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“We kin clamp our own faces,” declared Doris.

So the baptist, after studying and pantomiming the possibilities for a while, standing with his legs spread wide in the waist-deep water, had the girls face one another, and put one of his hands on the back of each, and lowered Jelena to his right and Doris to his left into the water. But to get them both completely under in this position required him to go under too, and there was no sign of any of them for a long moment; then the man’s head emerged, his hair plastered and his spectacles all wet, struggling mightily to get both girls back out of the water.

The men on the store porch got a lot of mileage out of that story, and began to make jokes about what would happen when Jelena and Doris were old enough to receive their first caller.

Although most of the old-timey ways were forgotten or unused, courtship was still formal and old-fashioned. Couples, especially those who had got religion, did not go off on “dates”; a respectable girl would never find herself alone with a young fellow before marriage, which was why Sonora Twichell’s premarital conduct with Hank Ingledew had scandalized a small segment of the population. For proper folks, the suitor or swain, if he had matrimony in prospect, would call at the girl’s house, be invited to spend the night, and have the privilege of staying up late and talking with his intended after the others had gone to bed—in the same room, usually within earshot of anyone who could not, or did not want to, sleep.

The Dinsmore hovel (there is no other name for it), shown in our illustration, is perhaps typical of lower class dwellings built throughout the “Hoover” years when “things was so bad we’uns jist stood around lookin at one another and wonderin who to eat next.” In fact, it was built during the Roosevelt administration, but it still represents the decline of architecture in the Ozarks. It had but two rooms, and when Mont Duckworth, son of the canning factory owner, came to court Jelena, he would sleep in one room, in a bed with three of her brothers, Willard (named after some peddler), Tilbert and Baby Jim. In the other room he would do his courting while Mrs. Dinsmore slept with Ella Jean, Norma and—Mont hoped—Doris. But Doris, and Jelena too, could not conceive that anyone would court one of them without the other. Thus, when the others had gone to bed, Mont found himself sitting in front of the woodstove, Jelena on one side, Doris on the other.

“Well, uh…” Mont began. He had heard some of the jokes that the men on the store porch had made. If he had listened well enough, he could have remembered what they had suggested that he say or do in a situation like this, but he could not. To help his nervousness, he bit off a chaw of tobacco and began chewing. From time to time he would make some idle talk such as: “Right airish tonight, aint it?” and from time to time he would spit accurately into the open door of the stove. Doris and Jelena would both smile and make dove’s eyes at him. After midnight, when the fire in the stove was almost out and no move had been made to rekindle it, Mont announced, “Well, uh, reckon I’d best turn in,” and he went and slept with their brothers and departed early on the dawn.

The men on the store porch made jokes at the expense of Mont as well as Doris and Jelena. But one of the younger of them, Boden Whitter, declared, “By God, ole Mont aint got the melt to spark them gals proper, but I kin shore give it a try.” Boden Whitter did not report back to the men on the store porch about the outcome of his attempt, but word got around anyway, and Boden became no less a victim of the men’s jokes than Mont had been. It seems that at one point during the evening he had suggested to Jelena, “Well, honey, you keer to traipse out fer a look at the moon, or somethin?” and Jelena said she didn’t mind, and rose, and went out, but Doris was right on her heels. Boden followed, trying politely to get them to take turns, but Jelena said, “It’s jist as much her moon as