Vance Randolph, From an Ozark Holler (Vanguard Press, 1933) — Public Domain
The summer hotel on the new highway near Durgenville was called the Hillbilly House, although the manager and most of the help came from St. Louis, and practically all of the patrons were city people. The main building did have an old-fashioned rail fence around it, though, and the walls were hung with deer antlers, old rifles, powder horns and other pioneer relics. The tiny “bedroom and bath” cottages, which surrounded the main hall, were built of logs in crude imitation of the old hillbilly cabins. But the only real hillbillies who ever visited the place, so far as I know, were those who came down occasionally to sell garden-truck and other produce at the kitchen door.
I used to stroll over to Hillbilly House once in a while, especially on the evenings when the so-called “country dances” were featured. It always amused me to see a lot of city folk stumbling through the complicated figures of a square dance, to music furnished by a group of Jewish boys from St. Louis, transformed into a “hillbilly orchestra” simply by dressing them up in overalls and cowhide boots. The waitresses looked very trim in their starched gingham frocks, with pretty little sunbonnets hanging down their backs, but they certainly didn’t bear much resemblance to farmers’ daughters.
One of the girls at the lunch-counter pleased me, however, and I often stopped to talk with her when business was slack. She was known as Blossom, and it appeared that she had lived in Joplin, and that we had many old acquaintances in common.
“There’s a laugh in this hillbilly stuff, all right,” said Blossom, “but what’s a girl to use for money? The boys that come here are used to getting everything free, and saving their nickels for sandwiches. It makes my ass tired”—and she wiggled her plump posterior derisively as she answered the cook’s bell.
“The best bet I’ve seen around this joint,” she told me on another occasion, “is old man Turney, that brings the whiskey on Wednesdays. He wants to take me up the mountain and show me his still—anyhow, that’s what he says.”
I laughed a little at the idea of poor old Groundhog Turney ever showing this young woman anything, but just then some tourists demanded Blossom’s attention, and I walked on out of the place and thought no more about it.
About a week later I had occasion to visit Hillbilly House again, and this time Blossom was missing from her accustomed place at the lunch-counter.
“When does Blossom come on?” I asked the beefy Venus who brought my coffee. She grinned tolerantly.
“Another of these posy-pickers, eh? They been coming in all day. Well, Blossom has blowed—the boss give her the boot Wednesday. She got lit up like a high mass, and I guess she dragged it back to Joplin with one of the boy-friends.”
And so I never thought to see Blossom again, but the very next day I heard the dogs barking, and looked out to see her trudging up the trail toward my cabin. She was incredibly grimy and briar-scratched, her clothes were torn, and her flimsy shoes and stockings were in ruins. She sank down on the porch with a little groan.
“You hurt?” I asked. She shook her head, but said nothing.
I brought out a bottle of whiskey and poured a stiff drink, which she tossed off without a chaser, although the water-bucket and gourd stood at her elbow.
“Listen, big boy, you look like a good guy, and I want you to get me out of a jam.”
I poured her another drink. “What is it you want me to do, Blossom?”
She tossed off the drink, and wiped her dirty face with a still dirtier handkerchief.
“I’m busted, big boy,” she said, “and I want you to get my suitcase from that cheat in the hotel. And then I want you to take me to Joplin, and I don’t want to be seen going through that chicken-manure dump they call Durgenville, either.”
It cost me two dollars to get the bag, and the hotel clerk winked lewdly as he gave it to me. When I returned to the cabin Blossom had swept the floor, made up my bed and washed the breakfast dishes, but I could see no great change in her own appearance. She fell upon the cheap suitcase with a whoop of delight, and began pulling out various articles of feminine attire.
“Lend me a towel, big boy,” she cried, “and I’ll get me a bath in the creek—it won’t take five minutes. And for God’s sake stick around, will you, and shoo these hard-tailed hillbillies off till I get my clothes on again,” and with that she started blithely for the pool, flinging off her garments en route.
Blossom was not troubled by any false modesty, and as I sat on the bank I reflected somewhat morosely upon the psychology of these matters. Why is it that a glimpse of a well-turned leg, or even a shapely shoulder may be provocative no end, while the spectacle of a naked girl sitting in a creek and scrubbing her body with green soap is definitely anaphrodisiac?
As we spun along the highway toward Joplin, Blossom told me the story of her most recent adventure.
“It was old man Turney, the one you call Groundhog,” she said. “The old devil got me tight, and we went out for a little ride, and the next thing I knew it was broad daylight, and we were up in his cabin on top of the mountain. My God, big boy, I never saw such a place in my life! There wasn’t no car, there wasn’t no road, there wasn’t no nothing—just me and old man Turney in the dirtiest house I ever slept in.
“I wanted to come to town right now, but he just laughed and said for me to go ahead, if I could find the road. And I says how far is it? and he says only about thirty miles, and the nearest neighbor twelve miles down the mountain! I hollered and bawled and cried and cussed, but what could I do? The old rube just sat there and laughed at me.”
“Well, we stayed there four days before old Turney turned me loose, and I don’t mind telling you I was orrie-eyed most of the time. He wasn’t stingy with his liquor, I’ll say that much for him.”
At this point we took a drink from my flask, and washed it down with some soda-pop purchased at a wayside filling-station.
“No,” she said a moment later, “I don’t want to make any trouble for Groundhog. The truth is, I kind of liked the old devil.” Her hard eyes softened a bit.
“I guess he meant all right, at that. He wanted to marry me, which is more than most of ’em do. But Christ, big boy, how could I live in a place like that? And he’s too old, anyhow”—and she laughed as she snuggled against my shoulder in the flattering assurance that I was not too old.
“The old man swore he was coming up to Joplin after me,” she went on, “but I fixed that all right. I just told him my real name was Avis Carpenter, and I worked in the Elite Beauty Shoppe! Avis always does me dirt every time she gets a chance, and I sure am glad to get back at her once. Lord, won’t she feel cheap when old Groundhog Turney busts into the Elite, hollering ‘Avis’ through those whiskers?” And Blossom wriggled with ecstatic laughter at the very thought.
That was the last trip I made to Joplin for several months, but when I did pass that way again I inquired for Blossom at the rooming-house.
When I knocked at the designated door she called out “Come in” pleasantly enough, but on recognizing me she sprang up and burst into such a torrent of profanity that I was quite taken aback. I was just backing out of the place when she smiled ruefully, and patted my arm as of yore.
“Don’t mind me, big boy—God knows it ain’t your fault. But whenever I see anything that reminds me of that Hillbilly place I just go nuts for a minute. You remember the run-in I had with old man Turney, and how I told him my name was Avis Carpenter?”
I answered in the affirmative.
“Well, I sure was the champion sucker of the world that day, and I’ve kicked myself till I can’t sit on cushions. Did you hear what old Groundhog done? He died, that’s what he done, and he made a will, and he left Avis two thousand dollars! Oh, my God, when I think of that lying, stinking, two-faced, man-stealing bitch spending my money—” and this time Blossom rose to such rock-shivering heights of malediction that I was really upset.
It is not well for a mere man to look upon a woman’s heart, torn by such bitter pangs of grief and anger and remorse. So I slipped quietly away from that house of evil, and left poor Blossom to nurse the greatest sorrow of her life alone.