The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [38]
She clapped her hands and oohed and ahhed and hugged his neck and carried on like that for a long time, exclaiming Did you ever! and As I live and breathe! and Fancy that! and Well hush my mouth! Jacob just blushed and said Aw shucks, but it was plain that he was very proud of himself. Then Sarah was puzzled somewhat by their new home’s bifidity, that is, she wondered why there were two of them. She asked Jacob, “Is that un there fer Noah?”
“No,” he explained, “it’s fer you.”
“Me?” She stared at him with puzzlement, and then asked anxiously, “Air we a-fixin to split up?”
He laughed. “Aw naw, darlin. That there half is fer the kitchen and fer eatin. So it’s yourn. Th’other half is whar the beds will go, so it’s mine.”
“I caint sleep in there too?” she asked.
“Aw, shore ye kin,” he said. “But don’t you see? It’s like if, wal, like the Bible said about a man and a woman become one flesh but they’re still two people. This here is jist one house, but it’s got two parts, and one part is you and th’other part is me.”
Sarah still did not quite seem to grasp the philosophy of it, but she took note of the open breezeway in between, where Jacob’s nine dogs were lolling about, drooling and thumping the floor with their tails. “And that part,” she asked, “is it fer the dogs?”
“I didn’t mean it so,” he said. “It’s meant fer whar we kin set in our cheers and rest, of an evenin, or maybe eat when it’s hot, or whar ye kin set to shell peas and snap beans and churn the butter and such.” He added: “It’s our porch, sorta like. It aint you, and it aint me. It’s us, both together.”
Sarah thought that her man was a little crazy, but she was awful proud of him for building this house, which was over twice as large as any other dwelling in Stay More. Wouldn’t Perilla Duckworth and Destiny Whitter, not to mention that snooty Malinda Plowright, just perish of envy when they came a-visiting? “And look at them winders!” Sarah exclaimed, taking note for the first time of the large windows in each wing of the building, even if the sash did not yet have its glass installed. She climbed the few steps to the breezeway and opened the door to “her” wing and went into it to see how bright the interior was because of the window. Only when she was inside did she notice that there was no furniture. The room was empty! There was nothing in it except a fireplace. It made her very uncomfortable, and she quickly came back out, saying to Jacob, “If that one is me, I’m all bare and holler.”
“We’ll fill ye up, quick,” he assured her, and returned with her to their first house, where he said to Noah, “Wal, Brother, it’s all yourn now,” and then made a deal with Noah whereby Jacob and Sarah got over half of whatever furniture was portable (Noah hated to see the clock go), and also Noah’s agreement to make, in the near future, a specified number of chairs, tables and bedsteads in return for Jacob’s half-interest in the cabin. Noah also helped Jacob and Sarah carry their possessions and items of furniture up to the new house, where Noah too let loose with many exclamations of surprise and admiration, concluding, “Shetfare, it’s the masterest house ever I seed!”
That night Jacob and Sarah spread their mattress on the puncheon floor, having no bedstead yet, in the wing of the house which was Jacob’s, where he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling of his room, pleased as Punch with the work he had done, but exhausted from it, too tired to sleep. Sarah was not sleeping either. “Hit’s so purty,” she was sighing. “Hit