But soon he heard a rumor that most of the men in Limestone Valley, to the south of Stay More, which had been Virdie Boatright’s previous “stand” (or “recline”) before coming to Stay More, had joined the Confederate army, or at least were preparing to fight as guerrillas on the Southern side. When he heard this, he issued an order of assembly for all men of Stay More, who dutifully gathered at the appointed time in the yard of Jacob’s dogtrot. Some of the men brought their wives and children, but he sent these away, declaring that the meeting was for men only. Then he addressed them, saying, “Nearly all you fellers bought new shootin arns from Eli Willard, and so did I. You heared what he said about all the rest o’ the country splittin off to fight. Now there’s that ’ere loose womarn come to town, Virdie Boatright, tryin to git you fellers to jine the Rebels. Most of you fellers have sampled what she’s givin away free—” Here he was interrupted by a general clamor of hand-clapping, hip-slapping, lip-smacking, finger-snapping, whistling, and grunts of pleasure.
“Maybe you’ve heared,” he went on, “that her perticular campaign, or whatever you’d call it, has converted Limestone Valley to the Rebels. That means we’ve got the enemy numberin up right over yon mountain—” He gestured to the south. “Unless—” and his eyes moved slowly from man to man “—unless some of you fellers don’t consider the Rebels enemies no more.” He paused, then demanded, “Wal? How many of you has she recruited?” To his astonishment, every man jack of them raised their hands, including, to his dismay and disbelief, his own brother Noah. “Noey?!” he exclaimed, turning to him. “Godalmighty, you wouldn’t be funnin me, would ye? Don’t give me that! Says who? Tell me another. Hooey! Can you tie that? Don’t make me laugh! I wasn’t born yestiddy. Git along with ye. My foot. What do you mean, anyhow? I won’t buy that. Like hell you did. Where do you get that stuff? You’re full of beans. Noey, fer cryin out loud, air ye shore ye heared my question right?”
“What does ‘recruit’ mean?” Noah asked.
“That means she has got ye to pledge or promise to jine the Rebel army.”
“Aw, naw!” Noah protested. “She never done that to me.”
“Me neither,” chorused several of the others.
“Wal, then,” Jacob asked, “how many of you has she made pledge or promise to jine the Rebel army?” Not a single man raised his hand. “Wal, what in thunderation did y’all think I meant by ‘recruit’?” He addressed this question to the men at large, but his eyes were on Noah, and Noah only blushed and hemmed and hawed. Jacob turned to Gilbert Swain. “What did you think I meant?”
“Aw, heck,” Gilbert said, “like you jist said, most of us fellers has sampled what she’s givin away free. Boy howdy, she’s done recruited me four times already!”
“But don’t she say nothin ’bout the Rebel army?” Jacob wanted to know.
“Not a word to me,” Gilbert claimed.
“Nor me neither,” chorused the others.
“Hmm,” uttered Jacob, shaking his head. “Wal, supposin she does. Any of you fellers want to fight fer the Rebels?”
They all shook their heads, declaring, “Not me!” and “Nor me neither!”
“Wal, then, the question is: do we want to remain neutral or do we want to fight for the Union if those boys down in Limestone Valley try to start somethin?” A lively and formal debate was organized, which lasted for the rest of the afternoon. At the end a vote was taken, and the majority favored neutrality. Jacob dismissed the gathering, but took Noah aside and said to him, “Noey, honest injun, no buts about it, shore-nuff, really-truly, straight-up-and-down, tell me the pint-blank truth: did thet thar Virdie Boatright actually git ye inter her wagon?”
“Naw,” said Noah.
“I didn’t think so. But you said she ‘recruited’ you…”
“I never got inter her wagon,” Noah declared, “but she clumb up inter my house.”
“Did she now?” Jacob said. “And then what?”
“Wal…” Noah hesitated. “She tole me her name, and I tole her mine.”
“Is that so?” Jacob said. “And then what?”
“She ast me did I live all alone by myself up in thet tree.”
“Do tell?” Jacob said. “And then what?”
“She ast me did I keer to git a little lovin.”
“Golly moses,” Jacob said. “And then what?”
“I tole her I never had none afore.”
“Indeedy,” Jacob said. “And then what?”
“Aw…” Noah protested. “You know.”
“Naw, I caint imagine,” Jacob declared. “Tell me.”
So Noah told him, in some hesitant detail, which we may omit here, how Virdie Boatright succeeded in an undertaking which any woman other than she could never have accomplished. It was not easy, and it was not quick. But Noah’s half-century of virginity was sacrificed, or, if that is not the word, expropriated, or, if that is not the word, it was dispossessed; in any case, for that one time in his life at least, he didn’t have it anymore.
“What’d it feel like?” Jacob wanted to know.
“Shitfire,” Noah said.
“Wal?” Jacob persisted. “What did it feel like?”
“That’s it,” Noah said. “Shitfire. It felt like shitfire.”
“Oh,” Jacob said.
In the days following, bits of war news trickled into Stay More: the Confederate Army of Arkansas had boldly invaded Missouri and defeated the Federal Army at Wilson’s Creek, but had retreated back into Arkansas, where, in the hills and valleys of Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas, it met again a regrouped and larger Federal Army, and, after several days of fierce fighting, was beaten, although it was rumored that the Rebels still considered themselves in full control of Arkansas. A few men from Limestone Valley claimed to have been involved on the Rebel side at Pea Ridge. So far as Jacob could tell, none of the men of Stay More were showing any signs of joining the Rebels. Not then, anyway. But they were clearly restless, particularly the younger men. Jacob felt pretty restless himself, and wondered if he was too old to enlist in the army.
The men of Stay More, including Jacob, began to exhibit open signs of their restlessness: they could be seen kicking fence posts, dogs, and even occasionally a small child. They each developed a nervous tic of smashing one fist into the palm of the other hand. They swore more often than usual. Whittling was no longer therapeutic enough, although they denuded the forests with their whittling. Soon the younger men began fighting one another with their hands and teeth. Jacob’s sense of community responsibility never deserted him, and he attempted to organize energetic games of Base Ball to channel the aggressive energy of the men, but, as referee of the games, he often found himself losing his temper and kicking somebody. If only, Jacob thought, if only he could talk to Sarah and get her to realize that if she would let him have her more often then he would be all right. Better yet, if he could persuade Sarah to talk to the womenfolk of Stay More and convince them to be more yielding to their husbands, then all of the men of Stay More would be all right. But Jacob had never been able to talk to Sarah about sex, and never would, until the last day of his life. He considered, briefly, talking instead to Lizzie Swain, who, now in her sixties, was virtually the matriarch of the village. Lizzie could easily call a meeting of all the womenfolk and perhaps persuade them to open their thighs more often for their husbands.
But Jacob realized that he could no more broach such a topic with Lizzie than he could have asked her, years earlier, to have her bull service his cow. So instead he organized a Public Works Project: all of the men were to take their sledgehammers and smash boulders into gravel, and pave the road from Stay More to Jasper with crushed gravel. This project kept them busy for a while, but when they had graveled the road as far as Jasper they discovered that Virdie Boatright’s wagon was parked off the courthouse square. When they tried to get in, she wouldn’t let them, not even Jacob. There were just too many men in Jasper, she told him. She couldn’t “accommodate” any more.<
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The Stay Morons cursed and smacked their fists into their palms and went on back to Stay More, where they resumed kicking posts and dogs with a vengeance, and Jacob exercised his brains to think of something else for them to do, but then he got angry with himself for wasting so much of his good thought on those worthless clods, and, being angry with himself, he kicked a post so hard he broke his foot. The foot was slow to heal, and he couldn’t walk at all, but it didn’t matter anyway, because he, along with every last man who had worked so hard crushing rocks for the road to Jasper, suddenly came down with the frakes. The entire able-bodied male population of Stay More (numbering in that year approximately forty-six) came down with the frakes!
Most of them were of the opinion that it was a venereal disease contracted from Virdie Boatright, and in some parts of the Ozarks even today there are people who stubbornly persist in believing that the frakes is a venereal disease, but Noah Ingledew, who had had the frakes before while still a virgin, knew that it was not, and tried to assure his fellows that it was not, but most of them went on believing (or rather lay bedridden convinced) that Virdie Boatright was responsible. It was commonly, even if atrociously, believed in the Ozarks that the only cure for a venereal disease is to transmit it to a person of the opposite sex, and the men of Stay More yearned desperately for this cure, which could not be had for two reasons: (1) no female was willing to lie with a man infested with the frakes, and (2) no male infested with the frakes was potent while he had the frakes.
One would think—one would like to think—that the extreme lassitude and sense of utter futility which come as the aftermath of the frakes would have disencumbered these men of their aggressions, their restless incipient martiality. But it did not happen that way. True, all of the men did feel weak and futile, but they still felt restless and belligerent. A dangerous combination. Since they were all bedridden and could no longer kick posts and dogs (although they could still smash one fist into the palm of the other hand, and frequently did) they were reduced to such acts as tearing their bedcovers and gnashing the bedposts. Naturally the womenfolk were dismayed and, although the frakes had cleared up and the men were potent again, the women all refused to sleep with the men, which made the men rend their bedcovers all the harder and chomp the bedposts all the fiercer, and this vicious cycle continued until there was not one whole quilt or blanket in Stay More, nor one bedpost still standing.
The day came at last when the men could leave their beds and move about, whereupon, although they still felt weak and futile, they resumed kicking posts and dogs and an occasional child, and fighting one another with hands and teeth. The women sulked and held many quilting bees at which they complained everlastingly to one another of what monsters their husbands were, and took a collective vow to have no further relations with their husbands until the men stopped being so mean, which made the men all the meaner, and so on.
Word came from Jasper, where Virdie Boatright had gone after leaving Stay More, that the sheriff himself, John Cecil, one of the most popular and revered men in the county, had joined the Confederates and had been appointed captain in charge of Newton County. When Jacob Ingledew heard that, he felt more weak and futile than ever; he also felt more restless and belligerent than ever, and he caught his wife Sarah and raped her. It was the only time in his life that he ever raped her, and for a little while afterwards he felt contrite, and begged her forgiveness, which she withheld, taking her younger children and moving back to her mother’s house, and telling her older son, Isaac, what his father had done to her. Isaac, who was a young man of twenty at this time and already well over six feet tall (and who, of course, along with all the other men of Stay More, had been infected with the frakes and was sharing their suffering and weakness and futility and restlessness and belligerence), put down the fiddle that he was sawing to pieces and sought out his father and said tersely, “Gon whup ye, Paw.” Jacob snorted with derisive laughter, and rolled up his sleeves and prepared to demolish his son. Undoubtedly Isaac, who was several inches taller and many pounds heavier than his father, not to mention being thirty-odd years younger and quicker, would easily have won the contest, might possibly even have killed his father, if they had not been interrupted by Gilbert Swain, bringing news from Jasper that one of the Stay Morons had joined Capt. John Cecil’s Rebels.
“NO!” Jacob thundered. “It caint be. Who was the dawg?”
“I hate to tell ye,” Gilbert demurred.
Jacob grabbed Gilbert Swain by his collar and hauled his face close to his own, and angrily hissed, “You’re jist a-funnin me, boy, and it aint so funny.”
“H-h-honest to God,” Gilbert protested. “I seen him myself.”
Jacob tightened his grip and twisted it, then hollered into Gilbert’s face, “THEN TELL ME WHO IT WAS!”
“Don’t hole it agin me, Uncle Jake, please,” Gilbert begged. “It weren’t my fault.”
“Son,” Jacob said as calmly as he could, “if you don’t tell me who it was, right now, I am fixin to bash yore haid down yore throat.”
“Let go of me, and I will,” Gilbert said.
Jacob released him. Gilbert stepped back, half-turning as if to flee, and nearly whispered. “It was Noey.”
“Huh?” Jacob said. “Noey who?”
“Uncle Noey,” Gilbert said. “Yore brother. Noah Ingledew.”
We will leave Jacob standing there overwhelmed in silent immobility for a very long moment while we meditate upon this situation. It should be remembered that Noah Ingledew was a bachelor, a frustrated virgin until Virdie Boatright came briefly into his life and his treehouse. It should be considered that her strategy or therapy or primum mobile or whatever we may call it, if it worked at all, would most likely work upon a man like Noah. We do not know how many hours he spent in his lonely treehouse reminiscing about the fleeting fulfillment that Virdie Boatright had given him, nor what intensified longings he was left with. We do know that he kicked as many posts and dogs as any other man in Stay More, and that he crushed more rock than most, and that his bout with the frakes was severe and compounded by having no woman to attend his bedfastness. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that while his weakness and futility were greater than any other man’s, so were his restlessness and belligerence. Admittedly it is difficult to think of mild, shy, bland Noah Ingledew as belligerent; even more difficult is it to picture him in uniform; even more difficult, well-nigh impossible, to imagine him in uniform shooting at his fellowmen. But war itself, I think, is more difficult to understand.
Jacob went at once to Noah’s treehouse and called up to it, “Oh, Brother dear. Come out.” But there was no answer, so he climbed up into the treehouse, and found both wings empty. He returned to his own house and saddled his horse and rode at a fast gallop into Jasper, where he inquired at the courthouse for John Cecil, but was told that Cecil was no longer sheriff since becoming captain of the county Confederates. He asked where Cecil could be found, and was told that the Rebels had no fixed headquarters but were roaming freely over the county, and, indeed, all over the Ozarks. Jacob asked where the Union headquarters were, and was told that the nearest fixed Federal headquarters were up in Springfield, Missouri.
Instead of returning to Stay More, Jacob rode his horse northward toward Springfield. The journey took him only two days, he was that impatient. In Springfield he found the Union headquarters and told the recruiting sergeant that he wanted to enlist forty-five men in the Union Army. The recruiting sergeant was experienced only with individuals, not with masses of men, so the sergeant passed him on up to a lieutenant, who sent him to a captain, who directed him to a major, who introduced him to a colonel, who delivered him to Gen. James A. Melton, commander of the Union Army at Springfield.
Gen. Melton was a meticulous diarist, whose writings survive. Here is an excerpt from the entry in his journal for that day:
I had the honor to receive to-day one Jacob Engledieu, who hails from the excessively bucolic wilds of Newton County dow
n in Arkansas. Although Arkansas is one of the Confederated States, Newton County, I have it on the good report of my brother, Major John Melton, has thus far resisted being swallowed into the Confederacy, although there are scattered bands of Rebels operating there, and a somewhat crude and brazen recruitment effort conducted by a hired wanton named Verdy Boughtrite. Thus I welcomed the appearance of Mr. (now Capt.) Engledieu, all the more so because I had already known of his notoriety as the only delegate to the Arkansas Secession Convention who steadfastly refused to vote with the majority (although in the beginning of our interview, I refrained from telling Capt. Engledieu that I already knew he was a Union hero).
Capt. Engledieu is tall, lean but sinewy, and has eyes so blue that they seem always watering. He is a man of the soil and of the woods, and makes no pretensions to gentility or sophistication, in speech, manner or appearance. But I am persuaded he is keen of wit, a natural leader of men, and like all of his fellow Ozarkers most probably a deadly marksman. Every one of those boys can hit a squirrel in the eye at eighty yards. His first question to me was whether or not a man of his years (58) was too old to volunteer for the army. I asked if he had previous military experience, to which he replied in the negative. I said I did not think a man of his years would be happy as a mere foot soldier. To which he replied that he had a mighty fine horse, and, drawing me to the window, gestured at the animal tethered outside; indeed, a fine horse, but I said I did doubt as well whether he would be happy as a mere cavalry private. It was at this point he informed me that, if I would accept him, he would donate 45 additional men from his settlement of Staymore in the abovementioned County, each of whom also had a horse or riding animal (albeit not as mighty fine as his own, he intimated). In that case, I said, I could appoint him lieutenant in charge of a cavalry platoon. He let me know by his grin that this pleased him, and then he said he also intended to recruit as many men as possible from the communities of Parthenon, Jasper and elswhere in the County. In that case, I replied, I could appoint him captain in charge of a cavalry troop, which I did, on the spot, and then, because he was totally without any knowledge of military structure, I explained to him that a platoon is divided into four squads, and four platoons plus Headquarters section make up a troop or company, and so many companies make a battalion and so many battalions a regiment, and so forth. I also instructed him briefly on the conduct of war, and I believe he was a good listener.
The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks Page 15
