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Date of ;iriting: January 23, 1939
Person Interviewed: Mrs. Mac Maim (White)
Address: Walnut Cove, N.C.
Occupation: Widow
Writer: Louise L. Abbitt
Revisor: Claude V. Dunnagan
LIM HIC:CORY OF M4S. JIM 6113LTON
Within the city limits of Walnut Cove stands an isolated
two room shaok. In it lives an old woman made a widow by the
suicide of her husband, and what is left of her family. The
shack is located a short distance from the hard -surface road,
and sits on a hill overlooking a creek. It is rented to the
old lady by a prominent man of the town, and was once used as
a tobacco barn. As one follows the crooked path leading down
to the hawse, a faint wisp of smoke cum be seen spiralling up-
ward from the chimney. The front door opens and you can see
a small child standing at threshold, evidently wondering who
the strancer can be coming down the pathway.
tall, gray-haired woman comes to the door and bids you
enter. She is neatly but plainly dreseed in a long cotton
checked dress, covered with a waist apron a few inches shorter
than the dress, cotton stockinge and shoes run down at the heel.
liar face bears the marks of much sufforinv and trouble.
"Come in and have a chair,* she says, end turns to a girl
who has entered from the other room. *Throw another pieeer of
wood on the fire, Della". Sighing almost inaudibly, she sits
down before the fireplace. "We ain't got much fire,and we
have to keep the door partly open, even in the coldest weather,
so we can have light in the house,* She reaches up to get her
snuff -box from the mantle and dips her gum tooth -brush into it.
"We're out of fire wood," she said slowly, "and I don't
know what we're got& to do. We ain't got no money to buy none
with, and even if we had coal, we couldn't very well burn it in
that big fireplace. Aleek,......h440 my boy who Just come home
from Texas he went down to the branch this mornin" and
out um a little wood, but it's so green it won't half burn.
People are funny; they don't want you cutting wood off their land,
and we got to be careful. already out up an old chair and
the chicken coop to use for kindlin' wood.
"Aleck went off this mornin' to leek for a Job. Della has
tried to gat some work too, but she ain't had no luck. We just
can't stay on here much longer if we don't get some wood to burn,
'cause we've all got colds now."
At this moment, Della comes back in from the kitchen with a
few Irish potatoes, which she puts in the ashes of the fire to
bake* krs. Shelton stares into the fire while Della is doing
this. "we've eat so many potatoes I can't hardly stand to see
one," she says. "But I reckon we've just got to eat somethins".
A all child co166E in and climbs up on her lap.
"This here's my daughter's little girl," she says, smiling
and caressing the child's gold curls. "Der mother died mutton she
was born, and I've kept her ever slam). Her Dilddy has married
again now, and he says he will take her anytime, but I just can't
give her up 'cause she loves me ant Della so much and I guess
I couldn't live without her." Th.0 child wraps its arms around
the grandmother's neck, as she rocks back and forth.
"Pa had seven children by his first wife. Then he and MI
married and they had seven more. I was born up on Peters Creek,
near Danbury, and we had one awful time tryin' to make a livin'.
Pa never was mush account and didn't take much interest in his
family. After Pa and Mk married, he brought his children by his
first wits into the home to live, and sines the last set of
children o ame elone so fast, it wasn't long before there was foure
teen mouths to feed. As time went on, some of the children married
and moved out to thenselves. Then there ma plenty root at home,
but still not much to live on. We just had to get along the beat
way we could.
nee died before I was grown, and sine* Pa VOA so shiftless,
the rest of the children was reared in different home in the
Immunity. we never did get to go to school very muoh. I think
I went as far as the Fifth grade. Tbo school was good distance
from the house end the tnem was not over two or three months long.
Then, sometimes we didn't get to go at all. If there was any work
to be dot' nreund tte fere, 411. hA4 to stay out of school mad do it**
She puts the sle-epine child on the bed end covers it with a
cost Teen she tIkes her seat agair by the fire In her old rook.
ing chat, and ntirs the few ashes under the green pieces of wood.
°I guess I vas sleet twenty-three years old when me and Jim
got married* He was a boy in the neiehborhood at Danbury* He
was the only sweetheart I ever had. After we got narrled, we
lived several years up in the mountainstand then we moved to
Forsyth County, where we rented a farm at Dennis. I think we got
along there better than we ever did anywhere. avonever um very
prosperous, but he did manage to alit enough for us to live on.
We had seven children ...three boys end four girls. All the
children are married now teept Della and Alecto and have families
Page #4
of their own.
"We lived at Dennis for treveral years., and then Zia got siek
with heart trouble, and wasn't able to farm. so we moved to
Walnut Cove where we would be neer our other son, Don
he works over at the Power dam on the river. Don has always been
good to uai but since he married and has suoh a big family of his
awn. he ()suet help us much.
*Whamwe eome here two pears ago, this was the only house we
osuld find to live in at the price: we could afford to pay. It
was in bad repair, but we had to take it ,.and we've never been
able to have any work done on it or buy any lumber to fix it up
with.*
She paused a moment, and as she sighed, she turned her eyes
upward•
*That old gun you see hanginl on the well is the one Zia used
to kill hisself with. I'd been thinkie Jim wasn't feelin' good
for a long time, what with his hpert bein, bed, but we never had
any iden that he'd really commit suloide. I'll never forget the
nornin2 it all happened. I try not to think 'bout it, it's so
awful, but it just keeen eosin' back t mind. It w_ around
the firnt of ZIA!, in 1937, Zia was settin' out on the. front doore
step there. Fa enncA Della and etakd ter to 11,71 to the naxt
neighbor's house and rest him a bucket of water we didn't
have a well and to send him some ice. Della. went after the
water and ice and they gave her some buttermilk, too. When she
got back, Zia drUhk all the buttermilk and several dippers of
eater. Is the meantime he had taken the gun down from the wall
Page #5
and was 'Min' on the porch eleani0 it. Ho walled for Della to
bring him the machine oil, and she asked him what he wanted with it.
Thecil he said he was goi0 to oil up his gun and kill that howli0
dog that'd been keepint him awake at nights. When Della brought the
oil and went back in the house, he walked off the porch toward the
woOdivilik. I was in the house floodlit" the baby when the gun went
off. Then I heard Della sere= from the beak yard. When I got
there, he was all arepOled up on the ground bleedin', viLV the gun.
layine across his chest. He had opened his shirt mad put the gun
barrel against his heart and pulled the trigger. He was dead when
I roughed
She sighs again and drops her eyes to the dying flame in the
fireplace.
'We've had it swfUl hard sines he's gone," she says softly. "I
get an old age pension, but it ain't =wk....main* dollars a month,
and I pay four for rent.' Della goes into the kitchen and returns
with a plate, upon which she places the baked potatoes. The small
child has awakened from its nap and is fretting for something to eat.
Della feeds it one of the potatoes and a glass of milk given to her
by one of the neighbors.
"We've had a lot 0 sickness,' the woman oontinues when the
baby is quieted. *This baby here has been sick more'n once. I re-
member once she had stomach trouble, but I got some turpentine and
corn liquor and mixed it up and it cured her. Doctors don't do so
mush good. Sometimes I think home -remedies are the best. Della
needs to have that goiter out off from her nedk but we just ain't
got the money to have it done now. I don't expeot she could work
Page 16
even if she could get a job.
'No, don't none of us belong to the church,* she goes on.
'Of course I believe in the Bible and its teachings, but I think
a person can be just as meow in the churl* an anywhere else, so I
never did rigger that belongin' to the church would do a body mush
good. Since I was raised a Primitive Baptist, I go to their meet-
ings, but I never joined up with 1004 One church is 'bout as good
as another, I reckon.'
Della goes to the corner of the room and picks up a battered
old axe. try to find some more wood," she says simply and
goes out the door. The fire is buring low and a chilliness is
creeping into the house. The girl's mother stares wanly into the
fire, and draws a deep breath which she exhales with a sigh.
"Maybe she can find a little more mood to burn the rest of the
day. We "most always go to bed soon as dark *ones clues it's got
so cold. We don't ever set up late, loeptint when somebody is ail***
A,noment later Della returns with an armful of stioks.
*I had to cut up the old bench on the porch to get these," she
said. "An' it looks like that's 'bout the last piece, too."
liar mother, looking into the fire, doesn't seem to hoer her.
"Aleok: vent down town this morning to try and get a ride to
Ridgeway, Virginia, to see if he can find work, an' his sister
lives there, too. I hope he gets a job, 'cause I'm afraid he'll
go back to Texas, and I won't live to see him again. That's a long
way from home, you know ...moven a thousand miles, I reckon.
"You ain't got to go have you? Well, maybe when you come
back again we'll have enough wood to keep a fire, but if somethin"
Page
don't happen puny soon. I reaps we'll just have to go to Janie'sm..
she's another owe str daughters. ant lives in Virginia.......yes.
I reckon wen go in a few days 'muse it's gettint so eold.•,.
Watch your stop there on the porch, 'cause the floor is rotten.
I'm always afraid samebodell got hurt there. But we'll be gone
soon anyhow, so I don't reekon it matters a awful lot............