The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [131]
One night the whole sky seemed to explode with gigantic sparks, in what was one of the rare reappearances of the comet known as Halley’s but unknown to the Stay Morons, who interpreted it as a cosmic caution to give up their sinful ways. Although they did not give up the smoking of cigarettes, they gave up philandering with the city women. The city women were required to turn their attention to unmarried men. But all of the unmarried men were Ingledews, who, the city women were dismayed to discover, were too shy even to notice them, except Willis Ingledew, who waited on them in his general merchandise store but who, if he talked at all, talked endlessly about his experiences at the St. Louis World’s Fair some years before, which bored the city women, since they had all been to the fair.
Searching for men, the city women began to attend the games of Base Ball and the shooting matches where the men and boys of Stay More, having taken down their grandfathers’ muzzle-loaders from over the doors of their houses, competed for a beef calf by firing, from four hats away, at a slip of paper tacked to a tree. The women were amazed at the marksmanship, particularly of the Ingledews, who always won, but the women failed utterly to attract the notice of any of the Ingledews…except the youngest, Raymond, who was only fourteen years old. Raymond, having an excess of the humor of semen in his system, couldn’t wait until he was old enough to philander one of the city women, not realizing that when he was old enough to court one of them, they would be too old for him. Whenever they were watching the games of Base Ball or the shooting matches, Raymond always did things to call attention to himself, making diving catches of the ball, shooting from the hip with Jacob’s muzzle-loader. “What a cute boy,” the city women would exclaim, but they wouldn’t flirt with him. At the meetings of the hayloft clubhouse, Raymond would boast to his older brothers of what he intended to do to the city women, but his older brothers, although they themselves constantly talked of precisely what they would like to do to the city women if only they weren’t too shy to approach them, laughed at Raymond and told him he was too young, and double-dog-dared him to find a hole for his pole.
This became a constant obsession for Raymond. He would stop at a city woman’s cabin and say to her, “I was on my way to the store and jist a-wonderin iffen I could bring ye anythang.” “Why, bless your heart,” she would reply. “I need a spool of white thread.” He would bring it to her, and hang around, waiting to see if she would flirt with him, but she would not. He would try another woman, offering to mow the weeds around her cabin, and when he was finished the woman would ask, “What can I give you?” “Aw,” Raymond would say, “…you know…” “Twenty-five cents enough?” she would ask, and fetch him a quarter. There was one very pretty woman who had obtained a cow but did not know how to milk it. Raymond offered to show her. After she had mastered the practice, and was stroking the cow’s teats firmly, Raymond boldly asked her, “What does that make you think of?” After a moment’s reflection, the woman replied, “Butter. I’m going to get me a churn and make my own butter.” There was another woman who was noted for her devotion to nature study, and had been known to tour the woods with several different men before the exploding night sky had frightened them out of the practice. “By golly,” Raymond said to her, “I know jist as much about the woods as e’er a man alive.” “You sweet boy,” the woman replied. “Let’s see if you do.” They went into the woods, and Raymond demonstrated that he could name every tree and every flower. But the woman showed no intention of flirting with him. “Aint we gonna lay down?” he