The Teacher's Funeral

Named after a wildflower, Tansy is Russell and Lloyd’s “great big” sister (8). Russell describes her as “countrified” and “rawboned” (8), commenting “she’s no wood nymph, as I’ve mentioned” (133). However, Tansy does attract the attention of many men—Eugene Hammond, Glenn, Charlie, and Mr. Owen—so Russell shows some brotherly bias in his description. Tansy takes a no-nonsense approach to her brothers, dealing out thumps at the dinner table for unwashed hands. At 17, Tansy boards in town to attend high school, but comes home during the summer, and the boys prefer her cooking to that of Aunt Maud. Tansy is forceful, opinionated, and projects confidence, even when she may not feel it. Tansy is also transitioning to adulthood. Tansy takes on the adult responsibility of being a teacher. Her motivation is family-oriented: She wants to turn Russell around for his future and Lloyd’s. She tells him he has “no more direction than a newborn calf and less judgment” (186).

Tansy wants her pupils to learn and succeed, not just have rote facts beaten into them. Her teaching methods are unconventional for the time but successful. She gets both Russell and the older Charlie Parr through eighth grade and continues to develop and hone her practice.

For all Tansy’s domineering ways, she has a big heart. She is gentle and nurturing toward Little Britches. When J.W. gets injured, Tansy knows that Russell loves the dog, and would sleep in the barn with him, so instead she allows J.W. to spend the night in the boys’ room. Tansy is also sensitive to her new appeal to the opposite sex. She appreciates seeing herself described in the paper as O.C. Culver’s “handsome daughter” (93), and the gifts from Eugene make her blush. Tansy values her country heritage, proudly exclaiming to the superintendent that she is “Hoosier-born and in Parke County” (175). She also shows how much she values her rural community by rejecting Eugene’s suit.

Ten-year-old Lloyd is young and sensitive and the object of many of Russell’s pranks. Russell frequently gets Lloyd in trouble. Lloyd recalls the times Russell told him to steal their dad’s .22 to kill rats in the barn, and to plug all the watermelons to find the ripest one—and those examples are just the tip of the iceberg (54). Lloyd is accustomed to Russell’s tricks. When Russell tries to trip Lloyd at the top of the stairs, like always, he says Lloyd “skipped out of my way as usual” (59). Russell thinks that Lloyd does not know when to hold his tongue. Though Lloyd does not look up to Russell, he loves him. When the Case Special comes in, Lloyd holds Russell’s hand partially in shared excitement, and partially to hang on to his brother, as if he could keep him from going to the Dakotas (12). Tansy recognizes their bond and knows that Lloyd would truly look up to Russell “if there was anything to look up to” (187). She worries that unless Russell changes, Lloyd will follow in his no-account footsteps.

Lloyd is more sensitive to family and social dynamics than Russell. Lloyd is often fearful. He makes himself small, “half his natural size,” (89) when Tansy confronts Russell about the privy and worries that their dad will whup them after Preacher Parr’s funeral oration. Lloyd knows that Tansy has a sweet heart, and that she is a good teacher long before Russell recognizes either. Unlike Russell, Lloyd enjoys working on the farm and living in the country. He spends a day teaching the calf he is raising to drink from a bucket: It’s something his dad encourages, but Russell dismisses it as the kind of “foolish, farmerish enterprise that appealed to him” (142). 

Russell’s dad is a widower whose wife died when Lloyd was born. Dad has a gentle sense of humor; he tries not to smile at the unintentionally funny comments his children make (9), or the state of Aunt Maud’s biscuits. Russell’s dad is also on the school board, and Russell resents that his dad did not stop Tansy from taking over the Hominy Ridge School. Like Lloyd and Russell, their dad gravitates toward the possibilities inherent in the new steel threshers and Eugene’s car. Russell describes the look of “near religious wonder” his father gets when he grasps the power of the car (51).

Russell greatly admires his dad. At Miss Myrt’s funeral, his dad dresses up, wearing his silk-lined derby hat, and Russell notes that he is a “fine-looking man,” who “could have passed for a judge” (34). Russell appreciates his dad’s farming knowledge and skills, saying “There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. The skill lived in his hands” (68). Russell’s dad quietly models integrity and personal responsibility for his children.

Russell’s dad allows his children to find their own ways in life, guiding them gently only when they need it. Russell thinks his dad has plans to keep Eugene from marrying Tansy, but his dad tells Russell they should “let nature take its course” (163), showing his non-interventionist approach to his children’s decisions. Russell’s dad reveals his deep love for Russell by quietly sharing that he would rather have Russell around than any money Russell could send home from the Dakotas. 

Aunt Maud is Russell’s deceased mother’s sister. A confirmed “nervous spinster” (35), Aunt Maud turns down the offer to marry Russell’s dad. Instead, she lives down the road but visits daily, secretly smoking her corn cob pipe. She is a terrible cook. Aunt Maud believes, and has believed for some time, that she is on the brink of death, even prophesying (incorrectly) at Miss Myrt’s funeral that she will die next. Aunt Maud is also the community’s anonymous poet. Her poems appear nailed to trees, posted on the church door, or featured in the newspaper. Aunt Maud’s poems reflect her love for her simple country life, her family, and friends. Aunt Maud represents the older generation: She has little interest in the city and its modernizations and finds them a threat to her quiet lifestyle. 

With his motoring goggles, driving gloves, and beautiful racing automobile, Eugene cuts a dashing, modern figure. When he first sees Eugene, Russell thinks he “seemed to be off some other planet” (49). Eugene represents the transition from old to new, from country to city. He works for a company that used to make wagons but will now make motorcars: a sign of the changing times. Eugene is ambitious. Russell’s dad believes “He’ll go far, that fellow” when he reads Eugene’s tribute to the Culver family—and his own automobile—in the paper (95). Eugene courts Tansy with a series of gifts, from her hat to donations to the school which are all nicely branded with his advertising, showing that Eugene’s ambitions shine even in his courtship. Eugene reveals that he has some country in him when he kills the hog, and Russell grudgingly admits he’s not “as ignorant as your typical city person” (159). However, his modern ways do not win Tansy’s lasting affection.

Crotchety, stingy, and fierce, Aunt Fanny Hamline owns the sugarbush grove behind the boys’ privy. Russell knows that Aunt Fanny is “maybe the meanest living woman in Indiana now that Miss Myrt was no more” (90). Aunt Fanny is huge and old. She is also cheap: She has terrible eyesight but refuses to pay for spectacles. Russell claims, “She’d skin a louse for its hide and tallow” (130). She threatens the students to stay off her property, and tests Tansy’s authority. Aunt Fanny, however, has a “soft spot” (167). Aunt Fanny shows she has a good heart deep down by caring for Glenn, and by donating her husband’s American flag, an important memento, to the school.

Son of the Methodist Preacher Parr, Charlie is big and strong and older than Russell, but he also has not passed his eighth-grade graduation exam. Charlie and Russell are best friends, but Russell has no idea that Charlie is sweet on Tansy. Russell believes that he and Charlie are going to strike out for the Dakotas together, but Charlie has no intention of going. Charlie is out to win Tansy’s affection. He gives her the cowbell to ring the students in for school. Charlie believes he is in competition with Glenn Tarbox. Charlie is dismissive of Glenn and accuses him of the little sabotages around the school to make himself look like a hero. Charlie’s fight with Glenn shows the serious nature of his affection for Tansy and his prejudice against the Tarbox family. Ironically, given Charlie’s history of pranks, he becomes a preacher.

When Glenn comes to help save J.W.’s life, Russell is initially afraid of him. Glenn is 19 or 20 years old, strong, and compact: “pure gristle” (140). Like his other family members, Glenn is filthy. He has “greasy hair” and “smelled like swill” and does not even wear a hat to school (105). Glenn, however, defies Russell’s stereotypes of the Tarbox clan. He leaves his family to better himself, realizing that his selfish and ignorant brothers do not want him getting ahead of them: They want to keep Glenn at their level. Glenn also shows that he has a kind heart. He brings apples and peaches to school and works his way into Aunt Fanny Hamline’s good graces. Despite his fight with Charlie, he also eventually wins Tansy’s affection.