Document text
September 20,1939.
_ollie Mauney, Housewife
Newton,N.C.
Ethel Deal, Writer
Dudley W.Crawford,Reviser.
Original Names
Mollie Mauney
Bettie Joe
Jimmy
Newton
Lloyd Mauney
Clyde
Ruby
Changed Names
Mattie Moore
Sara Ann
Buddy
Bakerton
Floy Moore
Claude
Reba
°Come in, I declare I ain't got a thing done
today. I get up and get the children off to school and it
wears me out. My younguns never will learn to wait on their
selves. Sara Ann couldn't find her pencils, Buddie's got a
sore foot, and I had to bind it up, Junior is too lazy of
a morning to eat his own breakfast. It just about wears me
out.
Mattie Moore, a little eighty pound nervous
woman dropped dpwn on the settee. "What a lifel I f I'd
knowed this before I was married I'd never had no man a
living. I've got five children and not one of them is worth
their salt."
While she turned her head to better comb
her stringy hair. I looked around. The house was a pretty
five room bungalow. the living room was neat and clean and
contained a nice suit of furniture, a good rug and pretty
curtains. A dog lay curled up in an easy chair.
"I can give you a story all right. If I'd
tell you what a time I have had to keep things going here
you'd be surprised, I've had it hard all my life."
Mattie kicked off her bed room slippers and
tucked her feet up in the chair. "The breakfast table is
setting there and the dishes ain't washed. I don't care I'll
rest a while. I was raised on the farm. My daddy owned his
farm, but he wasn't much of a farmer and we was always poor.
There was five of us children. All the education I got was at
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the free school in the little one room school building. When
I was eleven years old we moved to the cotton mill.
"I'm thirty eight years old now. Them times
younguns went to work as soon as they was big enough. Father
got me a job, ball winding. I made three dollars a week and
we worked twelve hours a 444:. My feet hurt me so bad after
standing on them all day I cried. The bottoms swelled up so
bad I could hardly walk. .My boss was good, that's more than
you can say of some. Three of us worked. Things was cheap'
then, and we made a good living. We moved from Bakerton to
Long Island where I worked for awhile there. Later we moved
here to the old cotton mill.
"That's where I met Floy Moore. He worked in
the spinning roam and I spooled. When I was eighteen we got
married. Floy was a good steady boy, who didn't drinkihe
worked hard and made a good husband. I worked on a year after
marriage, as long as I could. Then we went to housekeeping.
Several years we got along and I was happy. Then he began to
sell some whiskey. I hate the stuff, and tried to stop it.
Talking did no good he kept right on at it 'till he got caught.
Being his first offense he got off light, seventy five dollars
looked big to me to pay out. It's like this though, when a
man starts to sell whiskey he keeps it up. After he breaks the
law the first time, he don't mind it the next. I've talked
my tongue sore at that man. It done no good he kept right on
selling."
Nettie wiped an imaginary tear away, and slid
to her feet as some one knocked on the door. Outside the
door a man asked something in a low voice. "No, Floy ain't
here," Ws. Moore spoke loudly, "He ain't here and I am glad
of it. Maybe he is getting pay fer some of his meaness. If
he had listened to me he'd been here where his place is. In-
stead of that he kept on and now he's had to leave the state."
The man drove away.
"Floy's been selling whiskey off and on for
twenty years. He had a good job in the silk mill weaving and
made thirty dollars a week. I stayed here at home and worked
and slaved. What he done with his money I don't know. Yes, I
do know too, it was spent on other women. Course we lived
good, had plenty of everything we wanted. I expect we had more
to eat than rich people. His grocery bill run as high as
thirty dollars a week. Two years ago he built this house, and
he has spent a lot of money fixing up the place. We have
electric lights, water and everything in this house. That ain't
the thing though, he slipped off and run arou#d at night.
"When the new sheriff went in he sent Floy
yord to quit selling liquor. Floy paid no attention to him.
They searched the place, found whiskey and it cost him a
hundred dollars. He said he'd quit but he didn't do it. Some-
body reported him again and they caught him the third time.
The last time they got him he was under a suspended sentence
and couldn't pay out. The mill disapproved of what he was
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doing, so they refused to work him unless he would go to Cuba
and work in the silk mill there. The court permitted him to
pay out if he would leave the county six months, so he's in
Cuba now working out his sentence. He makes forty dollars a
week as loom fixer. We sure don't live as high as we did. I
only get eighteen dollars a week, that don't go far with six
of us to feed and the building and loan to pay.
"My health is bad. I've been trying to get
me a job in the mill. I worked about a year ago, but now
it's hard to get on. I've worked off and on ever since we
been married. It ain't much I can't do in the mill. I have
spooled, spinned, run the winders and worked in the knitting
room. The most I ever made was in war times. Wages was high
then and I got nineteen dollars a week. The least I ever
made was three.
*Floy gives the children too much money when
he is at home and sells whiskey. Everywhere they want to go
he gives them money to go. We had a nice car. Two weeks after
he went to Cuba Clyde turned it over and tore it up. Out there
it sits now, and no money to fix it up. The same week he left
Reba run away and got married. She's in there in bed now. She
don't do a thing. I tell her when I was pregnant I done all
my house work. It's not going to kill nobody to have a baby.
Some folks think if there is anything wrong with them they
can't move.
"We ain't got a car now. I have to hire a
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way for the children to get to school. Last year our taxi
bill run as high as ten dollars a week, and we run a car
besides. I go to the show three or four times a week. I
don't go to church. I belong to the Lutheran, the children
go to the Baptist to Sunday School. I never miss a good ball
game if I can help it. Floy and me both vote a Democrat
ticket. I don't know as I'll do it next year though. That
snoopy sheriff ain't done nothing but make trouble since
he's been in."
The bed room door opened, and a tall, slender
girl dressed in pale blue pajamas stood in the door way."Mama
why don't you be quiet? I carit sleep."
"It's no time to sleep here at eleven o'clock,
Why don't you go to the kitchen and clean up the dishes?"
"What do you think I'm made of, I'm so sick
can't hardly stand up."
Mattie snorted, "Reba what do you think is going
to become of you if you lie in bed for nine months? I tell
you I never done such a thing."
"I have no intention of doing what you done."
"You see that's they way my children treat me.
I blame their daddy fer it. If he'd stayed at home and done
his duty they'd be different."
Reba went into the dinning room, filled a
glass with tomato juice and cracked ice. "My stomach is so
upset."
"I am not surprised," said Mattie,"you're so
mean to me it's a wonder more'n your stomach ain't upset."
A car stopped at the door and her son,Claude,
come in and asked if his pants had been pressed. No, honey,
they ain't. You didn't tell me to press them."
"The devil I didnIjI told you last night I
wanted them today."
"I didn't hear you."
"What the hell is wrong with you that you can't
hear?"
"She's been busy telling her troubles," said
Reba covering up with the silk counterpane on the bed. Claude
turned on the radio.
A taxi stopped at the door. Three children
came in. Junior,Sara Ann and Buddy. "Mama," said Junior,"we
had a taxi bring us home 'cause it's too far to walk."
"Do you realize we ain't got the money to pay
taxis now and your daddy in Cuba? Look here boy don't you do
that again."
"We want some warm dinner."
"I ain't cooked no dinner yet, you had your
lunches with you."
"Nobody don't get nothing to eat around here,"
spoke Claude from behind the paper.
"I declare I get so ashamed of the way my
children acts. It's not my fault I've done my best to raise
them right. They've spent more money for foolishness than
most families have to live on. Then they ain't satisfied.When
I growed up I never know what it was to have a dime or go to
a show.
"I'm so sorry you have to go. I wish you
could spend the day with me. Coma out and see my flowers.I
sure have worked hard on my garden."
The lawn was dry but every effort had been
made to beautify the place with flowers and shrubs. The house
stood on a knoll, a small stream along which weeping willows
and climbing roses had been planted, ran by the garden at
the foot of the hill.
Jimmy came to the door and hollered. "Mama I
want to go to the show."
"No, honey you can't go today, there's no
money." Jimmy screamed and cried.
I thanked her for the story and departed. As
I turned the curve I looked back at the bungalow and thought:---