What Maling Mortimer, the butcher and second tuba player of the Millworth Citizens’ Band, told Lewis Gutekunst, drummer and pawnbroker, had to be retold by Maling himself to Sherm Case, owner of Millworth Hardware and lead tuba, who’d heard it from the grocer and solo fiddler Cecil Farr, who’d heard it from Lewis Gutekunst. Sherm listened politely as Maling told the story through again, then he ran his fingers through a boxful of halfpenny nails and shook his head, not in disbelief anymore but in amazement, subdued amazement to be sure, but any response beyond a reticent skepticism was unusual for Sherm, and the men gathered in the store—Lewis, Cecil, and Maling Mortimer himself, still wearing his bloodied apron because he’d been summoned in the middle of a rib job by Lewis to come next door so Sherm could hear it straight from the horse’s mouth—agreed that Sheriff Thompkins should be the next to hear about the goings-on.
The story, first told to Maling Mortimer by his sister-in-law, Edith Pockett Mortimer, a receptionist for Dr. Spalding, took various and somewhat contradictory shapes as it was passed among the members of the Citizens’ Band, but in Maling Mortimer’s hands the story was returned to its original version—if not exactly word for word the same as Edith had told Maling, then damn close. And it went something like this:
“Now you all know that Mister Hal Craxton left on one of his extended vacations last May, but what you didn’t know is that he was turned out of his own home, chased out by the live-in help—that’s right, the live-ins, none other. That Bennett fellow, the one who calls us trespassers when we track a deer onto Craxton land, why, he brandished a club and threatened to bash in Craxton’s skull. Then the housekeeper pitched in with a carving knife, and the rest of the folks let fly with pots and pans, making such a god-awful din that Hal Craxton had to hightail it off his property right in the middle of the night. And what do you think has happened in his absence? Why, the live-ins have taken over the Big House. ‘All this time’ is right, Cecil, we’ve been thinking nothing was new up at Craxton’s when as it turns out even the coloreds have settled themselves in the Big House as though they’re family, sleeping in those feather beds and wearing old lady Craxton’s hats and silks, playing like they’re wealthy as sin when the truth is they haven’t seen a week’s pay since the missus died back last Christmas.
“Which is why the live-ins went after Craxton in the first place: for four months he refused to pay them a dime for their work. They must have scared the devil out of him with their midnight posse because he hasn’t been heard from since that night. Left no instructions, no forwarding address, no nothing. Except, of course, the estate and all its furnishings, and the live-ins, being common folk, have claimed it as their own. I’d say they’ve all gone senseless, coloreds and whites boarding side by side, but that’s hardly the beginning. What philanderings have taken place at the Big House we may never know for certain, but there are intimations of godlessness, according to Edith, who got it from Dr. Spalding, who says the proof of it is what they did to the colored woman on the last full moon. Why, they dragged the laboring woman into the woods, and in a moonlit glade they danced in a circle around her and chanted witch chants while she birthed her baby. Well, witches or not, Sherm, it’s clear that things have gotten out of hand up there. Bennett’s boy came for Dr. Spalding yesterday morning because the colored woman split herself in the birthing and needed to be stitched up. Dr. Spalding went himself, since the midwife was tending to another patient, and after he was done with the colored gal he turned around to find that crazy old taxidermist half dead of fever, so he gave him some pills and told the old man to get straight into bed. Dr. Spalding had seen enough by then to want an explanation. He took Lore Bennett aside and asked him what the hell was going on, and Bennett told him the story I’ve just told you, never indicating for a moment that the goings-on were a source of shame. Just the opposite! He was busting with pride and even invited Dr. Spalding to a wedding party to celebrate his marriage to Ellen Griswood. That’s right, a wedding party at the Craxton estate, hosted by Mrs. Griswood and Mr. Bennett.”
“Mrs. and Mr. Bennett, you mean,” interjected Meade Ewell, the town clerk, who had entered the store unnoticed. Without another word he went straight to the back to fetch a rubber stamp from the stationery shelf and left a quarter on the counter before hurrying out, accidentally paying an extra five cents for the stamp, which he needed, the men learned later, to mark the date on Lore and Ellen Bennett’s marriage document, having lost the town’s official stamp after months of idleness. But Sherm never bothered to return the money, a small enough profit compared to the two dollars that Cecil Farr made later that morning, thanks to the newly betrothed Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, who came to his grocery store with their two youngsters, filled a basket with delicacies, and paid him in cash that had only minutes before been counted out by Lewis Gutekunst, in exchange for a pawned gold locket. And Maling himself made out like a bandit, charging Mrs. and Mr. Bennett seventy-five cents for what was supposed to be five pounds of choice sirloin but was in fact four point two pounds, the error attributable to the stealthy activity of Maling’s thumb on the scale.
By high noon, when the members of the Citizens’ Band gathered again for lunch, they agreed with Maling that the business up at Craxton’s place needn’t concern Sheriff Thompkins. The live-ins should be allowed to have some fun. “Hear, hear,” said Lewis softly, raising his glass of orangeade. “Hear, hear,” the others whispered, and tapped their glasses together in a quiet toast to anarchy.
* * *
The harp seal is not only the handsomest of all seals, it is also the species most valuable to man, literally worth its weight in gold, especially the babies, which are covered from nose to flipper tips with a soft, woolly, snow-white fur. The Craxton specimen, however, is an adult female, five or six years old at the time of her death and colored with yellowish patches—not exactly what an aristocratic lady would want to wear on her back as she wanders along Fifth Avenue. So this harp seal lives on into eternity with her hide intact. Boggio rubs her dusty glass eyes with his hanky before he drags the animal down from the platform, where it has sat and watched the world for the last thirteen years. The animal, so bulky in form, is surprisingly light—Boggio has no trouble carrying it across the hall and into the dining room. Lifting the seal is another matter, though, given the width of the body, so he has no choice but to leave the animal on the floor.
Next, he carries in the colorful macaw to preside at the head of the table. He positions the horn-beaked bird in its throne and slides over a moose-hoof nut bowl, giving the impression that the macaw is in the midst of a meal. To keep the macaw company, he carries out the peacock and the quetzal and sets them each in a chair.
Then Boggio lifts the cougar from the upper platform and after some thought drags the beauty into the front hall, where the tawny cat from now on will crouch, announcing with its snarl, Ye who enter here beware, for this is the Badlands, home of the prowling mountain lion, star of hundreds of thrilling adventure stories though in reality the cougar is a cowardly animal, easily found by dogs, chased into low trees, and shot.
But not here, not in the Badlands of the Manikin. Here, thanks to Boggio’s impulsive and uncontested decision to redecorate the house, the wild animals will reign. Lore and Ellen, along with their children, are still off in town getting hitched, Sylva and her family are upstairs, so Boggio may arrange the animals just as he pleases. The point is not to situate them in a natural setting. No, Boggio will turn the human habitat over to the beasts. A carnival of the dead. With the help of the pills Dr. Spalding gave him yesterday, Boggio feels as though he’s passed through a long, restful month of recuperation. He woke up this morning full of energy and purpose. He knows what it’s like to be a child lost in a strange, wonderful, terrifying world. Boggio’s carnival will be just as strange and wonderful and terrifying, with the fancy macaw presiding at meals and the cougar greeting visitors and the gibbons … where shall he put the pair of gibbons? Those delicate, shy primate-lovers, with faces so like tiny old men that Boggio feels a special kinship and wants to give them a privileged position. Why, they belong in bed, of course. Which bed? The only downstairs bedroom is the large one formerly occupied by the invalid Mrs. Craxton and now home to Lore Bennett, soon to be graced by the newlyweds. The nuptial bed will have a trial run, Boggio decides, and lifts the slender female from the embrace of her mate. He remembers with affection the difficulty he had in building the wiry, muscular manikin. The result of his efforts is a stunning specimen, not nearly as fierce as his later work yet lovely in her own way, with hands an astonishing six and a half inches long and arms stretching nearly five feet, equal in length to her supple legs. A beautiful, powerful creature, so perfect that she brings tears to Boggio’s eyes. He considers how much he’s missed in his life, specifically, the sight of a gibbon leaping, galloping down an open hillside in Borneo, catching herself with her hands, swinging her legs under and leaping again. Nor has he seen a cougar in the wild or watched seals cavorting in the surf. He has missed so much and now he has so little time left.
Nothing to do, old man, but to lose yourself in the carnival.
He carries in the male to join the female in bed, tucks them in, and returns to the living room. He transports the bats, the crocodile, the skunks and raccoons, the giant turtle to various corners of the house. Next he disperses the beetle collection along the windowsills, and while engaged in this work he notices that his fingers are twitching, his breath coming more rapidly than usual—attributable, he assumes, to the excitement rather than to the effort. He’s a naughty old fellow, isn’t he? King of the Badlands, and if the Founder were alive to see what Boggio has done to his little museum, he’d go after him with a whip.
At the orphanage school Boggio had worked his way through the long, tedious study of the System, as his teachers had called it. The System. Without it, the doors of Animate Nature would have remained locked to his curious mind. Beware of all chaotic jumbles of unrelated facts, he was warned. But here’s the fun of nature—in chaos rather than in classification. Forget the perfect System of Nature. Instead, wander through the carnival, give a personal how-do-you-do today, meet the individuals—curiosities indeed, when you take them one by one! Oh, Boggio is punch-drunk, feeling as deliciously mischievous as a little boy spreading glue on doorknobs. Crazy old Boggio. No scientist he! Boggio is a true artist, rebellious in spirit yet fearful that the carnival, his own creation, will prove too much for him.
But still he persists, distributing wild animals throughout the house. And by the time Mr. and Mrs. Bennett return, their baskets filled with such delicacies as pickled pigs’ feet and canned hearts of palm, the Manikin has been transformed.
* * *
What makes a successful party? Some experienced hosts and hostesses might make a list of necessary food items, such as:
18 turkeys
18 fattened pullets
the noix of 20 pheasants
45 partridges
72 stuffed larks
a garniture of cockscombs, truffles, mushrooms, olives, asparagus, croustades, sweetbreads, and mangoes
1,000 colorful petit fours
Others might suggest an abundance of drink, or, in the language of the day, coffin varnish, craw rot, horse liniment, tarantula juice, sheep-dip, nitric acid, hypo, belch.
Some would insist that no party is worth attending if champagne doesn’t flow from the faucets. Others would swear by a few prodigious strawberries dipped in chocolate. Still others would say that dress is all that matters. Or location. Or the guest list. Or the number of willing and available gentlemen. Or ladies.
In other words, there is little agreement on the essentials of a celebration. So when Mrs. Ellen Bennett, formerly Griswood, and her new husband set out to throw a party, they are, as Ellen puts it, at loose ends. Neither has had much experience with parties. Ellen doesn’t know where to begin, and when she finally does manage to open a jar of herring roe, the formidable task of preparation absorbs her so completely that she forgets what the party is all about.
Not until she stumbles in her ankle-length pleated skirt over the harp seal, nearly dropping the plate of canapés onto the floor, does the thought of fun occur to her. But the near accident is proof that she is inept at contriving fun for others. She is too diligent, too responsible. What are all these animals doing out, anyway? Only now does Ellen notice the invasion, and her mood, temporarily foul, brightens at the sight of the macaw poised to snatch a nut from the center of the moose hoof. She notices the bats clinging to the mantel, and in the hall, the giant turtle is planted in the middle of the floor like a huge stone mushroom, while by the door the cougar waits to leap upon the first visitor. For a moment Ellen imagines that she sees the tail twitch ever so slightly, then she shakes her head clear and exclaims aloud, “We’ve been taken over by animals!”
And by children. Watch out, here come Sylva’s boys, howling, sliding one after the other down the banister. Ellen tries to jump out of their way but little Manny bumps smack into her legs, looks up anxiously, sees her smile, and scampers after his brother.
The next thing Ellen knows, the front door flies open without a warning knock, and Red Vic stands before her, a bushel’s worth of roses in his arms.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Bennett!”
And behind Red Vic stands Sid Cheney, looking a bit more ragged than when he left last winter.
“What a wonderful surprise!” Ellen says, gathering the roses.
“Lore invited us,” Sid explains, hesitating on the threshold.
“I sent a wire from town yesterday,” explains Lore, appearing beside Ellen, sliding his arm around her waist. And now that Sid has his verification he slips past the newlyweds, announcing to anyone who cares that he, Sid Cheney, is starving and can anything be done about it?
So the celebration begins with backslapping, kisses, boisterous conversation. Sid scoops up a handful of nuts as he passes the macaw, casts a feckless “Howdy” at the bird, then moves into the kitchen, where Sylva’s boys, along with Junket and Peg, are plundering a box of chocolate-covered cherries. The adults join them, and soon they are all eating out of boxes and jars and drinking whiskey supplied by Lore. Peter enters the kitchen holding the bundle of his new daughter—named June after the month of her birth—and Sylva appears behind him, still walking slowly, as though the soles of her feet had been burned, but looking fresh and rested, eager to take over the preparations.
The next hour is full of rapturous sighs over the infant and not a small amount of ridicule directed at Lore—Ten years, ten long years it took him to get up the nerve to ask for Mrs. Griswood’s hand in marriage, eh, Lore, were you scared she woulda turned you down? Lore merely chuckles at their taunts, accepting as truth what is so obviously false—that he actually loved Ellen Griswood for ten years. Everyone knows he hardly noticed her for a decade, nor she him, but the lie generated by this celebration will persist: Lore Bennett and Ellen Griswood were destined to marry and must have loved each other at first sight.
Gradually the gathering moves outside and spreads across the lawn. It is a hot, still afternoon. Wherever the warm air hits a baked, solid surface—the terrace, for instance, or the Manikin’s shingled roof—a strip of air undulates in a liquid mirage. Everyone’s thirsty, and no sooner does the whiskey run out than a jug of pear wine is discovered in the garden. How it got there no one will ever know—or admit—but after Peter takes a swig and declares it potable, the wine becomes the beverage of choice. The group breaks up into twos and threes, and the conversation follows. As stories replace banter, those who aren’t telling settle down to listen.
On the terrace, Sylva nurses June and tells Peg the story of the birth.
By the spring, Red Vic tells Lore and Peter about a job that took him up north to Canada to pick up a shipment of skins for a Buffalo furrier.
On the front lawn, Sid tells Ellen about the sensational trial of Ruth Snyder, who was sentenced to the electric chair along with her lover, Judd Gray, for murdering her husband.
From the shore of Craxton’s Pond, Junket, Manny, and Cap skip pebbles across the surface. Junket describes how he threw his brand-new Maynard rifle into the water last fall, and when Manny says he doesn’t believe him, Junket tells the story again, in finer detail.
Red Vic describes how as he drove through the Algonquin Forest, a plane flying overhead spilled a huge cloud of pesticide into the trees. The dust turned the truck’s gray chassis yellow and made Lore cough something horrible. He’s had a sore throat ever since—and it happened nearly four weeks ago.
Sid explains what twenty-five thousand volts will do to a body.
Sylva says, “Make no mistake, Peg. Never try to manage on your own.” Peg lifts Gracie onto her lap and announces that she has other plans for herself, plans that don’t include children.
Junket doesn’t go on to tell how his father dove for the Maynard and nearly drowned.
“Melt you like a wax doll,” Sid explains, while Ellen scans the yard for Lore.
“Least you found work,” Peter says to Red Vic. “It’s good to know there are still jobs to be had out there.”
“Far and few,” Red Vic replies, kneeling to dip his cupped hands into the spring.
“Eyeballs slide down your face,” Sid says, trying to goad from the new bride an exclamation of disgust, but Ellen remains silent.
“What plans, Peg? What plans can a young woman have besides children?” Sylva asks in that weary tone of voice she assumes when she doesn’t care about the answer.
Peg waits for an ambition to define itself spontaneously, but when nothing comes to mind she says with a shrug, “Don’t know yet.”
Junket throws a pebble in a high arc and watches it drop into the water. He imagines that the Maynard lies directly below the concentric middle. He starts to take off his clothes. Manny and Cap back away a few steps, and Machine whines for something to fetch.
“You think that furrier needs other drivers?” Lore asks, examining a cluster of pea-sized grapes.
“He doesn’t need me anymore, that’s all I know. I haven’t had much luck finding work. My age doesn’t help. But Sid hasn’t done any better.”
“Unemployment’s down,” Peter points out.
“Down and going up,” Red Vic replies.
Junket squishes through the muskeg and mud until the water is up to his thighs, then he glides onto his belly, splashes crazily to bring the warmth back into his limbs. Once he’s become accustomed to the chill, he dives beneath the surface and begins combing through the water weeds for his lost treasure. Machine swims in circles above him.
Boggio, alone as usual and still inside the Manikin, flips through the Craxton family Bible in search of a long-forgotten verse.
To the west, the sky has darkened to a bruised turquoise.
Junket rises for a breath and dives again, trails a hand along the bottom in hopes of finding with his fingers what he cannot see. On shore Cap points to a grayish object about the size and shape of a pie plate floating on the surface. “Snapper!” he screams, and Manny joins in. “Snapper! Snapper! Snapper!”
The Book of Isaiah, Boggio recalls. The verse he’s looking for is in Isaiah.
Red Vic, Peter, and Lore all agree that Smith is preferable to Hoover and Roosevelt is the state’s only hope. Lore, who considers himself a man determinedly without prejudices, privately reassures himself that he’ll be luckier at finding work than either Peter or Vic, since he is white.
When Junket rises again, he hears the boys shouting. He waves to them and dives. Machine barks in delight.
Ellen notices a brush of lightning in the western sky. Sid has given up trying to disgust her. He’s singing rather aimlessly now—“You have a smile like an umbrella…”—trailing Ellen as she walks toward the terrace.
Boggio sinks back into the velvet wingback chair. “‘They shall name it No Kingdom there,’” he reads aloud, “‘and all its princes shall be nothing.’”
The men wander back up the steps and arrive on the terrace just as Ellen and Sid round the corner of the house. The infant has fallen asleep in Sylva’s lap. Gracie is following the journey of a ladybug along Peg’s forefingers, across her hand, over the joint of her wrist, and up her arm. Fly away, fly away, fly away home! Peg sends the ladybug into the air with a gentle puff. The wind carries it off. A distant rumbling of thunder to the west warns them of the approaching storm.
“Where are the boys?” Sylva asks.
“Down at the pond,” Lore says and offers to go for them. Peter hurries off in the opposite direction to bring in the cows.
Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches.…
Cap and Manny aim rocks at the snapping turtle but keep missing their target. Junket rises with a forked branch, tosses it for the dog, and dives again.
The storm eclipses the sun, casting the earth in twilight. Behind Firethorn’s summit, lightning pulses rapidly. The thunder sounds like rumblings of pain escaping through clenched lips.
Lore follows the sounds of children’s voices and finds Sylva’s boys on shore. “Look there,” Cap says. “Snapper!” Manny announces. Junket kicks to the surface, and Lore calls him in. “Snapper!” Manny shouts importantly, though it’s only a piece of broken bark, Lore knows. He doesn’t correct Manny, since the threat persuades Junket to swim back to shore. He reaches the shallows and stands, beads of water dripping down his heaving chest. Beautiful boy, Lore thinks. Back on land, Junket won’t meet his father’s eyes as he rubs himself dry with his shirt. It occurs to Lore that Junket was probably searching for the Maynard, and he feels sorry and oddly embarrassed for the boy.
“‘Yea, there shall the night hag alight and find herself a resting place. There shall the owl nest and lay and hatch and gather her young in her shadow.…’”
Lore leads the way back to the Manikin, Cap and Manny chirping about the snapping turtle—big as a goat, big enough to take off Junket’s foot.
Rain hits with fierce suddenness, surprising everyone, and in the few seconds it takes to reach the backdoor they are drenched, all except little June, who is bundled in a cotton towel and clutched against Sylva’s breast. Lore and the boys dash in a minute later, and soon the party peaks in laughter again as Peter arrives hugging the jug of pear wine for dear life.
“Rain on the wedding day means wealth!” Sid roars, and he starts singing his smile-like-an-umbrella song again. Ellen drinks a full glass of sweet wine as though it were lemonade, feels dizzy, and lowers herself into a chair. The men take advantage of her momentary incapacity and lift her chair above their shoulders, carrying her in the wobbly throne out of the kitchen and through the hall while the children scream and dance behind them and Sylva claps and Sid keeps singing. Round the procession winds through the dining room, past Boggio in the library, who tags along in the rear, across the hall, through the living room that looks strangely unfurnished without its assembly of animals, around the conservatory, back into the living room, Boggio holding a baby skunk on one shoulder, a weasel on the other, Sylva’s boys shrieking, Ellen slightly terrified by all the ruckus, the thunder crashing against the sides of the house, the sky spitting through open windows, joy as engulfing as a flood. Of course no one hears the automobile skid along the gravel drive, no one notices the two figures dashing toward the house, though from her perch Ellen does see the front door swing open, but the sight robs her of her voice, and she can only stare in horror as the giddy revelers move out of the living room into the hall, where they find themselves facing, across the varnished green hump of the turtle, none other than Hal and Lilian—née Stone—Craxton.
The celebration is over. The master has returned with a wife. Nothing will ever be the same.