Raintree County

  —Extraordinary, the man said. Very.

  The crowd drew closer. People gathered from far back.

  —Very, very interesting. Please observe, folks. Very long eyes and set somewhat forward in the head. Cheekbones prominent. In a boy of fifteen, the development is quite unusual. Now, then, let us turn to the book.

  The man expertly thumbed the book.

  —Here we are. ‘Such people are (I quote) exceedingly expressive in all they say and do, have a most expressive countenance, eye, and manner in everything; have a most emphatic way of saying and doing everything, and thoroughly impress the various operations of their own minds on the minds of others; use the very word required by the occasion; are intuitively grammatical, even without study, and say oratorically whatever they attempt to say at all; commit to memory by reading or hearing once or twice; learn languages with remarkable facility; are both fluent and copious, even redundant and verbose,’ and so forth, and so forth.

  There was a stir in the crowd.

  —Here, the man said, are pictures illustrating these developments. An engraving of the great English author Charles Dickens, whose linguistic characteristics are excessively developed.

  —Say. Perfessor, Zeke said from the crowd, you ain’t fer wrong about that boy. He’s got a head for memorizing like nothin’ you ever seen.

  —There you are, the little bald man said, Phrenology never lies. And I was about to say that even if the boy hadn’t shown any faculty in that direction, it was high time he cultivated his natural aptitude for it. But to pass on.

  The Professor went all over Johnny’s head, pointing out interesting hills and hollows and putting numbers in a chart that was in the front of one of the books. Finally, the Professor had worked clear over the top of Johnny’s head and down to the base of his skull behind.

  —Mirthfulness, the Professor said. Very large. This boy ought to be the fiddle of the company.

  —Ain’t that T. D. Shawnessy’s son? a man said.

  —Smart little cuss, someone said.

  —What a cute boy! a woman said.

  The band blew up; it was another march. Everyone began talking very loud and strong. People were laughing violently. Somebody set off a firecracker under a fat man in the crowd and blew his hat off. A horse got scared and began dragging a buggy down the street. The band finished its number, and by that time the Professor had made another discovery.

  —Very remarkable! the Professor said in a loud voice. For a boy of his age too. Most extree-ordinary! Unusual, to say the least.

  —What is it, Perfessor?

  The crowd was now participating freely in the examination.

  —Let us in on it, too, Perfessor.

  —Has he got lice?

  —Ladies and Gentlemen, the Professor said, please observe the remarkable development of this boy’s head at the base of the skull. The lump of AMATIVENESS is remarkably distended.

  —What does that mean, Perfessor?

  —What does that mean, friend? To put it bluntly, this young gentleman is going to be an extra-special catch for the ladies.

  The Professor winked and rubbed his hands jovially together. People in the crowd sniggered. Various men felt the back of their skulls.

  —Hey, girls, Zeke said, I got a lump back there big as a duck’s egg.

  —Say, Perfessor, said a little man thrusting forward, and presenting his head for inspection. Feel that there. What do you think of that?

  With obliging hand the Professor palped the back of the little man’s skull and whistled.

  —Hey, Perfessor, how about me? another man said. Feel that.

  —Now, wait a minute, folks, the Professor said, suddenly walking back to the platform and grabbing an armload of books. Much as I would like to, I can’t subject each and all of you to a personal scrutiny, but this book here will answer all your questions. For those whose various organs and faculties are underdeveloped, rules for enlargement are given. Know thyself, said the great philosopher Socrates to the Athenians in the Golden Age of Greece. And I say to you, Know thyself, fellow Americans, in this great age of Progress and Perfection, in this greatest and fairest republic the world has ever known. God bless her on the day of her birth and glorious founding! One dollar, folks, just one round dollar—reduced from a dollar and a half!

  As if by prearrangement, the band exploded with ‘Hail, Columbia! Happy Land!’ and with moisture in his eyes, the Professor began to distribute books as fast as he could, at the same time dropping dollars into a box on the table. Johnny sat for a while watching from the platform how the people all rushed up and pulled dollars out of their pockets, rudely grabbing for books in their haste.

  —While they last! While they last! the Professor said. One dollar, friends, while they last! One hundred and fifty-four illustrations. Phrenological Self-Instructor.

  People who hadn’t even heard what the Professor said fought their way through and bought a book. The pile was almost gone, and Johnny Shawnessy began to feel alarmed.

  —Know thyself! Know thyself! One dollar. While they last.

  The pile was gone.

  —One moment, folks, the Professor said. I have a small reserve supply that I had hoped to save for sale in the great city of St. Louis.

  He disappeared in the tent and reappeared immediately with another armload of books. When the last sale had been made, there were still some books left. Johnny went up to the man and put down seventy-five cents.

  —It’s a dollar, my friend, the Professor said.

  —But you said I could have it half-price. Half of a dollar and a half is——

  —Unusual development of the bumps of Calculation and Eventuality, the Professor said.

  He laughed at his own good joke.

  —Here’s your book, boy, all marked. You’ve a good head on your shoulders there, son. What is your name, my boy?

  Johnny told him, and the Professor took a pencil from his coat pocket and on the title page where it said THE CHART AND CHARACTER OF he wrote on blank lines provided for the purpose:

  John Wickliff Shawnessy

  As Marked By

  Professor Horace Gladstone,

  July 4, 1854

  —I predict a great future for you, my boy, the Professor said, tossing the three quarters deftly into the air.

  He bit the tip off a cigar.

  —Smoke?

  —No, thanks, sir.

  —Never start it, said the Professor. Filthy habit. Yes, a great future, my boy. Tell me, son, is there a place around here where one can obtain a little liquid refreshment for the stimulation of a jaded physique?

  —The Saloon is right over there.

  —Good day, boy, the Professor said and walked off briskly, landing smartly on his heels, his toes turned slightly up and out.

  —Ladies and Gentlemen, said at that moment a rich, oily voice from the other side of the Square, spare me a little of your precious——

  Johnny walked away holding the little book in his hand. For a few bright coins, dropped in a wooden cigar box, a future of wonderful self-mastery had been opened up. In the presence of the people he had become a child of prophecy; his consecration had been sanctified by the majestic adjective ‘scientific’ and the formidable epithet ‘phrenological.’ Here, suddenly and by accident on the Court House Square, there had been a confirmation of something Johnny Shawnessy had always secretly believed—that he was destined to be a great man and to find one day the key to all knowledge. For a while, he felt jealous of all the other people who had purchased the same cheap ticket to intellectual beatitude, but when he saw the innocent, shy joy on their faces, as they wandered somewhat confusedly like himself in the Court House Square, clutching their Self-Instructors, he was thrilled to think that he was to be one of a whole community of Americans working together toward the creation of a perfect republic.

  He didn’t have time to look over the book at all, because the Program for the Day was beginning. He and Zeke went over and found seats i
n a big space in the assembly ground south of the Court House, and all the people sat and listened to a man read the Declaration of Independence. Then the chairman of the program introduced the outstanding boy orator Garwood Jones. Talking in a thundering, artificial way and waving his arms, Garwood brought the crowd down with gems of American oratory, including the peroration of Webster’s Reply to Hayne.

  Wearing his Mexican War uniform and all his medals, Captain Jake Jackson, Raintree County’s war hero, got up and gave a very dramatic speech about the security of the Nation. He was a virile young man, of open, fearless countenance. He stood very straight with one leg slightly forward and spoke with chest expanded. He said that the Union was threatened from within and without, but he reminded his hearers that the last bunch who tangled with the sovereign authority of the United States of America had got one devil of a drubbing, in which he, Jake Jackson, had taken, as they knew, a humble part. And he was there to say that although he was a man who loved peace, he, Jacob J. Jackson, would personally Gird on the Sword and once more Bare his Patriot Breast to the Sleet of Battle ere he would permit one corner of the Dear Old Flag to be Dragged in the Dirt. Johnny applauded violently and was angry when an older man close by said he was getting goddam tired of young Jackson’s heroics and fuh Christ’s sake, did he think he fought the Mexican War singlehanded?

  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 an
swer, 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 . . .