“Was he one of her beaux?” she will ask.
“No, he was a man who was wrongfully sent to the penitentiary because of her.”
“Law, me,” she will say. “You’d think she’d of tole me somethin about that, wouldn’t you? But no, she never said no word about no Nail Chism.”
She’ll shake her head at the mild wonder of it and ask conversationally, “Did he ever git out?”
“He got out,” I’ll tell her.
Now will I even need to say that Doc Swain was right: they will live happy ever after? Do I have to tell the rest of it, let you know whether or not they will actually get married? Or how many children they will have? Or about the times when Viridis will get bored and lonely and restless? Or the bad years that all of us had together? Will I have to mention the droughts and the floods and the fires?
And should I tell how Nail Chism will eventually, with poetic justice, become Newton County’s first electrician? Although by the time poor Newton County finally gets around to being electrified, won’t Nail Chism be too old even to remember the fundamentals of electrical mechanics?
No, I will think back to the picture I began this story with: a red-haired newspaperlady sitting in the death chamber at the state penitentiary and sketching a head-shaved convict waiting to die. The making of that sketch was what started the saving of him, and started this story, and I will let this story end with another sketch by Viridis, which she will show me that afternoon: a dale of green pasture grasses, so many shades of green that even though she has done them all in black and white, I will feel the many greens, the white bodies of the sheep dazzling in their whiteness because of the green that surrounds them, their heads down to eat the green, while a man in a straw hat and blue denim overalls plays his harmonica and watches them, and sitting close beside him a woman draws the whole scene in a sketchbook held in her lap: the man and the sheep and the dale and, out across the dale, far off up on the lilting mountain above the village, a farmplace that is their home, beneath a fat maple and a gangling walnut, both singing. But the woman in the picture will have already finished drawing that: now she adds a final touch, with her kneaded eraser she makes room for the final touch: a girl, not quite yet a woman, walking through the green grass out among the sheep, coming to join the man and the woman, and to be in the picture, forevermore.
About the Author
Donald Harington
Although he was born and raised in Little Rock, Donald Harington spent nearly all of his early summers in the Ozark mountain hamlet of Drakes Creek, his mother’s hometown, where his grandparents operated the general store and post office. There, before he lost his hearing to meningitis at the age of twelve, he listened carefully to the vanishing Ozark folk language and the old tales told by storytellers.
His academic career is in art and art history and he has taught art history at a variety of colleges, including his alma mater, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where he has been lecturing for fifteen years. He lives in Fayetteville with his wife Kim, although his in-habit resides forever at Stay More.
His first novel, The Cherry Pit, was published by Random House in 1965, and since then he has published eleven other novels, most of them set in the Ozark hamlet of his own creation, Stay More, based loosely upon Drakes Creek. He has also written books about artists.
He won the Robert Penn Warren Award in 2003, the Porter Prize in 1987, the Heasley Prize at Lyon College in 1998, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame in 1999 and that same year won the Arkansas Fiction Award of the Arkansas Library Association. He has been called “an undiscovered continent” (Fred Chappell) and “America’s Greatest Unknown Novelist” (Entertainment Weekly).
Table of Contents
By the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
The Joyful Noise of Donald Harington
Donald Harington’s Grand Jamboree
Lightning Bug
Dedication
Epigraph
Movements
Beginning
MIDDLING
ONE: Morning
SUB ONE: Recently
TWO: Noon
SUB TWO: Twenty and Eighteen Years Ago
THREE: Afternoon
SUB THREE: Seventeen Years Ago
FOUR: Evening
SUB FOUR: Fourteen Years Ago
FIVE: Night
SUB FIVE: Now
Ending
Some Other Place. The Right Place.
Dedication
Epigraph
Movements
Overture
One: Diana Stoving Accidentally Sees Something That Interests Her
Two: Some New Jersey Newspaperwoman Has Written an Article of Interest
Three: Diana Stoving Changes Her Mind
Four: An Interesting Hypnotist Is Visited
Five: Day Whittacker Is Met
Six: Diana Stoving Receives an Opportunity to Query the Subject
Seven: A Conversation Is Had, Which Diana Finds Interesting
Eight: Two Impetuous Young People Take It upon Themselves to Do Something
Nine: Finding Dudleytown Proves to Be Difficult
Ten: At Length Dudleytown Is Located and Partially Explored
Eleven: Under a Rock in the Rain, an Exchange Is Had with Young “Daniel”
Twelve: An Awkward Situation Is Encountered, Also a Disappointing Revelation
Thirteen: A Rapport of Sorts Is Reached
Fourteen: They Become Somewhat Better Acquainted with One Another
Fifteen: Diana Goes Shopping, Suffers Some Bad Moments, but Prevails
Sixteen: A Pleasant Day Is Had in Dudleytown, and a Pleasant Evening
First Movement
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Second Movement (“The Unfinished”)
Begin Reading
Third Movement
Contents
Montross: Selected Poems
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
The Ghost’s Song and Other Poems
One
Two
Three
Four
Fourth Movement
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Finale
The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks
Dedication
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
&
nbsp; Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Acknowledgments
The Cockroaches of Stay More
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
INSTAR THE FIRST: The Maiden
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
INSTAR THE SECOND: Maiden No More
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
INSTAR THE THIRD: The Rally
Chapter fourteen
Chapter fifteen
Chapter sixteen
Chapter seventeen
Chapter eighteen
Chapter nineteen
Chapter twenty
Chapter twenty-one
Chapter twenty-two
Chapter twenty-three
Chapter twenty-four
INSTAR THE FOURTH: The Consequence
Chapter twenty-five
Chapter twenty-six
Chapter twenty-seven
Chapter twenty-eight
Chapter twenty-nine
Chapter thirty
INSTAR THE FIFTH: The Woman Pays
Chapter thirty-one
Chapter thirty-two
Chapter thirty-three
Chapter thirty-four
Chapter thirty-five
INSTAR THE SIXTH: The Convert
Chapter thirty-six
Chapter thirty-seven
Chapter thirty-eight
IMAGO: The Mockroach’s Song
The Choiring of the Trees
Dedication
Contents
Epigraph
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About the Author
The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 1 Page 200
