In Arkansas: Whittling Away

By Gregory Jaynes

On the square in Marshall, seat of Searcy County, Ark., men sit around in front of Buck Mays' store whittling down sticks of cedar. They do not whittle an object--a slingshot, say, or a whistle--so much as they just whittle away the stick. They make long, precise strokes, and the shavings curl before the blade like something delicate being wound. When the stick is reduced to an aromatic pile on the sidewalk, they go and get another.

Conversation turns on births, deaths, sicknesses, and the disease and the stubbornness in cattle. Nearly everybody in the county keeps cows, an arrangement that ties them up at first light and last but leaves the middle part of life open for discussion. And nearly everybody in the county is religious, religious in the sense that not only idle brains but idle hands as well are considered the devil's workshop.

Whittling.

In inclement weather, or just when they decide it is time to get up and move, the whittlers whittle elsewhere, particularly in the barbershop operated by Don and Jan Blackwell. The Blackwells do not mind, even though sometimes all their waiting chairs are filled, but no one asks for a haircut. A sign above the mirrors says, ALTHOUGH WE TAKE TURNS, FEEL FREE TO CHOOSE YOUR OWN BARBER.

This is to let the customers know that their feelings will not be hurt if someone shaggy elects to be shorn by Jan rather than Don, or the other way round. A regular haircut with nothing fancy is $3, and a "style cut" is $4. A style cut with a shampoo is $7. All children who get their hair cut are given a penny to deposit in the bubble-gum machine. To take to the barber chair in Marshall is to take to the stage before an audience of whittlers.

Jan was giving R.W. Thurman a flat top the other day, while Chester Hickle, his baldness concealed by a Harry Truman-style hat, carved on a stick. R.W. was explaining that he still lives in Paragould, 153 miles away, while his wife lives in Marshall, where she was born. Three years ago, after 24 years of marriage, R.W.'s wife decided to come back to where she was from. R.W. sees her frequently, but he cannot move himself to be by her side always. "I got things back there I just can't turn loose of," he says.

While R.W. was saying that, Chester Hickle was saying to no one in particular that one man out in the county "is a genius whittler. He whittled a wagon and a team of horses. He whittled a fiddler. He whittles elephants with ears afloppin'. He whittles mules with ears that work too." Still talking just to the air, Chester got up and said, "My arthritis. If I sit too long I have to get out and stir around a bit." On his way out the door, he passed a man who was just sticking his head in to say hello to Jan.

"What's going on out at Wood Springs this morning?" Jan asked.

"Not a thing," said the greeter, "but it might have picked up a little after I left."

Another man came in from the street and asked to use the toilet, and Don Blackwell said, "Yes sir. Help yourself." The radio was blaring a country refrain: "Let's go out in a blaze of glory." Three whittlers were sitting in a row, addressing their sticks.

Chester Hickle came back in and offered a stranger a stick and a knife, saying whittling keeps you calm and keeps you out of trouble. The stranger had been reading the newspaper, the Marshall Mountain Wave. Correspondent Sybel Smiley, writing the news from Nubbin Hill, had noted that "we have some very muddy roads again. There isn't any bottom to anywhere now. The sun is trying to shine some, which looks good." Correspondent Rosie Ragland from over at Red Oak reported that "Pearl Davis and I purchased 15 hens from Mary Redman Saturday night." For the record, Ragland also wrote: "Norma Patterson has the shingles." Mrs. Hartley Williams' word from Archey Valley was "I am feeling some better after being in bed most of last week. I can be up now and do light housework."

In the Morning Star community, "Theresa and Larry Jackson just returned from a Bahamian cruise they won playing Chevrolet bingo. The cruise lasted five days." In Pindall, "Edith Vaughn has a new roof and two porches over her trailer house. It looks good." In Oxley, "Mr. and Mrs. Junior Harness took two loads of pigs to Thayer, Mo., last week. They were nice pigs." In the classifieds: "If your cows could talk, they would say buy a registered

Angus bull, the long, tall kind, from Jim Hawkins' farms." The stranger put down the newspaper, took Chester Hickle's knife and whittled like a fool.

Sharon Caughron came in and said, "I'm so sick of cows." She said she had been kicked while milking one and that she had gone and bought a "screw-down kicker." This contraption, when tightened, puts pressure on the cow's flanks, making it impossible for the cow to kick. "So now I screw it down till her eyes pop out, and she don't kick me any more."

A blue-haired woman with a new skillet came in, insulted the whittlers, told them to sweep up their mess, took a seat and looked for all the world like she was waiting on the end of time.

Sharon Caughron got up and left in the company of Bernice Drewry, calling back over her shoulder that they were "going to paint the town." "Red?" asked Jan Blackwell. "We haven't picked the color yet," said Sharon.

Chester Hickle, on his feet again on account of his arthritis, looked out of the window and said, "There goes Howard Tree. That fellow's got a brilliant memory. He can tell you everything that happened from the time he was ten years old."

A businessman came in saying he had been to Kansas City. "They got Coke machines there that talk to you. They say, Thank you' and 'Have a nice day' and 'Sorry, that nickel is bent,' that sort of thing. There were country boys there buying Coke they didn't want, just to get the machines talking."

Another man poked his head in the door, then walked away. Don Blackwell, immediately realizing that the potential customer thought he had a long wait since the shop was full of people, ran after the fellow, explaining that the shop was full of people, not customers, and that he would be next. The man came back for a $4 cut.

Some young people who live in a cave came in. They were Kyle and Jill Ingram and their children, Tony and Erik, and their friends, Donald Loenichen and Kimberly Kerr, who are engaged. "We're just basically into self-sufficiency," said Kyle.

"We're not nuts. We want to live in both worlds." He said the cave was an eighth of a mile long and had "nice vaulted ceilings."

Somebody asked how they had made it through the winter, and Donald said, "Well, we started with a kerosene heater.

That didn't work too well. We went to freezing to death, but that didn't last long.

Mr. Blackwell here built us a wood stove, and it worked out all right."

Don Blackwell washed and cut Kimberly's hair, and Jan Blackwell washed and cut Jill's. The men took the children out to buy kites. Across the street, old people were playing dominoes in the basement of the courthouse. An elderly man was walking round the square whacking headless parking meters with his cedar stick. He said he used to walk around whacking them when the meter tops were attached, but the city had the meters taken off because they cost too much to keep in good repair. "It used to make a bigger racket before they cut 'em down."

Sharon Caughron came back in and said she had a cow die "with the scours."

The scours are diarrhea. "I had some scour stopper in a bucket, but it was too late." Chester Hickle wandered back in, recalling a violent time, years ago, when a "man as innocent as you or me was over there in the cafe eating a bowl of soup or chili and they just shot him off the stool."

Chester did not go into details. Don Blackwell said that all the stories that are told in his barbershop are told time and time again. "It's a perpetual-motion thing."

At 5 o'clock, the Blackwells close shop and go home to tend their own cows.

The last thing they do is sweep the wood shavings separate from the clumps of clipped hair. They take the cedar home to their farmhouse and use it to start a sweet-scented fire.

-- By Gregory Jaynes