NONFICTION : HICKORY CURED by Douglas C. Jones (Holt: $16.95; 224 pp., illustrated).

Shanks Caulder held court on an egg crate at a mercantile general store. There from his wood-slatted perch he’d toss out reminiscences for anyone within earshot. The author made it his business to catch the story spillovers about small-town life in Arkansas, 1930s. The tales made their way out of the country store and into print.

Shanks regales us with 10 anecdotes steeped in detail and lexicon. His stomping grounds were Weedy Rough and the county seat where citizens were less inclined to examine life than live it--handsome or hardscrabble-style. These same folks, who didn’t bother pinning life down, say for study purposes, could pinpoint their own hound out of a howling pack some 30 miles off and distinguish a red from a gray fox depending on the hound’s pitch. Along with country-style hunting, we’re treated to baseball games, Christmases and the Halloween prank of turning over outhouses. The Works Project Administration put an end to that tradition with fancy, cement-based commodes. The people referred to the WPA as We Piddle Around and to their new, upright conveniences as “Roosevelts.”

All of these asides pivot around Shanks’ memorable neighbors. One such fellow was Audie Renkins, who sufficiently provoked five poker players into an attack. Audie managed to shoot his attackers in their backs and then faced a jury. Lawyer Rex Scadins suggested that his client get something for night-time markmanship. Seems the jury agreed.

Shanks’ yarnspinning is alive with so-called characters. The rare skill demonstrated in this collection is the steady humor and its exposed underbelly, bittersweet, if not downright sad. You’d be hard pressed to find a better account of whistle-stop America 50 years ago, at least the way Jones pulled it all together. You should hear him out.