Harvest Moon

Rocky Corners is just a little ol' farm town in the dusty prairie. Ain't but about 130 folks there countin' cows and chickens. Tain't a lot to do there 'ceptin' the Friday night square dance or mebbe drive someone's Model T over to Bartlesville on Saturday night to see a Tom Mix movie. The most fun for me was stepping past the rotating red, white and blue pole into Al's Hair Emporium where the men would usually be singing barbershop quartet songs. 

I learned all the popular numbers from the time I was knee high to a grasshopper 'cause my ma would play them on the old upright piano most every night. 'Bout every house had a piano in those days and we sang all the tunes from Irving Berlin to George M. Cohan and plenty that were a lot older than that. I even joined the church choir, partly to keep from having to go to Sunday school but mostly 'cause I liked to sing. Even when my voice changed, I just switched to bass, singing all them old hymns and gospel songs. 

When I was sixteen, getting my hair cut at Al's - everybody got their hair cut at Al's - three other guys started hanging out there and singing the old songs barbershop style. Al was kind of a portly man, always real well dressed even when working in his shirtsleeves and had 'bout the sweetest lead voice this side of Heaven. Horace was kinda tall and gangly and his specs often slipped down his nose but he sang a pretty fair tenor though he sometimes squeaked a little on the high notes. O.C. , always quick with a joke, owned a little hardware store though he titled himself the Third Assistant Temporary Vice Chairman. He always claimed he was the best baritone in the country and no one could argue with the way he slipped in them middle notes so purty. Big Joe was the most impressive with his square jaw and the way he could sing notes so low only a mole could hear 'em. When he boomed out those big bum, bum, bum's of his between lines it was like a train goin' by but by golly he could sing as softly as the rest of 'em if it were a ballad. 

I always wanted to sit in on a song or two with them at the barbershop but I was too green and skeered to ask. Pretty soon they had a bunch of songs down pat. O.C. always said if they sang it the same way twice it was in their repertoire. They got some matching vests and old timey straw hats and afore long they was singin' at socials and fairs and anywhere else anyone would listen to 'em. They even came up with a name for themselves, the Okie Dokeys. I sure wanted to be just like them. 

Now I knew this girl in town, Amanda Holcomb, whose fiance had just made a run for it and took off for St. Louis to work on a riverboat. Amanda was real purty with long wavy hair that the poets might have called chestnut or auburn but it was brown to me and a cute little dimpled smile that could drop a man from 'cross the room. One thing I knew, she was shore itchin' for a hitchin'. I was thinking if I could steer her towards Big Joe he might get distracted enough to fergit some of his quartet woodshedding and I could fill in a little. I really wanted to sing in a quartet and was purty fair singing those bum, bum, bum's myself. 

At the Friday square dance I introduced them and they seemed to hit it off jest fine. Then that ol' rascal Cletis Culpepper come waltzing in and asks her to dance. He's a good lookin' fella and a purty fair dancer. She seemed to be taking a shine to him which left me mighty disappointed.

After a few dances, he excused himself to go to the outhouse while I was still standing by the wall, sippin' cider and ponderin'. My eyes lit on a Sears and Roebuck catalogue on a nearby table and a idea came to me. 

In those days, old Sears and Roebucks catalogues ended up in the outhouse and not fer readin' either. I tore off a page and sidled over to the door and rubbed a little mud on it. When Cletis came back in I clapped him on the back and said howdy, how're things down at the feed store. Meanwhile I slipped half that page down the back of his pants as slick as snail snot so when he crossed the room to rejoin Amanda, everyone was snickering at him. Amanda took one look at what was stickin' out of the back of his trousers, blushed and scurried away. 

I guess that fixed it for Cletis but I saw Amanda was intercepted by Freddy MacGillicuddy. He was a smooth one, that boy, who could charm a possum out of a tree. They took a few turns dancin' and I took to ponderin' agin. I knew Freddy wasn't the marryin' kind since I seed him with a lot of different gals on his arm so I goes over to have a little powwow. All I told him was that Amanda was looking for a steady beau and if he approached her pa right, he could probably get her hand in marriage. Her pa was purty mean, I says. Last feller he caught her with sittin' on the porch swing and holdin' hands... well he run the boy off with a shotgun. 

Natchurly, Freddy hotfoots it over to dance with some other gal and I goes over to parley with Amanda. I told her Big Joe was sweet on her and she looks over to see him standin' over there lookin' handsome and rugged like the bronco bustin' cowboy what he used to be. He flashes her his best grin and she returns it with her little dimpled smile. They walked toward each other and met in the middle of the floor jest like in the picture shows. Every dance the rest of the night they danced together. She even 'lowed him to walk her home. 

The quartet didn't meet on weekends sincin' the barbershop was closed, so Saturday night he takes her to the movies in Bartlesville, gittin' home quite late. Sunday they takes a walk down by the river and the Old Mill. Then God opened up his Heavens and poured down a real gullywasher of a rainstorm. They took refuge in the Old Mill and was in there three hours, what led to a lot of gossip. Monday mornin' I hears they eloped to Topeka. 

I was right there when the barbershop opened and from the look on the men's faces I could tell they had already heard the news which spreads fast in a little town like Rocky Corners. Old Al looked older, Horace was draped in the corner cleanin' his specs and even O.C. didn't have a joke. Everythin' ncluding the pichers on the wall was lookin. mighty droopy. I tells 'em I can fill in for Big Joe fer a while, I knowed all their songs from havin' heard 'em so many times. They says, what the heck, let's give the kid a try. Shore I was mighty ashamed of the way I done it but I was happier than a pig in slop when Al hangs out a note and off we went. 

"Shine on, shine on harvest moon up in the sky"

"Bum, bum, bum, I..."