and by so doing, did aggerpervoke the plaintiff’s cows and hosses, which caused the former to give sour milk ever since, and caused the latter to rare up and strike the gates of their stalls in such a way as to shatter same, not to mention it has lately been discovered one of ’em has got a lame fetlock. We ask real damages of one hundred smackers plus punitive damages of one hundred.”
Eli Willard’s attorney said, “If hit please the Court, I’d like to ask Yore Honor to find whar it says, anywhar in the statues, that hit’s a-gin the law to drive a hossless kerridge into a barn.”
The judge recessed the court while he consulted the books, which said nothing whatever about hossless kerridges. He reconvened the court, informed the plaintiff and defendant of this fact, and declared, “Since I caint rule ipso jure, reckon I’ll jist have to rule ipso facto. Proceed, gents.”
Eli Willard’s attorney argued that the defendant had received permission from the plaintiff’s brother, co-builder of the barn, to deposit his vee hickle there. The defendant did not know that the barn was inhabited by cows and horses at that moment, and the defendant had no intention of causing any damage, and furthermore the defendant, as you can plainly see, is very old and probably senile and probably didn’t even know what he was doing.
Be that as it may, argued Jim Tom Duckworth, a senile old man had no business operating a dangerous machine. “Yore Honor,” he asked the judge, “do you know what makes that hossless kerridge go?”
“Court perfesses ignorance,” replied the judge.
“Infernal combustion!” declared Jim Tom. “That thar senile ole defendant has been combustin all over creation, and it’s all that combustin what skeers the cows and hosses and gener’ly raises up hell.”
Eli Willard was not feeling well. He did not enjoy hearing references to his advanced age, and he did not like the thought that he was senile. He told his attorney, “Rest our case, and let’s get it over