Bud and Elzora
"We live in a box of space and time . . . "
Roger Ebert
"Lay on Macduff,
and damned be he
who first cries "Hold, enough"
Wm Shakespeare,
Macbeth, Act V, scene vii
1940: McDougal, Arkansas,
It's a crossroads village with no real crossing of roads, having a population about 62 souls, consisting of a Post Office, a cotton gin, a general store, at least three churches, a couple of garages, a one-room school house (grades 1-8, seven months of school per year, five in winter and two at midsummer to maximize utilization of young field hands), and perhaps two dozen homes of varying age and condition. Situated astride US 62, (the only US highway that begins at the Canadian border and ends at the US-Mexico line, and, as yet, unpaved in Clay County), it has no paved streets, no town government, no public officials other than an unpaid school board. Police protection is provided by the county sheriffs whose offices are located each of the two county seats, both at least twenty miles of gravel road away. Deputies (two for each sheriff) seldom show up except when sent for, and then quite reluctantly. (Why
two county seats?, you ask. Not really sure, but I suspect that, in past, both road conditions and lack of good drainage made year-round travel across the lowlands an unsure matter. Why not
two counties? Who knows, politics is an art, not a science. WWII is still eighteen months away.
Once upon a time there had been a narrow gauge railroad in the service of the local lumber industry that had spawned a "business district" nearby and, which included a number of "low income" residences, a baseball field, a Missionary Baptist Church and a movie theater, later morphed into a house of worship for the local Penacostal congregation. (Since at least 99.44% of the populace were sworn aggressive enemies of the local poisonous and numerous "cottonmouths", the snake handling version of religion never really caught on here.) When the rails and cross ties became a just another gravel road (albeit straight and level) the town crept down to the vicinity of the cotton gin alongside the new and improved US62, which was also straight, wider and serviced with grading at least once per month.
McDougal, the name obviously drawn from some long forgotten founder, sits in the flatlands which begin some three miles east at the hills of Crowley's Ridge and forms the upper reaches of what passes for the upper drainage plain of the Cache River. Somewhere, a few miles west of McDougal, the water flow turns westward and is taken over by Black River. All good black dirt here, interspersed here and there by the hard to manage hard clay "gumbo" type of river bottom, and sitting atop what must be one of the largest known aquifers. Anyone's water supply is simply a matter of attaching a pointed strainer to a section of 2" pump pipe and driving a few short sections into the earth and attaching a pitcher pump. Unlimited, potable water, (perhaps a bit heavy in iron and/or manganese) is then well within the reach of a shallow well pump.
My Uncle Bud and Aunt Elzora owned and operated the village store, specializing (or maybe generalizing) in food, drink, gasoline, ice, and feed for animals. This included a very limited deli (although he would not have recognized the term) where my uncle would make you a thickly sliced bologna sandwich on plain white with mayo for a nickel or a dime. Sodas are five cents as well.
Having lost both their children when they were sharecroppers in the sandy cotton fields of Missouri's bootheel, Bud and Elzora needed little actual living space and so shared a small upstairs apartment over the store along with their fat little bulldog whose name I have forgotten, but the important thing to remember here is that, in farm country, any dog unable or unwilling to chase rabbits, tree squirrels and/or 'coons, or bite intruders and kill snakes, was deemed somewhat worthless; the bulldog lost on all counts. He was left at our farm (only once) for safekeeping while my aunt and uncle were to be away for an extended period. He died there from either old age, lack of attention or the rough farm life of our other, non house accustomed canines. (Or maybe all the above.) But that's another story.
In the interests of security maybe, the owners' bedroom was located above the front of the store and well away from the stairway. It had windows that overlooked the gas pumps alongside the highway. A gallon of gasoline cost less than 25 cents and had to be hand pumped into the pump's glass reservoir, then drained out into the car's fuel tank. Marks on the side of the glass measured the gallons. A kerosene tank, complete with its own pump, sat on the front porch beside a couple of metal lawn chairs like the one in which Aunt Elzora was sitting the day she got beat up by an irate farmer's wife (more on that later): This was the same "coal oil" tank and pump that my eldest sister, conned her younger brother, (also older than me) in to taking a drink of "water" from the pump. She even volunteered to man the pump for him. Fortunately he realized his mistake before swallowing any significant amount of kerosene.
The ice house was along side the main building, and was simply a long low building, which had an interior wall, set perhaps 12"-18" inside the exterior with the space between filled with some local insulating material, mostly sawdust. Floor and ceiling were similarly insulated. Ice was procured in 300 pound blocks from the "factory" at the County Seat, twenty miles away and transported in the back of Uncle Bud's pickup. The truck would hold perhaps four of these blocks set on edge and reaching the full width of the truck bed. Four of these blocks would, of course, weigh at least 1200 pounds, a bit much for the springs and shocks of a truck rated as "quarter ton". There was, of course, in the hot summer season when ice was needed, some loss to melting, since the truck was not insulated in any way, let alone enclosed. This was not deemed important since the ice was sold by portion, not weight. By that I mean that one third of a 300 pound block was deemed to be an hundred pound block, and half of that was 50 pounds, etc. and sold accordingly. Strickley a "no loss" process. Not too much ice was sold at the store, because most homes had ice delivered to their home.
Each delivery point had a square cardboard sign, with the numbers, 25, 50, 75 and 100 printed in large numbers on each of its four sides. If all hands were to working in the field on delivery day, the sign would be hung out in plain view with the side showing the required quantity at top so that the numbers were upright and in the normal reading position. The doors would never be locked, so the delivery person (almost always a male) could carry the ice inside and place in the icebox. About once a month, the iceman would leave a ticket and his fee would be left for him to pick up at his next delivery day. Good reliable system, but hardly one that could work today. Wear and tear on Bud's truck was a bit severe since it was also used racing madly around the countryside delivering grocery orders, usually sent in via handwritten notes carried by a nearby neighbor or the rural mail carrier.
Uncle Bud's accounts receivable (farmers typically charged a lot of items over the growing season, to be paid at harvest time) consisted of an old cheese box, maybe two, which held a number of ticket books such as a waiter might use to record your lunch order, one for each customer to whom he extended credit. At each charge, a ticket was created in duplicate, one copy for the customer and one remaining in the book as a record. Settling up involved only adding up the accumulated tickets and collecting the cash. He could tell who had money and when by seeing who was bringing cotton to the gin. It was suspected that in the occasional event when someone has dashed in to pick up a sack of feed or a block of ice, etc. and Bud had not the time to do a ticket or jot down the transaction, he might charge it to several of the likely suspects' accounts, later apologizing to those who complained and removing it with a flourish from the book. Invariably, some failed to complain, probably because they couldn't remember either. He was convinced that people secretly wanted to be fooled; and that, given the choice, would rather be told falsehood than learn the truth.
His real name was Rollie (that was the way it was spelled). He was the eighth of nine children born in just over ten years; his twin, Robbie, died at birth. When the ninth one was stillborn, a little over two years later, Grandma apparently gave up and cashed in her chips. She died a week later, leaving six children, the oldest being about fourteen. One was an only daughter, age about six, who became the "woman of the house" for the next several years. Grandfather was an iterant carpenter/jack-of-all-trades who spent a lot of time away from home. Rollie was the runt of the family, smallest of a family of smaller than average folks, and handicapped by the loss of one lung to TB, but he fared well amongst the countryside populated with rough-edged country folk.
He had had stories! Told us once of being awakened in the middle of the night by some well dressed but somewhat sinister looking group of travelers who needed gasoline. From the bedroom window they could see an array of different license plates in the backseat of the car, from which he suspected that these might not be legitimate business men. Not an illogical conclusion since this was the era of the likes of Bonnie and Clyde and other notorious entrepreneurs. He pumped the gas, received his pay, and gave a huge sigh of relief when they drove away. I'd bet my aunt was watching from the window with the old Colt handy. (Only saw that handgun once, but my recollection and what I have learned since convinces me that it was a Colt single action revolver, possibly 45 caliber like those made famous by cowboys of all ages.)
She was that kind of woman, my Aunt Elzora, small and sturdy of stature, highly opinionated and thoroughly seasoned by many years of hard work, both in the cotton fields and in the operation of a general store. She was loud and given to speaking her mind; said what she thought and she thought quite a lot. Although devoid of cusswords, (her religion forbade the use of such), her vocabulary was rich in sarcasm and innuendo; her delivery blunt. Not highly educated, with thick, horn rimmed glasses, she could spot an error in Uncle Bud's sales ticket math from all the way across the room. She was a real "piece of work", and on occasion got into trouble for it.
.
Which brings me to the hot, dusty summer afternoon, probably a Wednesday when farm country merchants were wont to take time to rest up. Since the populace in general knew that Saturday, being the traditional market day, would be a long and hard day for almost all the store operators, they accepted the practice and seldom, if ever, went to store on a Wednesday, particularly after dinner. (For you city folk, that's a midday meal, or at least it was then.)
Mid July temperatures in these parts typically get into three digits, and this particular day was at least typical, maybe hotter. The mid-day sun had by now been at work for seven or eight hours and by now the only difference between the outside and inside temperatures was the lack of direct sun inside. There was not a breath of air stirring in the 100 degree afternoon and only the limitations of mathematics was keeping the humidity level from passing 100. My aunt had evidently decided to take a break and had strolled across the highway to pick up their mail, and having opened the two bills, one from a canned goods wholesaler and another from the mill in Springfield that shipped the bagged stuff like flour and corn meal, she put the letter from her brother in Paducah aside for later reading, and sat down to read the paper. She had seated herself in one of the chairs on the porch with the most recent copy of the weekly edition of the Kansas City Star, and was catching up on all the local gossip from Hazel, the postmistress. As we all know, postmasters and postmistress are in touch most everyone in the community almost every day and therefore know lots of things about lots of people. Most are more than willing to share.
Over the top of the well worn top edge of the editorial page, Elzora watched with growing curiosity a cloud of dust on the gravel highway fast approaching town from the west that slowed and ground itself to a halt across the road by the gas pump in front of their store. It was a battered old A-Model Ford, circa 1929 or 30 that was holding up fairly well, considering its age. A woman of about five foot ten inches of height and weighing around perhaps 200 pounds, descended from the car and marched around the A's steaming radiator cap and into the store. My aunt didn't stir, she had acquired a glass of iced tea and was sipping and gossiping while keeping an eye out on the happenings across the street. She knew that Bud was inside doing some restocking of small items on the shelves, and so saw no need to interfere. She was taking a break.
"Hazel, who was that just pulled up to the pumps?"
"Looks like Gladys Wingate, but can't be shore, she went inside too fast."
"Guess she didn't want no gas."
(Aunt E was always looking to the marketing side of things.)
" or anything else, for that matter, here she comes!"
Now it's worthwhile to mention here that the Wingates were well known farmers who owned a couple of hundred acres of the rich black bottom land a mile or two out of town, somewhere back toward the river where they housed a large family and ruled their domain with all the bluster of an old west cattle baron and handled all their problems themselves without need of assistance by, or interference from, any government agency, be it county, state or federal. It was their land, by damn, and they would do pretty much as they pleased, thank you very much!
Back at the store,things had changed. The big lady had by now marched out the front door of the store, allowing the spring loaded screen door to slam unmercifully and it's bell to jingle madly. She glared across the street and set sail directly for Aunt Elzora's position. Fortunately there was no traffic, for she looked neither left or right. Had there been any approaching vehicles, they would not have dared to interfere anyway; she was on a mission.
When I next saw my aunt, it was several days after the incident and she still had a black eye, a real shiner, and bruises on both of her forearms. She still limped a little and had some ugly discolorations on her shins that were not quite covered by her stockings; her glasses seemed to be a little out of alignment as well. No one ever provided any details, leastwise none that my young ears were considered suited to hear, so at this point the story becomes more or less a product of my imagination, but I think things might have gone somewhat like this:
Gladys stopped at the first of the two steps leading up to the porch, glared at my aunt and pronounced loudly,
"ELZORA, I
AM SICK AND TIRED OF YOU BADMOUTHIN' ME AND MY FAMILY!"
Whereupon she took the rest of the steps in one stride; two more steps and she stood menacingly over the chair in which my aunt sat. It was one of those painted metal chairs that almost everyone used to have before the advent of the light aluminum, webbing laced ones of today. The chair had those metal tubing armrests on either side, so Elzora was effectively confined to the chair and unable to get up and face her opponent should she have so chosen to do so. (she wisely did not,) Elzora was mouthy, not necessarily stupid; obviously outweighed and outgunned, and probably a bit amazed as well, for she froze and managed a weak, "w-what do you mean?"
"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, YOU GOSSIPY OLD BITCH, PAULINE SAID YOU TOLD HER THAT WE WUZ TRASHY PORE AND NEVER PAID WHAT WE OWED!"
" I never said that."
"SHE SEZ YOU DID!
"I only said that I knew you had a large family to feed and that I guessed that was probably the reason you couldn't pay some of your honest debts, and that I really felt sorry for folks that are on hard times. You do have some tickets at the store that you never paid, you know"
"ONLY ONE, FOR THE FOUR SACKS OF FEED, AND THAT WAS ON THIS YEAR'S BILL."
"It was before Thanksgiving."
"WELL, WE GOT MORE THAN ENOUGH TO PAY IT, BUT I'M NOT PAYIN ' YOU ANYTHING TILL WE GET THE CROPS OUT, JUST 'CAUSE YOU'VE RUN YOUR MOUTH SO. YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT 'TIL WE SELL THE COTTON , JUST LIKE ALWAYS!
Here is where my aunt made her mistake, she should have let well enough alone, but her disposition would not allow it. She might have been cornered but noooo. . . . . .
"Didn't I see Walter bringing in a couple of loads of cotton to the gin, late in the season, maybe 'bout two weeks before last Christmas?"
Gladys, having already declared her victory, had been about to leave the field and had already taken a step back, but now, having received a small but stinging verbal counterpunch, she became confused. Most of her skills were physical, not verbal, and, not being equipped to do effective combat in that arena, she resorted to her only other option.
"YOU BITCH!", she roared, stamped her oversized right ankle-high work shoe, stepped forward with her left and, in one swift and deft movement, snatched off my aunts's glasses with her left hand, flung them violently onto the nearby table, and caught Elzora with a roundhouse right to the face. My aunt only had time to turn her head just enough to catch the blow below her left eye and get her forearms up high enough to buffer the force of an oncoming left hook and its partner, the accompanying right. From the looks of her subsequent discolorations, there must have been some participation of the shoes as well. Best she could do was to hunker down in the chair, cover her face and try to weather the storm.
Fortunately, further damage was avoided by the intervention of Hazel and my uncle, both of whom had heard the shouting when things really hit the fan. Gladys was pulled back and persuaded to leave the scene, but my aunt was true to her calling. As Gladys marched across the road, Aunt Elzora seized the chair arms, pulled herself up to a standing position, and called out clearly,
"GLADYS"
Gladys froze at about where the center line might have been, had there been one, did a half turn to her left, and glared over her shoulder,
"WHAT?'
Gladys stared in total disbelief. There, standing just in front of the chair she had just recently occupied, her hands locked on either chair arm for support, her glasses listing about ten degrees to port due to their recent crash landing, and
actually smiling, was my Aunt Elzora,
"Do you think you could manage half of the bill now? We can probably wait on the rest 'till you sell the first bale of cotton."
Like I said, she was a real piece of work!
*****************
Afterword:
Progress eventually forced the store and its proprietors out of business, but Elzora outlived Uncle Bud by several decades, eventually ending up in a nursing home; I'll bet she went, kicking and screaming, when it was time.
