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By Root 1376 0

turning it over and over in his hand. He discovers on the reverse of the gold case, which is not gold but some kind of polished silvery alloy, an inscription, engraved into the metal: “For Vernon Ingledew, from Eli Willard. Tempus fugit. Carpe diem. Etc.” He calls this to the attention of his father, who reads it and exclaims, “That’s him! That’s his name! Eli Willard. That’s your name, boy! That’s what we were fixin to name ye.” “No,” Vernon points out, his name is “Vernon,” as can plainly be seen in the inscription. There is something puzzling about that circumstance to Hank. He rereads the inscription. “Hhmmm,” he says. “What’s this here ‘ect.’ for?” “Not ect,” says Vernon, “etc. Et cetera. It means everything else.” He says again, “Everything,” he is so proud to have that watch. He holds the watch to his ear and listens to its precise, firm, assertive ticking. Then he slips the watch over his hand and onto his wrist.

As Vernon puts the watch on his wrist, he becomes aware of us.

He stares at us. We stare back at him. We notice how, at the age of sixteen, he is already a full-grown Ingledew, past six feet tall, eyes as blue as his great-great-great-grandfather’s.

“Who are those people?” Vernon asks his father.

“What people?” says his father.

Vernon realizes that he is aware of us because he wears the watch. We make him uncomfortable, self-conscious, and the women among us make him extremely woman-shy. He takes off the wristwatch and puts it in his pocket, losing his awareness of us.

“You aint gon wear it?” his father asks.

“Not yet,” says Vernon. “I aint ready for it. But I’ll carry it around.”

He carries it around, in his pocket, and at night leaves it on his bureau with his pocket change, rabbit’s foot, etc. Sometimes in the middle of the night, he wakes up, in pitch dark, takes the watch and puts it on, to see if we are still here. We still are.

Toward the end of his sixteenth year he leaves the house and goes off into the forest of Ingledew Mountain and into a deep dark cave, where he hides and puts on his watch again. We are still here. “What do you folks want with me?” he asks.

As our spokesman, I reply, “Listen, Vernon, we’ve got great plans for you.”

“Who are you?” he wants to know.

“We are students of the architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks who have become interested in Stay More and particularly in the Ingledews. You, Vernon, could become the greatest Ingledew of them all. You know already that you’re the last Ingledew, because you aren’t going to marry or have any children.”

“That’s right,” he acknowledges, “but I aint so certain that I’d care to be the greatest Ingledew of them all, and even if I did, I don’t want you folks following me around. Darn it, that lady there is a-laughin at me, and if you folks is such students of the Ingledews you know how shy Ingledews is toward women. Make her stop.”

Madam, please.

“Look, Vernon,” I continue, “we already know practically everything about you, and about all of your ancestors. Our study is just about finished, and we want to conclude it with something important. The building that heads this chapter, if you can call it a ‘building,’ is just a trite mobile home, like trite mobile homes all over the Ozarks and elsewhere. Architecturally, it’s a cipher, even if it is bigeminal, a duple, which means that it is divisible by two: two rooms, two doors, two bays, whatever, symbolizing the division of creatures into male and female, and of sexuality, although in the case of this particular mobile home, which belonged to your Uncle Jackson and in which Jelena represented the female side, there was no sex between them. But speaking of Jelena, haven’t you ever had sexual fantasies about her?”

“That aint none of your business!” he says, and grasps the watch as if to remove it from his wrist.

“Oh, indeed it is our business,” I declare, “but let it go, for the moment. Our immediate problem is to construct the building of the next chapter, the last chapter. You are going to do it by yourself.”

“What am I supposed to do? Get out a saw and hammer?”

“No. First you