THE CONSTRAINED ROMANCE OF UNCLE ERNEST
Pap's conviction that family members should not meddle in affairs of the heart was on his mind, and showed again in the following letter. It was written long after the death of his older brother, J. Ernest Durham, generally referred to as "Uncle Ernest," but the memory of a romance impeded by an overzealous family was still vivid.
April 25, 1944
Dear Frank: . . . Long, long ago I wanted a diamond like you want a bride. And so, I bought and sold calves, colts and horses; hauled campers to and from Eel River Falls; graded the old ball park at DePauw; etc., etc., and worked in staid, dependable, conservative, old Russellville Bank at $2 per week & board and clothes (I'll say it was conservative—Uncle Ernest started it in 1893 and had his first note loss in 1907. . . ). I spliced my money, went to Walk's (the old tune jeweler at Indianapolis) and bought myself one. They said it would be a good investment. They were only half right. It was an investment . . . Then the ring and I went on to college, and time went on.
Uncle Ernest liked the looks of said diamond—but not the price— and from time to time would borrow it. He had smaller fingers and would wrap white grocer's twine around the base until the ring about fit; then go to the Bankers' State Convention at Indianapolis, where, in trying to be a good fellow, he would eat a lot of cheese, pickles, blind robins, drink maybe a couple bottles of beer, and come home with an upset stomach and a hell of a headache. Thence to Billy Gardner's drug store for a new box of acetanilide.
Eventually, Frank Kennedy's girl went to some woman's college in Illinois to take music. Her teacher was a spinster of questionable age, named Colgate, from New York, New York. It was claimed, either by her or Frank's wife, she was a kinswoman to the dental cream and dirt-removing family of that name who have the big clock in Jersey across from New York City. Mother and Aunt Margaret were inclined to doubt it. Anyway, the teacher came home with her pupil at the end of the year for a visit. Uncle Ernest was invited down for supper next night.
That took a good deal of preparation. He spent most of the day away from the Bank getting ready. Frank Kennedy, the pupil's father, and host of the evening, was our leading barber. He cut Uncle Ernest's hair and shaved him. Uncle Ernest filled the galvanized wash tub extra full and took a thorough bath behind the kitchen stove. That took off about everything except the ink stains on his fingers. Mrs. Forgey, who with her husband, Jim Forgey, kept house for Uncle Ernest, recommended lemon juice, or maybe it was green tomato juice, for finger ink stains, but said she couldn't do anything about the ink stains on his best suit which she was cleaning and pressing. Uncle Ernest had won a bottle of cologne or Florida Water in some sort of a shooting gallery attached to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show at the Chicago World's Fair in '93. He hadn't used much of it, so he doused a little of that here and there. . . All told they did a pretty fair job of grooming. The evening was a success and much praise was given Mrs. Kennedy's salt-rising bread and culinary art.
Uncle Ernest had a Model T of several years back. He had used it hard, and one day, trying to head-off a calf in the barn lot out at the old home farm east of town, had run through the gate with the door open. The door hit the gate post and was torn off. He had to tie it shut with baling wire. That meant he had to keep it shut and get in from the other side all the time. Most of the fenders held their respective places by virtue of more baling wire. He had also misjudged the height of some limbs on a tree up in the north pasture, and torn a hole in the rubberized textile top that leaked when it rained anything above a heavy dew. The back end of the coupe was loaded with an assortment of axes, grubbing hoes, pitch forks, spades, post hole diggers and so forth. Besides that, it had the mud of three counties plastered inside and out, and the upholstery showed sizable patches of cotton wadding. The car in general looked bad enough, and entirely too tough for social usage, but the thing that disqualified it absolutely for his impending purpose was that he had parked it overnight under a blackbird roost, and anybody who had done that in mulberry and cherry time knows what I mean.
Uncle Ernest had anticipated the visit by swapping his Ford for my new chummy little Saxon roadster—35 miles to the gallon—and wherein, a woman companion couldn't keep very far away from you.
Their first trip was decorous and above suspicion. They went to the Rockville Chautauqua to hear William Jennings Bryan, and Cole Younger the famous outlaw and bank robber, lecture on "Crime doesn't pay." They got in by 9 p.m.
Their next foray was a bit more questionable. I think they went to a box supper over toward Montezuma. In order that there be no confusion and Uncle Ernest bid-in the wrong box, she pasted a picture of that women's college on the outside of her box. Uncle Ernest bid-in the right box and got to eat supper with her. They got in just after midnight, according to Frank Kennedy's wife's timetable.
However, any necessary atonement was made next day, Lord's Day,
when they went to Crawfordsville and heard Dr. McIntosh,
President of Wabash College, read his "Shakespeare, the Apollo
Belvidere of English Letters."
Things gradually went from late to later, until one night they didn't get in at all—not until after sun-up. They had succeeded in running my Saxon off the road, sprung an axle and busted a light and fender, in a suspiciously out-of-the-way place between Deer's Mill and the Shades of Death. They said they got lost, and confused going downhill. I agree on the latter. Anyway, they hadn't crossed the state line.
Russellville opinion of the accident differed. It would. Suffice to say, no run was attempted on the trusty old Private Institution; the next reconnaissance by State Examiners showed said Bank to be in its usual sound condition; and a scrutiny of Uncle Ernest's balance sheet showed no unusual strain on his normal account.
The scene shifts to Greencastle: Uncle Ernest was bringing his "fair Calantha" to call on Mother and Aunt Margaret in the parlor of the old brick, where a solid line of Paris Green fringed the red carpet, unsullied these many months by human feet. The horse- hair upholstered furniture stood where I last saw it five years before. Aunt Margaret's painting masterpiece of 1884 still hung on the west wall, showing castle, moat and drawbridge (and the fair lady in green riding habit riding the horse down from the castle to the drawbridge hadn't made any mileage since then). On the east wall hung Aunt Margaret's effort of 1885 in paint on red velvet. It was intended to delineate our National Bird—the American Eagle—however, something had happened to her measurements at the time, or the noble bird had developed a pronounced goiter meantime.
Aunt Jennie Black, she of the piercing black eyes, who looked with suspicion on any thing or happening outside the confines and regulations of the Presbyterian Church, had been called by Mother to sit in—a job she was never known to flee from when it was her duty, which it always was.
Uncle Ernest had asked me to be on hand, probably for moral support in the event our womenfolk got out of hand.
The inquest got off to a good start. Pleasantries were passed all around until I was hoping against my better judgment. But alas, in her enthusiasm and heightened conversation, our fair caller, in an unguarded moment, dropped the fact she was a Red Cross worker in World War I, and had passed out cigarettes to the soldiers in France. Great God! I saw Mother's bosom swell, Aunt Margaret's lip twitch like it does just before she evades an unpleasant question or is getting ready to give a lecture on morality and church attendance; and Aunt Jennie's spinster chest flatten out flatter than usual, and I knew from now on the meeting was to be an inquisition in the real medieval meaning of that word.
Eventually conversation lagged, good-byes were said, the guests departed. The trio went into a caucus before I could get out of the room, and I heard Mother pronounce sentence: "We don't need any female cigarette distributors in this family." How times have changed!
That Fall, our Red Cross worker taught in Buffalo. Uncle Ernest got off for a short trip to San Antonio, but caught the wrong train and landed in Buffalo. Next Spring she taught in Cleveland. Again, Uncle Ernest headed for San Antonio, got the wrong train, but this time found out his error in time to get off at Cleveland.
Last Chapter: Uncle Ernest died in 1931. As Executor, I went through all his effects. Away back behind everything, I found a dusty Indiana National Bank canvas sack once used to express silver dollars and fractional silver coins. It was full of envelopes about the size of a two-thirds grown postal card, all addressed in the same handwriting, and all tied up in packages with grocer's soft white twine. I didn't know the handwriting, but eventually caught the full signature. I hadn't tried to read the letters—just sifted through them to make sure the envelopes contained only letters. Shortly, I came to one, the opening sentence of which caught my eye: "I am terribly lonesome tonight, Dear."
I quit reading. They weren't intended for Executors. I took off my glasses and sifted all the remaining letters one by one into a handy banana hamper. Some had snapshots in them. I took everything out and burned it. Somehow, I felt pretty bad. . . As ever, "Pap"