The Cockroaches of Stay More by Donald Harington Page A

More would give her left sniffwhip to be yore wife, but you’d have to perpose, and you’d sooner wester than look a gal in the eye, wouldn’t ye? JIST A MINUTE,” he raised his voice, held up a foreclaw, then disappeared into his clinic. More than a minute passed before he reappeared, dragging behind him something that was almost too heavy for him to pull. It was a pill, of sorts. He presented it to Sam. “HERE,” he said, loudly. “Now don’t ye tell a soul I gave ye this, but haul it along home with ye and keep it, and whenever ye find a gal who strikes yore fancy, why, jist take a nibble or two outen this here pill, and it’ll give ye the nerve to say ‘hidy’ to her.”
    Sam heard none of this, except the “here.” “What’s this?” he asked. “HIT’S SANG ,” Doc Swain explained. “Root of the ginseng, and powerful scarce to come by.” Sam’s befuddlement was obvious and Doc had to yell and repeat himself and then yell and repeat a complicated explanation of how ginseng root works, and what it tastes like, and what the indications and contraindications were for its use. When, after much yelling and gesturing, Doc was convinced that Sam understood him, Doc said, “Well?”
    “Doc,” Sam declared, “I came to see you about my deafness and you give me a remedy for impotence.”
    Doc guffawed, and then he explained, loudly and with many repetitions, that the ginseng root would indirectly help Sam’s deafness by giving him the nerve to woo and wed a wife who would become his surrogate tailprongs and do his listening for him.
    “But can’t anything be done directly for my tailprongs?” Sam asked.
    “Wal…” Doc said, and hesitated, and tried to review in his mind all the cases of deafness that he had heard about or treated. Then Doc held up a foreclaw. “There’s only one substance, and it aint scientific like ginseng. It aint even medical, but it never fails. It aint even somethin I’ve seen work before myself, but my education has been sort of classical, ye know. Most likely you’d call this jist one of them oletimey superstitions, and maybe that’s all it is, but it works.”
    “Speak up, Doc,” Sam said. “What is it? Do you have to coat my prongs with mandrake sap or something?”
    “Worse than that,” Doc said. “I could go out tonight and find all the mandrake sap you’d ever hope to want, but that aint it. What you need is grease from the mountings of a church bell, and it has to be a church bell recently rung.”
    Sam stared at Doc and shook his head, and Doc repeated himself so loudly that the bats in the air folded their ears and covered them with their wings. When the prescription had finally registered, Sam exclaimed, “Joshua H. Crust!” without blasphemy to Doc, since Doc wasn’t a Crustian either. Sam tried to picture in his mind’s eye a church bell. The only bell he had ever seen was the bell in the Stay More schoolhouse, which long ago Men had used on infrequent occasion as a church.
    “Grease,” Sam said, and let several moments pass before adding, “from the mountings,” and a long silence ensued before his next words, “of a church bell,” followed by an interminable hiatus preceding his repetition of the words, “recently rung.” Then he sighed loudly and said to Doc, “History has it that that bell in the Stay More schoolhouse was never rung except for school…or for a funeral. There are no more schoolchildren of Man…or of Woman. And for there to be a funeral, one of Them would have to wester. Who will it be? Well, thanks a whole lot, Doc,” Sam said with no little sarcasm. “It does me a lot of good. Let me know if you hear of any reason They should ring the bell. Or let me know if you hear the bell.” Sam prepared to leave.
    Doc did not bother with the “stay more” ritual. All he said was, loudly, “DON’T FORGET THIS HERE SANG ROOT.”
    Sam stared at the “pill” of ginseng idly, remembered what it was for, and idly dragged it