The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [177]
The baby was a girl, and its name was Jelena. This news threw the men on the store porch, and the whole village, into endless speculation. Before long, all of the Stay Morons were divided almost equally into two factions: (1) The Jelenists, who held that Jelena must have been the mother because she named the infant after herself, as a kind of “Jelena Junior,” and (2) The Dorisites, who held that Doris must have been the mother because she named it for her sister, out of love. These two factions debated endlessly, occasionally quarreled, and caused some disruption of family ties. Men, by and large, were more inclined to join the Jelenists, while more women than men leaned toward the Dorisite persuasion.
Mrs. Dinsmore, the sisters’ mother, was invited to become a leader of the Dorisites but did not want to show favoritism, so, before joining either faction she determined upon a simple way of deciding which sect to join: she would ask her daughters which one was the mother. She did. Afterwards, fanning herself and mopping her brow in the parlor of the arch-Dorisite, she announced to the other ladies present, “I swear, if them gals didn’t jist both look at me and both say the same words at the same time, word by word: ‘We both of us are.’”
So the debates raged on, until every Stay Moron had declared as a staunch Jelenist or a devout Dorisite. Everyone, that is, except Jelena and Doris themselves, and nobody ever thought of the idea of asking them to join. One day Jelena told her mother that she would like to join the Dorisites, which the Dorisites took as unquestionable proof of their position. But Jelena said she could not join the Dorisites because Doris wanted to join the Jelenists, which the Jelenists declared was unquestionable proof of their position. Neither sister could join their respective sects because it would involve their separation, and they had never been separated from the moment of Doris’s birth. So neither did, but their respective sects went on claiming that because the sisters had wanted to join, it was unquestionable proof of their position.
Jelenists, by and large, are individualists, holding that a person is responsible for himself, that if one conducts one’s life with due responsibility, everything will go all right. Jelenism teaches us to be alert, to watch what is occurring in the everyday life, to observe closely sensory input to ourselves. Jelenism gives us a sense of our own uniqueness. No two people are ever alike; if we meet someone like ourself, it is only proof of our uniqueness. A true Jelenist who also happens to believe in God can comfortably believe that God did indeed create man in His own image. But it isn’t necessary for a Jelenist to believe in God. The atheistic Jelenist can believe that man created God in his own image, while the solipsistic Jelenist can believe that he himself has created everything and everyone to his own liking. All Jelenists have a strong sense of personal identity, and, usually, a sense of personal purpose, of having something to do that needs to be done and can best be done by oneself. Jelenists may be chauvinistic, and it is true that they are more proselytizing than Dorisites, but this is because of their belief that a strong sense of identity and purpose also requires a strong sense of conviction. It is very difficult to prove a Jelenist wrong on any question.
Dorisites, on the other hand, are altruistic, cooperative, lenient, and so respectful of the opinions of others that they tolerate the Jelenists much more than the reverse. A Jelenist cannot understand why anyone would want to be a Dorisite, while a Dorisite not only understands why Jelenists are as they are, but also appreciates it or at least sympathizes with it. Dorisites are very good at empathy and sympathy. To a Dorisite, the most wonderful fact of existence is that there is somebody else