The little gray book was only a handful lying there among some other papers and books in an open box on the auction table. I don’t know why I decided t0 pick that one up in particular; maybe it was the book’s size. I was waiting for some items to come up for bids and had some minutes to waste. This book was small and thin enough for me to get through in a very short time.
Its title – “The Specialist” – gave nary an inkling of what the book was about. Neither did the foreword nor a short poem written in a dialect so thick that I could barely understand it. A short boxed explanation told me that the book was about a man named Lem Putt who was “just as sincere in his work as a great painter whose heart is in his canvas.”
Now I was intrigued, just by the words painter and canvas. I began reading and learned that Lem Putt was a privy builder, and not just any privy builder. He was the best outhouse-builder in Sangamon County. A carpenter, he had built a house, barn, church and chicken coop, but decided to make privy-building his specialty, even offering six months of privy service – a warranty, of sorts – for free.
Here’s Lem describing one of his masterpieces: “There sits that privy on that knoll near the woodpile, painted red and white, mornin’ glories growin’ up over her and Mr. Sun bathin’ her in a burst of yeller color as he drops back of them hills.”
Anyone of a certain age who grew up in a rural area know outhouses well, and reading Lem Putt talk about them as art isn’t exactly the way they are remembered. But this book was all in good fun, patterned after a real-life carpenter with the same name but bulked up by a 1920s vaudeville comedian and actor named Charles (Chic) Sale.
Chic Sale was pretty well-known during the 1920s and 1930s playing country hicks and backwater characters from rural areas. He also appeared in films, including the 1921 “His Nibs,” in which he played several of the roles in the story of a country boy who gets swindled but comes out ahead. One of his more serious roles was in the 1935 film “The Perfect Tribute,” portraying a President Lincoln distressed over the lukewarm reception to his Gettysburg Address.
The real Lem Putt lived in Sale’s hometown of Urbana, IL. Sale’s performance of the privy-builder was originally a monologue for male audiences only because he thought it would be inappropriate for women, according to a website operated by a grandson. He soon relented and gradually performed it for mixed audiences.
Afraid that it would be stolen by others, he enlisted two newspaper writers to put his routine into book form, thereby copyrighting it. Written in 1929, the book was very successful at a time when most people were barely surviving the Depression. It has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide and is in its 26th printing, according to the grandson’s site. The book at auction had a copyright date of 1929 and was in its fifth printing.
Sale wrote a sequel called “I’ll Tell You Why” in 1930. It’s a signature phrase Lem Putt uses quite often in the first book. Sale died in 1936, and his legacy was not only this little book but the term “Chic Sale” as a reference to outhouses, to his displeasure.
As I read the stories in the 31-page book with illustrations, I found myself smiling and then chuckling inside my head. I couldn’t put it down. The book was quietly funny and amusing, full of commonsense stories that were totally endearing.
Like this one of Lem Putt’s first customer who couldn’t figure out why his workers were spending 40 minutes to an hour in his “three-holer.” Putt found that he had made the seats “too durn comfortable.” So he re-cut them, making them square with rough edges. Then, the workers were in and out in four minutes.
Here are some of his do’s and don’ts of building “her,” as he described the outhouse – a term that he never uses in the book to describe his architectural masterpieces:
You can’t build a privy just anywhere on your property. “… her being near a tree is bad. There ain’t no sound in nature so disconcertin’ as the sound of apples on th’ roof.”
You can’t build it on weak soil that’s absorbing moisture. “During the rainy season she’s likely to be slippery. Take your grandpappy – goin’ out there is about the only recreation he gets. He’ll go out some rainy night with his nighties flappin’ around his legs, and like as not when you come out in the mornin’ you’ll find him prone in the mud, or maybe skidded off one of them curves and wound up in the corn crib.”
You need the right location. “Take a woman, fer instance. On the way back she’ll gather five sticks of wood, and the average woman will make four or five trips a day. There’s twenty sticks of wood in the wood box, without any trouble. On the other hand, take a timid woman, if she sees any men folks around, she’s too bashful to go direct out so she’ll go to the wood-pile, pick up wood, go back to the house and watch her chance. The average timid woman – especially a new hired girl – I’ve knowed to make a many as ten trips to the wood-pile before she goes in, regardless.”
You must build it strong. “Joists make a good job. Beams cost a bit more, but they’re worth it. Course, I could give you joists, but take your Aunt Emmy, she ain’t gettin’ a mite lighter. Some day she might be out there when them joists give way and there she’d be – catched.”
You need good furnishings. “As to the latch fer her, I can give you a spool and string, or a hook and eye. The cost of a spool and string is practically nothin’, but they ain’t positive in action. If somebody comes out and starts rattlin’ the door, either the spool or the string is apt to give way, and there you are. But, with a hook and eye she’s yours, you might say, for the whole afternoon, if you’re so minded.”
You don’t want windows. “Take, fer instance, somebody comin’ out – maybe they’re just in a hurry or maybe they waited too long. If the door don’t open right away and you won’t answer ‘em, nine times out of ten they’ll go ‘round and ‘round and look in the window, and you don’t get the privacy you ought to.”
The door should swing in. “This gives you air and lets the sun beat in. Now, if you hear anybody comin’, you can give it a quick shove with your foot and there you are. But if she swings out, where are you? You can’t run the risk of havin’ her open for air or sun, because if someone comes, you can’t get up off that seat, reach way around and grab ‘er without gettin’ caught, now can you?”
Paint it two colors. “It ain’t practical to use a single solid color … She’s too durn hard to see at night. You need contrast – just like they use on them railroad crossin’ bars – so you can see ‘em in the dark.”
This little book is a gem. If you come across a copy in a bookstore or a flea market, grab it. Or you can buy one online or read it here.
