Raintree County (14 page)

The Honorable Somebody or Other was introduced for the Address
of the Day. He spoke for two hours, beginning in the usual vein but getting louder, hoarser, and more eloquent all the time as he talked about slavery and the South.

In those days everyone was excited about the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. The word had come through only a day or so before that Congress had made the bill a law. Johnny wasn't exactly certain what the bill said, but it appeared that land once saved for freedom was going to be opened up for slavery. The Orator of the Day made it out so that you thought of a poisonous black flood boiling up out of the South, and here were people trying to build walls against it, and then one of the people—and a Northerner to boot—Stephen A. Douglas, had gone yellow on them, and let the flood come through, and now there was nothing to stop it anywhere.

Those days, there was a strange spirit abroad in the land. It was not uncommon for families to stop talking to each other over political questions. T. D., who was always fighting some kind of evil or other, talked with a singular fierceness about certain people who were perfectly willing that part of the human race should be in chains, if it meant a few more dollars in
their
pockets or if they didn't have to see it happen under
their
noses. The problem was spatial, geographical—like Phrenology. In a section of the country below a certain line people kept slaves. You could draw a line across the Nation, and half of it was white and half was black. And now that they had passed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, it was all right for the black part to go over into the white part if it could.

The man on the platform said that that was exactly what would happen.

—Fellow Americans, he said, I am addressing you in one of the darkest hours that has confronted our great republic since those glorious days when Washington was nursing the tiny flickering flame of our freedom in a tattered tent in the windy wilderness of Valley Forge. It is a time when, if necessary, a man should put aside wife and child, leave the hearth of his home, and go resolutely forth to do battle for the preservation of those great principles upon which this republic was founded and which we have just heard read to us from that immortal document, the Declaration of Independence.

—Let them alone, and they'll leave us alone, shouted a voice from the crowd.

—Throw that guy out! yelled other voices.

—It is a time, said the speaker, to gird on armor and the sword. Our most pious blessing and our most fervent hopes must go with those courageous spirits who are at this moment giving up all they have to rush into the newly opened territories of Kansas and Nebraska to insure that when those territories are petitioning for membership in the Union of the States, no shadow of that cursed blight whose ancient crime has stained the otherwise perfect beauty of our institutions shall sully the virginal banners of their statehood.

The orator went on and on, and the afternoon waned, and when he finished, the formal program was over. But men kept on making speeches. One of them said that he was just passing through on his way to Jackson, Michigan, where a gathering of publichearted citizens was going to talk very seriously about the growing threat to our free institutions and consider the feasibility of creating a new political party. Another man got up and said that the existing Whig party was adequate to meet the threat to the security of the Nation, but he was booed and heckled by Democrats all the way through. A Democrat who succeeded him could not get halfway through his speech and became so angry that he leaped off the platform and got into a fight with one of his persecutors.

Johnny and Zeke rushed over to the neighborhood of the disturbance, and the crowd stormed and shouted. Johnny got lost from Zeke and never did get close enough to see the fight, but he saw some people leading off a man with a bloody mouth, who was weeping and shaking his fist and yelling,

—I'll beat his goddam head off, goddamn him!

Johnny finally found Zeke, who showed where his knuckles were skinned and said earnestly,

—I just got that there from beating up on a damn Democrat.

Later they saw T. D. standing in the middle of a group of men, including the man who was on his way to Jackson, Michigan.

—Friends, the man was saying, I am not just using a figure of speech when I say to you that here in the North we are going to all hang together or hang separately. The South has opened this question up, and they mean to keep it open. It has become a sectional issue. Men, there will be bloodshed before this thing is over.

—God forbid! T. D. said. Personally, I take a hopeful view of the
situation. I don't think it will ever come to that. Americans will never fight one another.

—Pardon me, my friend, said the man, a sober white-faced person in a tailcoat and a high black hat. But I'm afraid you take too bright a view of the whole thing. They're fighting now in Kansas, and the whole nation will be at war unless something is done to keep the hotheads of the South in check. It's getting to be all or nothing with them.

—Personally, said another man, whose face was working with anger, I think we'll just have to go down there and beat the hell out of 'em.

—That's just what they're saying about us, the man said. How long do you think we can exist as a nation, pulling two separate ways and fighting over the new territory? Something has got into the lifeblood of the Nation. It's a poison, and a black one, and it has diseased the whole body politic. What it will come to I don't know, but I see dark days ahead.

—Say what you will, T. D. said, speaking calmly and brightly, but Americans will never fight each other. We will resolve our difficulties peacefully.

—I hope so, friend, said the man in the top hat. But what will you do if the South prefers to secede from the Union rather than submit to laws that don't protect her peculiar institution?

—They may talk of it, T. D. said, but they will never do it.

Johnny agreed with his father. It really didn't seem possible that a part of the country could separate and not be a part of the country. How could that be? Could an amputated leg grow a new body? T. D. was right. Yes, it was all only words spoken in the Court House Square. None of those words seemed so important as the word ‘Phrenology,' which provided a clearcut, scientific route to individual and social perfection. He was hoping to get an opportunity to read his
Self-Instructor
and see what all the words meant that were parts of his head, but the next thing he knew, Zeke ran up, yelling,

—The race is starting!

Naked to the waist and barefooted, Flash Perkins stood in the middle of a crowd at a street intersection one block from the Square.

—What do you think this is, Flash—a prize fight? someone yelled as the two boys came up.

For answer, Flash struck a pose, balled fists up. The muscles of his cocked arms bulged circularly. The afternoon bathed his body with a young radiance. He seemed stronger and more real than anything else in the exploding vortex of the Fourth of July.

—God, don't he think he's some punkins! said a man next to Johnny.

—Struttin' aroun' like a damn bull on show, said another man. I hope to hell he gets beat and beat proper.

—Pud Foster'll beat 'im, damn 'im, said the first man. They say this here Perkins has been drinkin' his guts full all day and can't hardly walk.

—Seems to me he walks all right, the first man said.

—Yeh, but can he run?

—If he's drunk, maybe it'd be smart to take some of his money, said the first man.

—Damn right it would be!

It got around the crowd that Perkins was filled to the ears and could hardly stand, and a lot of men began to take some of the Perkins money.

Meanwhile Flash Perkins had gone over to a nearby buggy and then back to the starting line. His hairline jumped up each time he smiled. His eyes, full of drunkenness and goodnatured insolence, had never lost the childlike, excited look.

—They's a young lady over here, he said, wants to bet somebody five dollars a certain galoot name of Orville Perkins, better known as Flash, will win this here race. Person'ly, I respect the sex too much to doubt this young lady's opinion, and I'll add another five dollars to her bet and bet anybody here that I can beat any man in Raintree County—or anywhere else, by God!—and let's see the color of his coin.

—Christ amighty! he's drunk! the first man said.

A rather dowdy girl in the buggy fanned herself vigorously.

—It must be her, that one over there, Zeke said. She's some looker.

—I'll bet he gets her regular, a man in the crowd said.

Those days, there was always someone in the crowd who took a cynical view of things.

All of a sudden a man walked into the street with a pistol in his hand.

—Ladies and Gentlemen, he yelled, the Annual Fourth of July Footrace is ready to start. The contestants are . . .

The runners lined up, the crowd began pushing out of the street, the starter's pistol went off, and everyone yelled and pushed and shoved down toward the Square where the race was to end. Johnny got a passing glimpse of Flash Perkins, white teeth bared, fists churning, far ahead of his competitors as he ran toward a distant string.

There was a vast yelling in the Court House Square, and several cannon crackers blew up simultaneously. The band played ‘Hail to the Chief.'

When Johnny and Zeke got to the Square, they saw Flash Perkins on the shoulders of a throng. He was borne toward a platform where a girl sat holding a ring of oakleaves. Bare to the waist, sweating, magnificent, he accepted the circlet of victory and fitted it down over his tangled hair. His teeth were clenched on an unlit cigar.

—Speech! yelled the crowd.

—It was easy, folks, Flash said. They give me a good race, but like I said, I can beat any man in Raintree County.

—Hello, Johnny.

It was his mother. She had been standing at the finish line. Her eyes were still shining with the excitement of the race.

—That Perkins boy is the fastest runner I ever seen, she said.

She looked a little wistfully at the broadshouldered victor sitting on top of a crowd of men and boys, puffing his cigar. Perhaps she was remembering her own fleetfooted days. It had been a long time since Johnny had seen his mother run a race.

Everyone was crazy with excitement. Johnny and several other halfgrown boys organized races on the court house lawn. Johnny ran wildly through the crowd, hoping someone would notice how fast he was for his size.

Later he saw a man who was walking through the streets with a big sign saying,

GIVE A PENNY FOR WASHINGTON'S MONUMENT!
MAKE YOUR COUNTRY BEAUTIFUL!

The man gave a short speech:

—The Washington Monument has reached a height of 154 feet of the projected 500. A national appeal is being made to the people
to finance the erection of this beautiful and costly monument. Contribution boxes will be found here and there all over the Square. Remember the Father of Our Country on the day of our Country's birth, and let us all contribute generously and freely to the erection of this great shaft. First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of his Countrymen.

That night there was a fireworks display on the court house yard. Rockets rose over the dark town, burst into sparks, and went down, feebly flaming, in distant fields. Some exhibition pieces were hung on trees, and the climax of the whole day came with a contraption called ‘The Glorious Union.' It was supposed to burn like a lot of stars and stripes in the shape of a shield, but it fizzled at first.

—It ain't goin' to go, everyone said.

Then it did go after all; in fact it caught on fire and blew up all at once with a terrific bang.

As they drove home that night, Johnny told T. D. about the book on Phrenology.

—What do you think about it, Pa? Is it any good?

—Sounds scientific, T. D. said. I seen the man giving you a going-over. Of course, it might of been a fraud. You shouldn't of spent all that money for it, John. You could of looked at someone else's book.

Rob, the oldest boy, said he heard a fellow say that the phrenology man and the vender of hair tonic had both been at Middletown just a day or two before and that they had put on the same act they did in Freehaven. The baldheaded man had pretended to buy hair tonic from the vender just the same way, and they made the same remarks, and the baldheaded man was just as bald now as he was then, no more and no less. Johnny was a little disturbed at this, but T. D. took a serene view of the matter.

—Probably just a story, he said. Why would anybody want to do that? Besides, he was practically giving those bottles away at that price. I have spent my life studying the beneficent effects of botanical medicines, and the ingredients in those bottles sounded good.

T. D. talked a good deal about the condition of the country.

—This here new party they plan to form up there in Michigan may be just what we need, he said. I've voted the Whig ticket faithful for twenty-five years, but it seems to me we need stronger stuff now.
If they can just get some big man to head the new party up, someone, say, like John C. Fremont, who is, in my opinion, the Greatest Living American, why, we might bring the country right out of the fix it's in.

—Things will work out all right, Ellen said.

Johnny Shawnessy looked up at the purple night thicksown with stars that brooded warm and yellow over Raintree County. Yes, things would work out all right. He closed his eyes and seemed to see, ascending in a starless night, the thin, bright streaks of rockets. So would the years go speeding through the purple night of time and bring him all good things before they dropped, feebly flaming, in the distant meadows of the future. So would he too some day know fame and fortune and a great love, and the people in the Court House Square would cheer him. Time and the secret earth of Raintree County would bring all good fruits to him who knew the secret. One day, he would be the fastest runner in Raintree County, because he willed it to be so. One day he would stand with breast expanded, bright with medals, and the crowds would cheer the savior of the Nation. One day he would have the lucid self-understanding that would enable him to say and do everything that he desired, and he would become greater than Charles Dickens or Thomas Carlyle or even William Shakespeare, and he would speak and write words that would resound along the corridors of time forever. And the Court House Square would give place to a more spacious arena, there would be domed tremendous buildings, steps ascending, a platform bigger than was ever seen in Freehaven. And a tall monument would pierce the sky, erected in his memory. All things could be accomplished by him who had the key, who knew the secret, who could pronounce the talismanic word. And in that shining future, he would stand among the greathearted citizens of a perfect America, their heads would be bright with lush and streaming locks, they would all be superbly phrenological in the greatest republic the world had ever seen. And somewhere too in that golden day a vaguely beautiful girl was waiting, her bright hair streamed on delicate shoulders and steep breasts, and on her fruity lips was the highly personal and softly uttered word ‘Johnny.'