for came to me on their own.
One day after the ewes were sheared, when Elton Penn and Henry and I hauled the bagged wool to market, we ran into Yeager Stump. Something was said about dancing. Maybe Elton mentioned that Henry and I
were going to a dance, or had been to one; maybe he was complaining,
as he sometimes did, joking, but only half joking, that when we danced
late into the night we were no account in the daytime. Whatever was
said, it reminded Mr. Stump of Uncle Andrew.
"Boys," he said, and there was laughter in his eyes though he did not
laugh aloud, "I've seen your uncle Andrew too drunk to walk, but I never
saw him too drunk to dance."
Later it was Mr. Stump, leaning to talk to me through a car window,
his eyes filled with that same quiet, reminiscent, almost tender unuttered
laughter, who told me two little bits of Uncle Andrew's poetry. "Your
uncle Andrew said that when he was with a woman and that old extremity came to him, every hair in his bee-hind was a jew's harp playing a different tune." Mr. Stump's voice recovered exactly Uncle Andrew's jazzy
intonation. "He said a big covey of quail flew out his bunghole one bird
at a time."
And then Mr. Stump did laugh aloud, briefly. He clapped his hand onto
the metal windowsill and straightened up. "Well, he was something.
There never was another one like him."
When I went away to Lexington to the university, forty years after
Uncle Andrew's failed expedition there, I continued my checking account
at the Independent Farmers Bank at Port William. A number of times
when I wrote out a check for a woman salesclerk, the lady would look at
my signature and the name of the town, and she would say -it was
invariably the same sentence -"I knew an Andrew Catlett once."
"He was my uncle," I would say.
And then she would say, "He was such a dancer!" Or "Oh, how that man
could dance!" Or "I just loved to dance with him! He was so handsome."
They always spoke of him as a dancer. They always smiled in remembering him. Speaking of him, they always sounded younger than they
were, and a little dreamy.
One day in Lexington I cashed a check at Scoop Rawl's Ice Cream Parlor. Scoop himself was at the cash register. He looked at my signature.
"Andrew Catlett," he said. "Port William. I knew an Andrew Catlett from
down there."
"Yessir," I said. "He was my uncle."
He looked at me over his glasses. "Your uncle. God almighty, we had
some times!"
I said, "Yessir," hoping he would say more, and he did, a little. He had
known Uncle Andrew, apparently, not during his brief visit to Lexington
as a student, but after his marriage, when he was traveling for a distillery.
'Andrew had a girl he called Sweetie Pie. He'd squall for her when he
was drunk and you could hear him half a mile: 'Sweetie Pie! "'
I knew how he sounded. I could hear that raucous mating call rising
in the midst of the late-night fracas and hilarity of some Lexington blind
tiger as Uncle Andrew hooked cute little Sweetie Pie with his right arm
and pulled her into his lap. During my college years also I encountered a
woman who had lived near us in Hargrave when I was a child. She had
been beautiful when she was young and had been married to an old man.
Uncle Andrew, she told me, laughing, had said to her, "When that old
son of a bitch is dead, I'm going to stomp on his grave until he's in there
good and tight, and then I'm going to get straight into bed with you."
She told me too of the midnight when Uncle Andrew and his cronies
in their mating plumage, transcendently drunk, burst into Momma-pie's
bedroom, and Uncle Andrew snapped on the light. "Wake up, Mommapie! We've bred all the women, cows, yo sheep, mares, and mare mules
-and now, by God, we're going to breed you!"
In spite of Yeager Stump's later claim that they did whatever they
thought of, I do not believe that this actually happened; if it had, Uncle
Andrew's moments of retrospective self-knowledge and regret would
One day after the ewes were sheared, when Elton Penn and Henry and I hauled the bagged wool to market, we ran into Yeager Stump. Something was said about dancing. Maybe Elton mentioned that Henry and I
were going to a dance, or had been to one; maybe he was complaining,
as he sometimes did, joking, but only half joking, that when we danced
late into the night we were no account in the daytime. Whatever was
said, it reminded Mr. Stump of Uncle Andrew.
"Boys," he said, and there was laughter in his eyes though he did not
laugh aloud, "I've seen your uncle Andrew too drunk to walk, but I never
saw him too drunk to dance."
Later it was Mr. Stump, leaning to talk to me through a car window,
his eyes filled with that same quiet, reminiscent, almost tender unuttered
laughter, who told me two little bits of Uncle Andrew's poetry. "Your
uncle Andrew said that when he was with a woman and that old extremity came to him, every hair in his bee-hind was a jew's harp playing a different tune." Mr. Stump's voice recovered exactly Uncle Andrew's jazzy
intonation. "He said a big covey of quail flew out his bunghole one bird
at a time."
And then Mr. Stump did laugh aloud, briefly. He clapped his hand onto
the metal windowsill and straightened up. "Well, he was something.
There never was another one like him."
When I went away to Lexington to the university, forty years after
Uncle Andrew's failed expedition there, I continued my checking account
at the Independent Farmers Bank at Port William. A number of times
when I wrote out a check for a woman salesclerk, the lady would look at
my signature and the name of the town, and she would say -it was
invariably the same sentence -"I knew an Andrew Catlett once."
"He was my uncle," I would say.
And then she would say, "He was such a dancer!" Or "Oh, how that man
could dance!" Or "I just loved to dance with him! He was so handsome."
They always spoke of him as a dancer. They always smiled in remembering him. Speaking of him, they always sounded younger than they
were, and a little dreamy.
One day in Lexington I cashed a check at Scoop Rawl's Ice Cream Parlor. Scoop himself was at the cash register. He looked at my signature.
"Andrew Catlett," he said. "Port William. I knew an Andrew Catlett from
down there."
"Yessir," I said. "He was my uncle."
He looked at me over his glasses. "Your uncle. God almighty, we had
some times!"
I said, "Yessir," hoping he would say more, and he did, a little. He had
known Uncle Andrew, apparently, not during his brief visit to Lexington
as a student, but after his marriage, when he was traveling for a distillery.
'Andrew had a girl he called Sweetie Pie. He'd squall for her when he
was drunk and you could hear him half a mile: 'Sweetie Pie! "'
I knew how he sounded. I could hear that raucous mating call rising
in the midst of the late-night fracas and hilarity of some Lexington blind
tiger as Uncle Andrew hooked cute little Sweetie Pie with his right arm
and pulled her into his lap. During my college years also I encountered a
woman who had lived near us in Hargrave when I was a child. She had
been beautiful when she was young and had been married to an old man.
Uncle Andrew, she told me, laughing, had said to her, "When that old
son of a bitch is dead, I'm going to stomp on his grave until he's in there
good and tight, and then I'm going to get straight into bed with you."
She told me too of the midnight when Uncle Andrew and his cronies
in their mating plumage, transcendently drunk, burst into Momma-pie's
bedroom, and Uncle Andrew snapped on the light. "Wake up, Mommapie! We've bred all the women, cows, yo sheep, mares, and mare mules
-and now, by God, we're going to breed you!"
In spite of Yeager Stump's later claim that they did whatever they
thought of, I do not believe that this actually happened; if it had, Uncle
Andrew's moments of retrospective self-knowledge and regret would
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