The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [170]
At last the obstetrician lifted the baby by its ankles, slapped its bottom to induce crying, and Sonora discovered that Eli Willard Ingledew had no penis. “A mighty fine gal,” said the obstetrician, and Sonora told him to break the news gently to her husband. Hank Ingledew hung around for a while, but everybody else went home, and the following week’s issue of the Jasper Disaster carried the event in seventeen words at the bottom of the last page: “Last Friday a daughter, unnamed, was born to Mr. and Mrs. J.H. Ingledew of Stay More.” Hank and Sonora got their heads together and considered naming the baby Ela Willa or Elise Wilma or Eleanor Willardine, but finally Sonora named her simply Latha, after her mother. Then, as soon as Sonora was able, they got busy again, in the morning, afternoon and evening, and tried to create Eli Willard on the second chance.
Sonora’s conception was quick; the new infant would be born less than ten months after the first one. That summer Sonora went to work in the canning factory, to earn money for a second layette. Sonora parked her baby in the “baby-trough” at the canning factory, which was one of the former cow cribs reserved for the babies of the women who sat around the cleaning-trough snapping snaps and peeling ’maters. The several babies did not socialize much; mainly they lay or sat watching their mothers snapping snaps or peeling ’maters and wondering what in the name of heaven was going on, all day long. At night Sonora protested to Hank that she was simply too tired to make love, much as she wanted to, and her refraining from it overloaded Hank with new reserves of life, so that he was compelled to work harder, and even began clearing some new land, the first time that that had been done in Stay More for ages and ages. As a result of this labor, he was waylaid with a severe case of the frakes. His mother, Emelda, attempted to administer the old but unproven remedies, but he would not let her, because, although he had no interest in superstitions, folklore nor old-timey ways in general, he had at least heard that there was really no earthly cure for the frakes. Sonora’s old high school chum who clerked in the Jasper drugstore furnished an ointment containing acth, and this, although it didn’t cure Hank’s frakes, was at least as effective as the panther urine ointment had been a century before, which is to say, it was worthless. Hank took to his bed and waited in agony for the itching to stop, and then gave himself up to the deep feeling of utter futility that came afterward. When news of the birth of his second child reached his bed, he remarked, “I don’t give a shit what it is.”
It was another girl. Sonora solicited his help in naming it, but he said she could name it Eulalee Wilhelmina for all he cared. Sonora named it simply Eva. She pointed out to Hank that while all of his siblings were male and all of his many uncles were male, this was no guarantee that his children would be male, because, after all, her mother’s siblings had been female, and there had been a lot of females in her father’s lineage. Hank said he didn’t care. He really didn’t. He would just as soon have girls as boys, or neither. He would just as soon have nothing. He didn’t give a damn. It was all the same to him, one way or the other. He could straddle the fence and leave well enough alone. In fact, he could leave everything alone and didn’t feel like making the effort to straddle the fence, even. Nothing mattered. It made him no difference whatever.
Hank’s case of the frakes was one of the worst. In the winter, beneath their heavy quilts, Sonora would cuddle up to him and try to warm him, but he would not