Up in the Old Hotel (Vintage Classics) by Joseph Mitchell

Author:Joseph Mitchell [Mitchell, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781448113491
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-07-04T22:00:00+00:00

Uncle Dockery and the Independent Bull

I OFTEN FIND it comforting to think of Uncle Dockery Fitzsimmons, a serene old bright-leaf tobacco farmer who lives in Black Ankle County, about six miles from Stonewall. He is the only man I have ever known who has absolutely no respect for the mechanical genius of Western civilization. One day, when I was about fifteen, we were fishing Little Rump River for blue bream and a motorboat chugged by, scaring all the fish to the bed of the river, and Uncle Dockery said, ‘Son, the only inventions that make sense to me are the shotgun, the two-horse wagon, the butter churn, and the frying pan. Sooner or later such contraptions as the motorboat will drive the whole human race into Dix Hill.’ Dix Hill is a suburb of Raleigh, where the North Carolina State Asylum for the Insane is located.

Uncle Dockery is still opposed to the automobile. ‘I don’t want to go nowhere,’ he used to say, ‘that a mule can’t take me.’ His hatred of automobiles embraces people who ride in them. One summer afternoon we were sitting on his veranda, eating a watermelon, when a neighbor ran up the road and said, ‘There’s been a terrible auto accident up on the highway, Mr Fitzsimmons.’ The news pleased Uncle Dockery. He placed his rasher of watermelon on the rail of the veranda, smiled broadly, and asked, ‘How many killed?’ ‘Four,’ said the neighbor. ‘Well, that’s just fine,’ said Uncle Dockery. ‘Where were they going in such a rush?’ ‘They were going to the beach for a swim,’ said the neighbor. Uncle Dockery nodded with satisfaction and said, ‘I guess they figured the Atlantic Ocean wouldn’t wait.’

Uncle Dockery did not often leave his farm, but once, during a series of revival meetings at the General Stonewall Jackson Baptist Church, he spent the night in Stonewall at the home of his married daughter. In the middle of the night there was a frightful uproar in his room, and his daughter and her husband ran in to rescue him. They thought someone was trying to murder him. They found he had got out of bed to get a drink of water and had pulled the electric-light cord loose from the ceiling. He said, ‘I tried to turn the damned thing on, but I couldn’t somehow seem to make it work. I thought maybe if I grabbed hold of it and gave it a jerk, the light would come on.’ He was so maddened by his mistake that he wouldn’t spend the balance of the night in the room. He asked his daughter to take some blankets and spread a pallet for him outside on the porch. In the morning he denounced her for having electric lights installed in her house. ‘A fat-pine knot or a kerosene lamp was good enough for Grandpa, and it was good enough for Pa, and it was good enough for Ma, and by God, Miss Priss, it’s good enough for me,’ Uncle Dockery told her.

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