Peter Taylor

by Peter Taylor

  88.2 Orange Mound] Historically black community, founded in the 1890s, some seven miles southeast of downtown Memphis, Tennessee.

  89.16 shotgun house] Narrow, rectangular, one-story residence, seldom wider than twelve feet, with connected rooms arranged one behind another, and with doors at the front and the back. It was the most common style of low-income housing built in the American South from Reconstruction through the 1920s.

  92.17 Morningside Park] Exclusive residential subdivision of midtown Memphis, Tennessee, developed in 1908.

  95.4–7 Peavine Ridge . . . seven miles to the west.] This story is set during World War II in and around Fort Oglethorpe (1902–46), in Catoosa County, in the extreme northwest corner of Georgia. (Fort Oglethorpe was home to the U.S. Army’s 6th Cavalry Regiment from 1919 to 1942.) Peavine Ridge, above Peavine Creek, is seven miles southeast of Missionary Ridge, in urban Chattanooga, Tennessee.

  96.9–17 “Yes, she jumped in bed / / right in beside her.”] From a bawdy folk song sometimes called “The Wayward Boy,” sung to the tune of the late-eighteenth-century English marching song “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”

  96.27 WAC] Member of the Women’s Army Corps (1943–78), the former women’s branch of the U.S. Army.

  97.31 Midway] Shopping and entertainment district of the city of Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia.

  108.39–109.1 “I have never seen the Federal dead . . . the sunken wall at Fredericksburg.”] From Daniel Harvey Hill, “Chickamauga—The Great Battle of the West,” a contribution to Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume 3, edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (New York: The Century Co., 1887). D. H. Hill (1821–1889) was lieutenant general of the Confederate Army of Tennessee at the Battle of Chickamauga (September 18–20, 1863).

  120.3–5 . . . you’re turning night into day . . . / / . . . sleepy time gal.] From “Sleepy Time Gal,” song (1925) by Richard A. Whiting and Ange Lorenzo, words by Joseph R. Alden and Raymond B. Egan.

  120.12–13 “I’d Climb the Highest Mountain” or “Three O’Clock in the Morning.”] “I’d Climb the Highest Mountain (If I Knew I’d Find You),” song (1926) by Lew Brown and Sidney Clare; “Three O’Clock in the Morning,” waltz (“Las Tres de la Mañana,” 1919) by Argentinian composer Julián Robledo, words (1921) by Theodora Morse (a.k.a. Dorothy Terris).

  120.21–25 Every cloud must have a silver lining. / / . . . I shall be melancholy too.] From “My Melancholy Baby,” song (1912) by Ernie Burnett, words by George A. Norton.

  128.36 Russian bank] Competitive form of solitaire for two players, each using his own deck of cards.

  129.1 Decoration Day] Original name for Memorial Day, in use from the late 1860s through the early years of the twentieth century. Before 1968 the holiday was traditionally observed on May 30, not, as it is today, on the last Monday in May.

  149.22–23 Nell Gwynn . . . London park.] Nell Gwynn (1650–1687), the witty young mistress of Charles II, was, after 1670, housed by the king at what is now 79 Pall Mall, in Westminster, London, across from St. James Park. She was so popular with the public that, according to legend, flowers “could not grow in the park” for passersby picking them and leaving them on her doorstep.

  163.23 Miss Hood’s school] See note 6.11–14.

  172.22 “Barbara Allen,”] Traditional Scots ballad (Child 84) concerning a young woman, Barbara Allen, who callously refuses to comfort a longtime male acquaintance who is apparently dying from unrequited love for her. When Barbara Allen hears the tolling of the young man’s funeral bells, she is overcome with horror and grief and tells her mother that she, too, shall soon die of heartbreak.

  177.31 those fellows at the University in Nashville.] That is, the so-called Agrarians, twelve Southerners who together published a collection of original essays titled I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition (New York: Harper & Bros., 1930). The group, whose members included such then-emerging writers as Donald Davidson, Andrew Lytle, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, and Stark Young, had for its guiding spirit the then-forty-two-year-old poet and critic John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974), a professor of English at Vanderbilt University. In the unsigned introduction to I’ll Take My Stand, the Agrarians described their book as an argument for the “Southern way of life” over “what may be called the American or prevailing way. . . . An agrarian society is hardly one that has no use at all for industries, for professional vocations, for scholars and artists, and for the life of cities. Technically, perhaps, an agrarian society is one in which agriculture is the leading vocation . . . a form of labor that is pursued with intelligence and leisure, and that becomes the model to which the other forms approach as well as they may. . . . The theory of agrarianism is that the culture of the soil is the best and most sensitive of vocations, and that therefore it should have the economic preference and enlist the maximum number of workers.” The book’s detractors attacked agrarianism as an exercise in nostalgia and a romantic, reactionary defense of the ways of the Old South.

  178.8 The Decline of the West] Two-volume work (Der Untergang des Abend­landes, 1918, 1922–23) by the German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), first published in English in 1926. It outlines the cyclical rise and fall of history’s great civilizations, concluding with a pessimistic vision of the inevitable demise of the Western tradition in political thought and culture.

  179.24 parlor pink] American slang of the 1920s to 1940s: a female “pinko,” or communist sympathizer.

  189.16 Chucky Jack Sevier] John “Nolichucky Jack” Sevier (1745–1815) was a frontiersman, Revolutionary soldier, and politician who, in 1796, became the first governor of the state of Tennessee.

  189.16 Judge John Overton] Overton (1766–1833), a banker, lawyer, and jurist in early Tennessee, was a legal and political advisor to Andrew Jackson.

  189.17–19 Andy Jackson . . . and Chucky Jack met in the wilderness] In 1801, John Sevier relinquished the office of governor of Tennessee, having served the constitutional limit of three consecutive two-year terms. His elected successor was Archibald Roane, a close friend of Andrew Jackson. When, in 1803, Sevier mounted a gubernatorial challenge to the incumbent Roane, Jackson, in a bid to ruin his chances, falsely accused Sevier of bribing auditors who had allegedly uncovered improprieties in his personal finances. Despite Jackson’s treachery, Sevier won the election—but the insult rankled. After an angry face-to-face encounter on the steps of the Knoxville courthouse, during which Sevier called Jackson an adulterer, Jackson challenged him to a duel, which Sevier repeatedly declined. On October 16, 1803, Jackson and a party of supporters, hoping to force a confrontation, followed Sevier into the wilderness while he and his associates were on their way to a conference with Cherokee leaders. What happened next is unclear, but all eyewitnesses testified that, while both Jackson and Sevier stood their ground and drew their pistols, no shots were fired.

  201.20 Vaux Hall] Exclusive Romanesque Revival apartment building (c. 1897–1930s) in downtown Nashville that, after the Crash of 1929, slowly declined into a budget-rate hotel. It was razed in 1952.

  207.18 Centennial Park and the Parthenon] See note 18.28.

  209.18 Hermitage Club] Private men’s club (c. 1866–1935) in downtown Nashville whose members included many of the city’s most prominent businessmen.

  210.38 How We Cook in Tennessee] Regional cookbook (1906) compiled by and printed for the Silver Thimble Society of the First Baptist Church, Jackson, Tennessee.

  214.28 Russian bank] See note 128.36.

  215.25 Brownie] Inexpensive box camera (fl. 1900–1980) manufactured by the Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York.

  216.35 Neil Hamilton] American character actor (1899–1984) who, in his youth, was first a nationally known shirt-and-collar model and then a leading man in silent pictures.

  216.36 Irene Rich] American silent-film actress (1891–1988) who survived the transition to talkies to become the fema
le sidekick of Will Rogers.

  216.36–37 Edmund Lowe] American character actor (1890–1971) who, in his youth, played the dark, suave, self-contained hero in dozens of silent films.

  227.13–14 “We were at Ward’s together after I was dismissed from Belmont.] See note 6.11–14.

  230.35 Toddle House] Southern short-order restaurant chain (1930s–80s) with an all-day breakfast menu featuring fluffy “Toddle House Eggs”—scrambled eggs “made with cream, not milk, and fried in real butter.”

  233.29–30 Union Planters.”] Memphis-based Union Planters Bank (now absorbed into Regions Bank of Alabama) was, from 1906 to 2004, Tennessee’s largest financial institution.

  235.1 Stoneleigh Court] Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the Beaux Arts–inspired Stoneleigh Court Apartments (1905–65), at L Street and Connecticut Avenue, NW, were home to many of Washington’s political and cultural elite.

  235.13 Maxwell House] From 1869 to 1961, the Maxwell House Hotel, built and managed by John Overton Jr. (see note 189.16), was the premier hotel in downtown Nashville.

  235.18–19 séance at Mr. Ben Allen’s house.”] Benjamin Bentley Allen (1855–1910), a gentleman of leisure and self-styled occultist, lived at 125 Eighth Avenue South, in downtown Nashville, from 1880 until his death some thirty years later. During these years, he and his companion, the spiritual medium Miss Sue Perkins, held celebrated midnight séances at the house, during which they conjured “The Thing,” described in memoirs and press accounts as a mischievous force that levitated Allen’s parlor table, rattled the china, and brushed unseen against the legs of the assembled guests.

  239.37 Gracie Allen] American comic actress (1895–1964) who, together with her husband and straight man George Burns, was a star of vaudeville, radio, film, and early television. Her persona was that of a ditzy blonde who doggedly pursues an illogical line of reasoning to its logical and always benign end.

  240.3 Gypsy Rose Lee] Burlesque artist, chanteuse, and raconteur (1911–1970) who counted among her friends and admirers H. L. Mencken, Carson McCullers, W. H. Auden, and other writers, artists, and intellectuals.

  241.36 carroted fur] Animal fur that has been treated with mercury nitrate, which imparts a bright orange-yellow color.

  243.12 Statler] The thousand-room Statler Hotel, at 800 Washington Street, was from 1917 to 1954 the premier hotel in downtown St. Louis. Today, after several changes in ownership, it is known as the Marriott St. Louis Grand Hotel.

  243.24 John Burroughs School] Private, coeducational, nonsectarian day school, founded in 1923 in St. Louis, Missouri.

  246.35 Little Dixie] Regional nickname for central Missouri, especially those counties just west of St. Louis along the Missouri River.

  247.34 Vandervoort’s] Colloquial name for Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney, a leading St. Louis department store from 1850 to 1969.

  249.4 Home-Run King] Baseball player George Herman “Babe” Ruth (1895–1948).

  260.30–31 membership in the Colonial Dames of America] According to the bylaws of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America (founded 1891), “The Corporate Societies [i.e., the forty-four state and local chapters of the CDA] shall be composed entirely of women who are descended in their own right from some ancestor of worthy life who, residing in an American colony, rendered efficient service to his country during the Colonial period, either in the founding of a State or Commonwealth, or of an institution which has survived and developed into importance, or who shall have held an important position in a Colonial government, or who by distinguished services, shall have contributed to the founding of our nation.”

  280.5 Piggly Wiggly] Piggly Wiggly Inc., founded in Memphis in 1916, is a chain of inexpensive self-service grocery stores serving the South and the Upper Midwest.

  289.11 Bell Witch] According to legend, the family of one John Bell, a settler in Robeson County, about forty miles north of Nashville, was haunted by “Kate,” a malicious female ghost, from 1817 to 1821. The Bell Witch, as she came to be called, had for a medium Bell’s adolescent daughter, Betsy, and in the girl’s presence moved objects, sang hymns, and quoted scripture. Over the years, Kate—an invisible yet physical presence—began to verbally abuse Mr. Bell, advise Betsy in her life choices, and comfort Mrs. Bell and the family’s youngest member, Jack Jr.

  289.11–12 General N. B. Forrest . . . saved the cotton] In 1862, Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877), of Bedford County, Tennessee, was a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army. In December of that year he led a series of raids in western Tennessee whose objective was to destroy the Mobile & Ohio Railroad between Jackson, Tennessee, and Columbus, Kentucky, thereby disrupting the supply chain of Ulysses S. Grant. On December 20, ten days into the campaign, he and some eighteen hundred troops reached the occupied city of Trenton, Tennessee. There they quickly seized the railroad depot and took about seven hundred Union soldiers prisoner.

  316.13 Ward-Belmont School] See note 6.11–14.

  322.28–29 before the Baptists finally took over Ward-Belmont).] See note 6.11–14.

  342.36–39 Bonnie Kate Sherrill . . . Fort Loudon.] Catherine “Bonnie Kate” Sherrill (1754–1836) was, after 1780, the wife of John Sevier (see note 189.16). According to legend, the couple first met in 1776 when Kate, a resident of Fort Watauga (not, as Taylor has it, Fort Loudon), was accidentally locked out of the fort during a Cherokee attack. Sevier, a visitor at the fort, witnessed her plight and, risking his own life, pulled her over a fence to safety.

  351.25 Hollins College] Small, private women’s college in Roanoke, Virginia, founded in 1842.

  366.38 National Academy] The National Academy, a combination museum, school, and institution for American advancement of the visual arts and architecture, was founded in New York City in 1825. In 1939, its school was located at 109th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

  367.8–9 Bard College or Black Mountain or Rollins] Four-year American liberal arts colleges that in 1954, when this story was written, were noted for their au courant fine arts and performing arts curricula.

  369.23 Middle Path] Ten-foot-wide paved footpath that runs north–south through the center of the Kenyon campus.

  371.29 Bexley Hall] Founded simultaneously with Kenyon College, Bexley Hall was for nearly a century and a half the college’s Episcopal seminary. In 1968, the seminary disassociated itself from Kenyon and relocated to Rochester, New York. The main building of the former seminary, a Gothic Revival structure built in 1839–58, is still known as Bexley Hall and today houses Kenyon’s administration offices.

  371.37 Bishop Philander Chase] Chase (1775–1852), who in 1819 had been ordained as the first Episcopal Bishop of Ohio, founded Kenyon College and Bexley Hall Seminary in Gambier, Ohio, in December 1824.

  371.38–372.10 The first of Kenyon’s goodly race / / spanked the naughty freshmen well.] According to Songs of Kenyon (New York: Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, 1908), compiled by Alfred Kinsley Taylor (class of 1906), the words to the song “Philander Chase” (1903) were written, to the traditional English tune “The Pope,” by the Reverend George Franklin Smythe, DD (1852–1934). Smythe, who from 1902 to 1920 was Colburn Professor of Homiletics and Religious Education at Bexley Hall (see note 371.29), was also the author of Kenyon College, Its First Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1924).

  372.6 Hannah More] More (1745–1833), an English poet, playwright, and Evangelical Protestant reformer, was an acquaintance of Philander Chase and an early benefactress of Kenyon College.

  372.14–15 new president of the college . . . famous and distinguished poet] In 1937, Gordon Keith Chalmers (1904–1956), president of Kenyon from that year until his death, hired poet John Crowe Ransom (see note 177.31) as teacher of creative writing and founding editor of the quarterly Kenyon Review.

  373.1–3 The Wings of the Dove . . . The Cosmological Eye and The Last Puritan and In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.] Four notable American
books of the modern period: a novel (1902) by Henry James (1843–1916), a collection of short fiction (1939) by Henry Miller (1891–1980), “a memoir in the form of a novel” (1935) by George Santayana (1863–1952), a collection of short stories and poetry (1938) by Delmore Schwartz (1913–1956).

  374.1 “verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.”] From “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819), by English poet John Keats (1795–1821).

  379.12 Mary Institute] Private girls’ school in St. Louis, Missouri, founded in 1859 by William Greenleaf Eliot (1811–1887), a cofounder of Washington University, and named for his late daughter, Mary Rhodes Eliot (1838–1855), who died at the age of seventeen. The school later formed close social and academic ties with a neighboring boys’ school, St. Louis Country Day School, founded in 1917. The two schools merged in 1992, forming Mary Institute & St. Louis Country Day School.

  386.13 Partisan Review] Prestigious literary quarterly founded in New York City in 1932. By 1939 its aesthetics were high modernist, its politics anti-Stalinist. It ceased publication in 2003, shortly after the death of its co-founder and longtime editor William Phillips (1907–2002).

  386.26 New Directions anthologies] New Directions in Prose and Poetry (1936–91) was a series of roughly annual literary anthologies edited by James Laughlin (1917–1997) and published by New Directions Publishing Co., New York. Early numbers included new work by Henry Miller, Ezra Pound, Delmore Schwartz, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, and many other modern writers.

  387.31 Shelley Poetry Prize] The Shelley Memorial Award, administered annually since 1930 by the Poetry Society of America (founded 1910), is a cash prize given to a living American poet “with reference to his or her genius and need.” Recipients are chosen by a jury of three poets—one appointed by the president of Radcliffe, one by the president of the University of California at Berkeley, and one by the PSA Board of Governors.