Ok, I guess I'm reading a chapter every workday and posting about it. That's the way it seems so far. Hope I can keep it up. I can read faster than that, you know, it's just more fun this way. We'll see.
Chapter Two we're in to Fort Smith. It's interesting that Mattie has so little regard for the town. "Seems like it belongs in Oklahoma," she says. I've thought that. My little joke about the weather here is that nobody told me that Fort Smith is so close to Oklahoma. You know, where "the wind comes sweeping down the plains!" If you know me at all then you know I'm no fan of the weather in Fort Smith. Did Fort Smith have the "nation's most modern waterworks?" There are still lots of houses made of fieldstones, as Mattie points out. Mine is.
I'm liking Mattie lots, of course. She's determined and wise beyond her years. She dresses down the guy on the train that is rude to Yarnell, she's impatient with people, and she's determined to do what needs to be done. She's wise: "People who will not steal big things will often steal little things."
Some description to notice--the man at the table is "a long-backed man with a doorknob head and a mouthful of prominent teeth." Nice. This is the guy who travels about "selling pocket calculators." Is that an abacus or a slide rule? At the boardinghouse they sit around telling "yellow fever jokes." Probably a collection of those somewhere still, huh?
Lots of good language "you squirrelheaded son-of-a-bitch," and "I have never been one to flinch or crawfish when faced with an unpleasant task."
First description of Rooster Cogburn, "a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don't enter into his thinking. He loves to pull a cork." Wonder which parts of that description makes Mattie want to talk to him?
Biblical allusions: Mattie has "her father's business" to attend to.
At the end she pulls her daddy's slicker over her to keep warm. Aw.
I was impresesed w/Mattie bec. she watched a hanging. I thought that took true grit.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Mattie's comments about Fort Smith belonging more to Oklahoma than Arkansas....
ReplyDeleteThat has long been an issue in this state.
There was an infamous incident in which an editorialist for one of the daily papers out of Little Rock opined that Fort Smith was basically part of Oklahoma anyway, and thus didn't matter one whit in Arkansas' state politics.
But this has been a long-standing contention inside Arkansas.
I'll dig up who wrote the column.
I like how it describes enough of the scenery to picture Ft. Smith as hella way smaller than what it is today, but also still pretty big for a town in Arkansas. It says it should be in Oklahoma with all the dust and stuff. But actually going in Oklahoma it takes out some of the stereotypes by saying it had a lot of trees everywhere
ReplyDeleteTry googling Yellow Fever Jokes and notice the diffrence in what you find now and what they might have been yarning at the table at the Monarch Boarding House.
ReplyDeleteOklahoma did have plenty of trees. A great number of cases Judge Parker tried were over illegal logging issues in Indian Territory by white men from Arkansas. Parker was sympathetic to the tribes and recognized their rights, often to the chagrin of the other white people in charge or wanting to have a say in how this little section of the West was run.
I can understand why Mattie has such a bad taste in her mouth when it comes to Fort Smith. Her memory of the place will never be a good one. Her father was murdered and the townsfolk did nothing. She also had problems receiving help from the city police. Even though she may not like Fort Smith, she still wants to bring Chaney back because she knows that Judge Parker is notorious for hanging men like him. This is exactly what she wants. As far as pulling her father's slicker over herself, I believe she finds great comfort in that. After all, she is alone.
ReplyDelete