Document text
November 10, 1938.
'Deever Taylor and family.
.6alfour, h. C.
Mill carder.
Frank Massimino, writer.
BALFOUR AND THE DEEMER TAYLORS,
Balfour, North Carolina
No names changed.
Notes
liyman Poole, groserymma, native South
acrolinian, has had a business in Balfour for novella
years. Two-thirds of his trade is on a credit basis,
a practice that, when employment at th4 mill is ut
low elib, or none at all, finds him, sometimes, with
as little as six cents on hand.
Deaver '.'hylor is a carder at tic mill.
His wife, Will, or as she is generally known,
is a weavdr. They have three children, A.isabeth,
nine, Jack, eight, hnd ;.Argaret, five. Zack, who
has epilepsy, sometimes attends the second vade at
;11four schoo.
Lassimino. Frank,
November 10, 1,)38.
3alf-ur And The Deever Tayloio.
Balfour. north Carolina.
'ale dirt road came abruptly out of
the pine woods and wound arterially thxoudh the
villas. It went past rows of white houses.
past the mill bite at the rAilroad tracks and
urward a few hundred feet, where it suddenly
joined the state hiz.way. At one corner of the
intersection stood n church; and on the other,
facin the main road, was a tin covtlred ohed-
type buildind. You o adn't is frola the side
loat what the structure housed, but several
times, when a bell juncjed, you cold tell from
the familiar sound that it was obably a store.
2hei-e were two other utores down in r.he villae,
antl on the doors vere the same kind of bells,
and in the windows was -displayed an ar-ay of
general merchandise.
DUB proved to be the same suet of
store, except that, nrobably because it was on
the highway, it servee as a filline station
too. Apparently a good many people fram the
villa de 04M0 up here to buy, although the other
stores were nearer, beoause you coul. hear the
bell on the door jangle a good deal, tolling
the c,stomers in and out. nhey got vegtebles,
or a pound of dried bens, or IMMO wizened
frankfurters, and a box of mute:hes and a
packeee of ten cent ciarettes, and then stood
around and talked while the storekeeper
laboeiee ly wrote out a credit slip. 6ame-
t mes a man evele came inside and o-AJT a soft
deink, and then join the people aeoand tAe
stove, because th early moening air was cool
outeide, and the heat felt eood.
e bell juneled and 4 man thrust his
head in ale store and celled out to everyone
in ,:seneeel, 'Any of you -all gin t to be deivial
ate/where* about Hendersonville?' Someone
said, 'no. not as I know of.' eut apearently
the man at the doer didn't catch the reply.
aa caee inside and closed the deer. He knew
evr3ow
Ale storekeeper. 'Hello, Poole,' he aaid. 'You
doin° an ood?'
The stoPekeQper wau candid. 'Hell
no,' he said, 'You'
The man shook his head. He was about
fourty-five. He h%d on a blaok ocv.3 over a
pair of overalls. His black hut had faded
greenish around ,he sweat band, ana the orown
had hole -punched in it. ;lie left arm was bandaged
to the elbow and restel in a black cloth sling
that hung from hie nook. The finders that stuck
thlouh the end of tha b.ndue were an angry
red .:olor and swollen.
'1 didn't rishtly heai-rnny of you
all were doint to town,' he said hopefully.
The stoekeeper shook his head. ae thout;ht,
however, that m4ybe the man could Lids in with
the bread mau. 'He'll be alone pretty soon,'
he said.
'I reckon I'll just wait then, said
the masu Then he se,:iously expliUned to evegone
within hearing, 'This here am is a-hurtie
such that I czo.int bear a-walkint in.'
The storekeeper was 03ooble. 'Sit
clown' Sit ctiven JAisti he cried. Then as
the man took a seat at the colAnter, he went on.
'You been laid up long?'
'I aint drawed a pay in six weeks.'
the mail said, and i;hen seeind What his listAlers
were invIrested in him, he added, 11%:,t's how
oame me to want to it in to Hendersonville so
1n:4 the I aim to see about that in..
suranoe compensation.'
'Unemployment compensation,' the store...
keeper correctd agreeably. ne added candidly,
Anyhow one of the extra hands will be dlad to
get in some time at the
aota live too,' the man %wed
dispossi Aately.
All the n t1iouht his point of view
was rational.
One of th4g maids ridht.
.1•,,,ryilody's dot to live: Another thought,
however, that same people seed to live a
good deal better than others. 'Like that time
the men at the mill was unloadin' that freight
oar,' he 'and fol4141 that note the loaders
from up Jorth had stuok on a box,' Ile looked
around the stove, past the candy oonter, and called
to an aequaintance hii.tihLat tie countez. 'Jim,
what was it that note said?'
Jim said. 'They wrotes 1^e ot fifty cents an
1oadin this. How muCh do you poor
bastards get for unloading it?"
This tale interested some of the men.
beoluse it seamed that tbk4 contente of tile note
WA not ben generally kaowa
'FiZty cents aa hour.' one of taem
repeated. He twmed to the ui sittiik; next to
him. tmo you reckon that's t?'
06ure.' hit5 friend i:1;iweered in a
smatter-ef.fot
'I wondel how much OUr beye did get
fol' the unloadin'oe someone said, joini; back
to the point sulde in ,..he note.
.31. thought that maybe it waa
twenty-five cents an hour. 'Seems I recall
they always did make that.' he said.
aZheze seamed to be scise dieagreement
on this itttter$ h .wever• his friends arguing_
the matter good-naturedly. -nd one of .11411111
said tinily, 'I !ward it was fifteen cents.'
But that didn't seam to stike anybody ae being
correct. It was generally agreed the mill wage
had been twenty cents then, und raisaa tu Welty
five since the wsk.;e and hou,.. law clme into effect.
'Anyways.' eameone concluded philosopfielly.sit
mom
wasn't fifty cents.'
There was deneral agreemwmt on that.
The bread man came final1y$ he dumped
several loaves of bread and several cakes on
the counter, and made 'Duct his slips. The etwee-
keeper spoke for hl a friend. 'Oet room on your
tIvok for this ts. n?'
'Iguess so. I can make room,' said
the di-iver denceously. He addressed the man
with tit bandz.ge. °Th t's if you don't mind
waitin, in the tJAtok while I make a couple of
stops on the way in.'
The man didn't mind. 'I it in no
big buri4„°_,ho sad. 'It's Just What I (Paint
much walk it.'
They went outside Liiid dot in the
truck, and you could hear the ma tellin6 the
driver about his injury. Then the truck ground
in to dear, and disappeared down .he illahwmy
toward Hendersonville.
II
short dIstance from the store, where
the ridge of pines to the North enoroaehed on
the village like an apparition from out of the
wilderness, several men stood in a d4.oup at the
.740
rear of one of the mill houses. ApnarentlY
they were dettin„; ready to butcher a pig,
because bubblind over with boilin,; water
were two immense kettles, and ,he men were
rubbirk; their knives down with whet -rooks
and gettind the swabbilk; cloths rea.4. A
man wearin,; laced boots ,41d a hunting cap
stood awtrt foim the others. He vas holding
a boy by the hand, and you could tell fAim
their features thitt they pAvb,Aly father
and son. They were feeding a rig an ear of
corn. It was email it couldn't fv%rdl' have
weidhed more tivel one hundred and twent five
y.ounds. But even so, it was probably as heavy
as most of the other pigs you could as when
you came into the village past the common pig-
let, if you came by the way of one of the buck
reads.. In fact, there were very few pigs in
the lot, and besides, those that were there
would be eleudhtered, mall as they were.
There was a reason for thia, of oourse.
These mill people couldn't ,ffozd a bigger
pig, for one thing. They had to pay for rental
of the pig -lot, or for pasture, if they kept
a cow, and when you added to thut the fact that
most of them earned Just twelve dollars a week,
and out of tht41 paid a dollar and a quartor a
week rent for the four room houses they lived in,
you began to underetand why they didn't hold the
little pigs loner, or attempt to tAten a big
ho6. ".;ven if you didn't allow for any oth4r de-
ductions, all of which were conveniently m444s at
tAt mill offices before an employee got his cheek,
and there were save othors, ouch as electric
liht bills, if the consumption of e,lergy was
ovez• the maximum (each home is allowed twelve
kilowatt hours of electricity free; or en,..)ugli,
in other words, to light one bulb a few hours
a day for a month), you oouldn't poo ibly ass
where a mill wo.ker could zlear ?more than tan
dollars a week.
Ari,rently, therefore, you o,u1
expect t see 1-.hese people pl-actice economy
no matter how amall the scale, '4 esuse t41.4
man with the laced boots didn't even
a final nuboin of corn on this pig he was about
to kill, but :;ot 4t to stand still simply by
cornering it, End ten ehot it.
?he boy ran when his father shot,
terrified over the noise rnd the excitement
and the lurchint: end flailims of the mor-
tally wounded
'nay* Deeveri the men called,
ti,Lused evc:. the antics of the boys who seed
about reaAy to burst with excitements 'look
at youryoung 'uni*
Ale boy kept on running.
'You'll hurt youreelfs stop itS' his
father yelled.
The boy fell down finally and tried
very hard to cry, but the tears wouldn't come
because he wasn't hurt.
'You oudht to be in the bed, boys+
his father said, plckind him up. IlleyS Willi'
he shoutA to someone inside the houses 'came
and get this young 'unS'
''what i4 tiLe the wo4ld is the ouAter?'
a woman called th;:ough the screen doors and then
stepped out onto the back ntoh. ,:he was ,I)out
thirty-five, pleasantu.faceds and despite her
appearance of general good ae,,lth, she hat a
ched look about her eyes, like her hsbilnd
and the little boy. Arlarently ehe had been
preparing dinner when ho 'uieband oiled, because
she still held in he hands a knife and
a pan of collard greens.
'Jack, you come here, oh,.) oiled not
uakindly to the 1),1/4
But J6ck had other ideas. He started
to run bt;aih, t4.ild his ester wAs dis zAohad
to otoh him. !lie oame ,.r.und the o3rner of the
house, finally, leadinc: him by the hand, a re-
luctant, petulant d214„..; on hdi- Avsk.
She led him past the men. Tnen she
'jack gets fits, all very innoc,tritly
‘,1141 direct.
9aistabethi'
ler f7Jihar fitopped Ain wol.k.
'Yes, ma,' she said meekly. thtill
holdilk; her brother nand, she went inside.
!;veryone *totaled to be extraordinarilY
busy at the moment, and besides, they all shared
the fettlinz tilt it wasn't tneir plci to say
'Um first wozd.
The.bly's woOlor thou,;ht snoh1 better
go in and turn In the ra-io. 'Jack's the worst
about listenin0 to the TA,10 preachers, she said.
addAnt, t keeps him quiJt.'
won LTA's the dressint; a n vt job;
and vil.en the pork ,3nd wat r sluiced ov.:r
it, they stretched toluis,aves and $tood back
to admire. 'ale eleven thirty wil;t14; had just
blown at the mill. It was a aood deal wamer
outside. better salt that pork down
rijit away, Deever, one of the men said,
.410
'It mizht spoil.'
Deaver nodded agreament. He shouted
toward the kitchen windev4 Cho 111113 CORO Mrs
a minutel Then he etretehed his arms and
yawned oontentAly. 'Boy, what a deal' he said.
bet those guys in the eard roam at the
mill are aching to be out.'
Somebody lt,ughed. 'And so will you,
tomorrow.'
'ell, maybe I'd be better off if I
was there now,' Deaver ,:eplied languidly. He
mailed. 'There aint no profit in takinc; a day
off.'
His wife came outside then, followed
by a red headed girl ihsmapparently was a friend
of the family.
Deaver told hers 10o up to Poole's,
Will, and get is a dimes worth of salt.'
Well...1
'Tell him I'll pay Saturday for what
WO OW040
She turned to her companion. 'Coming
with as, Pranola?'
The girl thought she could.
They crossed the yard, but at the
sidewalk they stopped to talk with someone th*7
knew. It was the an with the banda0.
Deaver called to his wifell'HeyS Willi
Hurry upS This here pork's liable to
?he nim with the banda6e whistled L‘
tune as he disappeared down the street; and you
Gould hear the women laudhinz about something
long after they went out of view.