Mail Order Stuff

CATALOGUE--George Milburn--Earcourt, Brace ($2).

In Conchartee, Okla., the arrival of new editions of the Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs was in the nature of both an economic and literary event. The train was late; the post office truck stalled under the load; the mail carriers were held up in their deliveries. Chosen from the comprehensive array of goods described and pictured within the catalogs, a flood of orders flowed from the town and the surrounding countryside: old Herman Gutterman got some new charred oak kegs so he could put up a new batch of moonshine by the time his wife got out of jail. Red Currie got number 45F8575, a pair of stylish Sizzle Pants for $3.65. Sylvester Merrick, colored, got a new clothesline. Ira Pirtle ordered some rubber collars ("easily cleaned with a damp cloth,") number 33F8244, at three for 60-c-. The Widow Holcomb sent for a bottle of Youth Tone black hair dye, 8F3882, for $2.29. -Behind these orders lay the aspirations, tastes, customs, needs of a drowsy, mismanaged, tough Oklahoma country town that boasted a third-class post office, a weekly paper, a municipal debt of $135,000.

Last week George Milburn used the catalogs as the basis for a short, episodic bit of authentic Americana, detailing what led to or what followed some 30 purchases j of articles in them. A thin thread of narrative holds the episodes of Catalogue together, but most of the book is given over to candid, unlovely but often grimly humorous portraits of the natives--Spike, the mean taxidriver; Shannon, the old postmaster, who is almost the only humane figure in the lot; the unfaithful bride, whose lover is in terror of her husband's shotgun; old Double S. Winston, the banker, who puts down extravagant plans for a sewer system; a rich Indian named Eagle Catoosa.

When the catalogs arrived, the local merchants organized a purchase-at-home-jubilee, soon found they had a different kind of celebration than they had planned. Spike's new baby had died, and he was in a bad, quarrelsome mood. When an unoffending Negro drove his car into Spike's taxi, Spike thrashed him. Eagle Catoosa, in one of his involved courtships, hired Spike to take him to see his girl. The girl was being escorted by Red Currie, who had just received his new Sizzle Pants and thought he was making a good impression. When the girl disappeared, Red blamed Spike for it, got into a fight, shot him dead. Thereupon, by a chain of illogical events Spike's friends lynched the luckless blackamoor Spike had beaten earlier in the evening. Mail-order catalogs had been burned in the flame of local patriotism, but next morning new ones were ordered, and the hot, bitter, hungry life of Conchartee was back to normal.

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