Vibrant Village ™

These stories are in the words of Charles Aloysius Cathcart, known to ‘most everyone here in Coltrane as Grampa Charlie Loy. Most evenings except Sundays, he occupied a wobbly old straight-back chair in spitting distance of the squat, rusty pot-bellied stove in Homer Henderson's dry-goods store. They were collected by Mr. Cathcart’s grand-nephew Ernest, who took to hiding in the back room on Thursdays and listenin’. Thursday was only night that his mother left the house after supper. She did her visiting on Thursdays.

The Dentist and the Polecat

I bet you didn’t know there used to be a dentist in this town, well there was, an’ he left a carpet bag of picks and pliers and things he might’a known what they was for, but nobody else does. Ask Doc how he got ‘em, he'll tell you. Doc says he’s figured out some of ‘em so he’ll work on you if you have a bad enough toothache you’re willin’ to take a chance on him pullin’ one that didn’t need pullin’ after all. Don’t suppose it helps that Doc’ll match you one for one with that whiskey he gives folks to take their mind off the pain, an’ some folks take a lot of pacifyin’.

Now, t’ get back to that dentist, he’d set up practice in the little side room over to Miz McCarrick’s, you remember how she took in boarders ‘til they started eatin’ more than they paid her and she didn’t have the heart to tell ‘em, so she just locked the door one afternoon and didn’t even leave a sign sayin’ what she thought they could do for a place to sleep and eat. The dentist, he was already gone by then, but if he hadn’t been he would’a got turned out too. Miz McCarrick wasn’t one to play favorites.

Gettin’ back, the first time we ever seen him he got dropped off at the barber’s, bein’ it was in the center of town and nobody’d miss the sign, it said BARBAR and was turned rightways to the shop and was the biggest one to start with. He must’a paid that farmer to bring him clear from Robsonville. Train didn’t stop here then. He had his carpet bag and a folded-up black umbrella in one hand, and a burlap sack tied with a rope in the other.

Sheriff Morgan, he was deputy then, he says the stranger must’a heard about Blackie Pinkerton bustin’ out of jail over to Cobb’s Creek and he didn't want to leave any doubts about what his business was, so he headed straight for the sheriff’s office and opened up that carpet bag.

Roscoe Loomis, he was sheriff then, he didn’t know what it all was but he knew a knife from a gun, and none of it was either one so he didn’t say anything, not that he was all that worried about it ‘coz he had Blackie Pinkerton in his own jail, and mighty proud of it. Wouldn’t tell how he got him there. Deputy Morgan knew all right, he was there and must’a been itchin’ to tell, except he reckoned it was better to be a deputy now and a sheriff someday than neither one, so he kept quiet.

So here’s the dentist, he’s got himself installed in Miz McCarrick’s side room, and it wasn’t but a week or two before here comes old Toothless Stommelhorn in a buckboard, clear from Robsonville. In the back is the pertyest white enamel dentist chair, you can tell the dentist is tickled pink.

It was the very next day, and you can ask Toothless, he was sleepin’ in a dried-up horse trough under the BARBAR sign, when Sheriff Loomis comes in all in a lather, says Blackie says he’s dyin’ and would somebody PLEASE shoot him or else pull his toothache.

Sheriff's tired by now of the moanin’ so he brings Blackie in, keepin’ a gun on him, naturally the dentist is unsure which of the black stumps he’s lookin’ at is a good place to start so he’s plenty nervous. Blackie’s givin’ him the eye too, that doesn't help any.

Just about the time he’s reachin’ in with the pliers, he hears a skiffle-scrape noise next to his feet, and he looks to see and it’s Miz McCarrick’s boy’s pet skunk with its tail up, ready to fire. The dentist, he leaps up into Blackie Pinkerton’s lap, the fancy white enamel chair crashes over into Sheriff Loomis, and Blackie grabs the sheriff’s gun and takes out after the dentist ‘coz he’s seen the dentist’s pliers is holdin’ Blackie’s gold tooth, the only thing he was ever proud of.

Now, Blackie’s pretty soon back in jail at Cobb’s Creek, and the barber has a fine new white enamel chair, but Miz McCarrick’s still mad ‘coz that dentist didn’t stop to pay her. Don’t know what became of that dentist.

Scott Bogue lives and works in Greensboro, North Carolina. Five days a week he’s a freelance technical editor and writer who specializes in manufacturing and industry—but he vacations in the small town of Coltrane, somewhere in America, and the year is perhaps 1915. It might be 1912, or it might be 1925, he doesn’t know. Grampa Charlie never says.