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August 4, 1939.
Lrs. J. Thompson (white)
route 5, Hendersonville, i. C.
(Housewife)
Lrs. Luline abry (Interviewer)
Frank kassimino (writer)
HER UNGODLY GRANDSON
Uriginal Names
krs. J. 0.
Thompson
Presston Thompson
L:anson Thompson
Rupert Thowpson
John Thompson
Dewey Thompson
Changed Names
Aunt Sarah 411kins
Giles ,Alkins
Russell Nilkins
Pliny ilkins
uus 4ilkins
..iubert Ailkins
HER UNGODLY GRANDSON
Aunt ziarahis house looked cool and comfortable,
in spite of the blistering neat of the day and the
unfinished appearance of the building. ,isteria vines,
large shrubs and a huge cedar tree threw a cloak of
cool shade around the entire place. And although the
building had never been completely covered with
weather -boards, it was ade4uately watherproofed on
the outside with black building paper and appeared
snug and comfortable. In front of the house spread
a grassy yard spotted with crimson peonies, and
beyond that lay the road and the mail box, wnere
Aunt 6arah stood to await the approaching rural
postman.
The arrival of the mail carrier, or rather the
contents of his bag, was a source of extreme interest
to Aunt saran. jae shuffled out into the road and
frankly investigated the addresses on the mail being
sorted out, until finally the postman handed over a
letter addressed to her. As sue took the letter she
lost interest in the other mail, turned to shamble
back to the house, and invited me to go with her.
There, the old woman read tne letter through
once, then aain. Finally sat; was apparently satisfied,
and with a radiant smile un her face she leaned back in
her chair in the shade of the front porch. One hand
she rested, palm upward, across the soiled apron on
her lap. Her gaunt rignt hand fingered the letter
and her tired old eyes held a distant look. She was
evidently touched and pleased by the contents of the
letter, or its arrival, if her expression was any
indication.
"It's from Giles's wife," she said finally, "and
she 'lows Giles ain't been talking 'bout nothing more'n
his trip, since he come to see me over Motner's Day."
Giles *dlkins, one of her sons, employed on a
large diary farm, lived in knio. He had gone there
ten years before, and in spite of the distance which
separated him from his mother, made tae trip home each
liother's Day to see her. And the fact that he did
seemed to be a source of never ending enjoyment to her.
"Giles'e wife writes me nigh every week," she
went on. "And I'd be disapointed if I didn't hear
from her. But never do I get a letter that I don't
get to worrying tnat something nas gone wrong. No,
not just at C4iles's place. Just anywheres. You
know how it is. Letters bri-g bad news sometimes.
Either someone is ueaa or they is sick. Like tiussell's
wife aussell, that's one of my boys. I declare, she
is the sickliest thing. Ain't a time the postman runs
that I don't reckon to ..;et, a call to come over and keer
for her. Cr Russell's young-un. he's allus a -stirring
in some ornery business. Ain't no telling when a letter'll
come a -saying that he has at last been kilt. And that's
how it is. You allus got your troubles when you got
a whopping big family like me.
"How many? '64, if they'd all lived there would
of been 'leven of 'em. As it is I raised ten. The
dead-un we didn't never name her she didn't live
five minutes. But the others they all growed up strong
and went off and raised them families of their own.
That is, all 'cept Pliny. That's the youngest one.
lie stayed here at home to sort of take keer of me,
seeing as how I find it tolerable hard sometimes to
fetch and carry, and so many things to be done, too.
'Course he wouldn't of had to keer for me hadn't been
for his paw a -dying. But with uus gone and me just
a grain short of being eighty, I just had to keep
somebody on the place. Pliny's a good boy, but he
does complain sometimes. He says there's a heap
of work around here. And I reckon there is. But
I declare his paw'd never complain. liblmo.that he
wouddn't. Gus was such a fine man. Lord, I get so
broody sometimes, just thinking 'bout him, that I
could
Aunt arah hesitateu, took up tne corner of her
apron. he flashed the tip of it across her eyes and
resumed.
"Oh, Pliny does right well at tuat. Goodness
knows, he's just a young-un. It's just that i miss
my old man so much. I thougat tle sun riz and set
14 hie. he was so decent and he allus took good
keer of me and the young-uns and never went off a
drinking or a-uusting around lie otaer men do.
'lot that the core man didn't nave c less to, for
the Lord only knows ho e hard we eau it from the very
next year after we up and got married and went into
housekeeping to the day Gus died. First of all, my
erotner sold hie snare of aey aaaey's property to us, and
what with my ehare we had a rignt spank of land nearly
a hundert acres. eif course, it was mostly mountain
timber land, but we set a store ei it, and ,:eis he
figured to clear a part ef it and leaeo a parcel of
cash from the timber for to set us up in the farming
business. 3ut we didn't move on to it fer a spell,
and ellen we did we found that some emery scoundrels
had went and gone and cut clown and hauled off the
prime timber and left nothing for us but the piddling
Usti* saplings and the broth."
The face of the old woman cloudod angrily. A glint
of fire in her *yes soemed to make the dark hollows
around them less noticable.
"I declare, I'd of liked to of seed Gus get a
bolt on them thieves. It really would of been a comfort
to as. by, we had sot such stars by the undertaking,
that it just knocked the 1-,ttom from under us to see
how that land was ruint.
right after that Gus be reckoned we'd just
better Wild a cbin on tie land and live there so's
we'd be on Wind to *es that nothing else would be
plundered, and we did. Stay*d there a long time, too,
but it was never more'n a place to eat and sleep, for
with the timer stoled we aever did gilt kotcbed up on
enough casa money to farm like we'd planned, and iaus
ae had to -o out and take 11040 kl,4 labor he could get.
For a right smart specs as went off to work in
a canning factor' I know in reason as hated it; and
if it wasn't for the fact that we didn't have one
speck of money laid by to give him a caancet to farm
his own place, he'd of quit afore you cQuid 4f Jpoke
his name. Goodness knows, as had it hard *hough.
.:1 -ht dollars a week he'd maks sometimes, if he got
in a leetle extry time. You know that ain't barely
enough to feed a family, let alone buy 'em clothes
and the like of that. And when the pore man'd come
home over the week -ends, he'd feel so porely and so
plumb wore out that he just couldn't lay a hand to
a plow or drive a fence post, two we didn't get any
whores with the farm, in spite of anything we could
do.
"Finally we seed that something just had to be
done. Gus 'd say he couldn't see as how we was improving
our lot a -staying on, and I said many a time that I
just couldn't put up with the loneliness of being cooped
up back in the mountains, with just the young-uns and
a porely cow and a hawg to look at and talk to whilst
he was away, so all to meet we just throwed up our
hands and come on down here, closter to town, to live.
"Well, I been here ever since. Yes, this place
is paid for. Gus seed to that afore I put him in his
grave. He traded in that Hundert acres of mountain
land as part payment and made the rest up in payments,
and at that I do believe he got the beat of the bargain
wlowin he gut shed of that goodm.for-nothing land. Yea 'm
we raised a few things here. Garden stuff mostly.
You see the place is really too little to farm like
we allus wanted to. Gus he just worked out until the
day he died.
"Sometimes weed lay a leetle by soes we could buy
us a farm, but then a young-un'd come along, or times
would get one say and Gus 'd get laid off, and the first
thing we knowed we'd have to use up the money we saved.
It used to worry Gus nigh to death. It was all the
pore maned be able to do to support us. And the
young-uned squall mignty bad sometimes when he
wouldn't give 'em the money to buy the purties they'd
see in town. I hankered after purties too, but then
I knowed just how things was. And I used to try to
explain to the young-uns, too. I told them we just
wasn't horned to have money. I'd tell them that
there was more in having kinfolk and real honest -to
goodness friends than in having a heap of money
anyways.
"And it's the truth. Take my own family, for
instance. It does me right proud to see how they all
turned out. Giles, that's the one whose wife writ
me, he just wouldn't think of letting a kother's Day
go by without coming all the way down here to see
me. Then there's them that are in the service of
their country. I'm real set up about that. One is
in the Navy, and t'other's in the Army. The others
are a -farming and a -doing right well by it, too. That
ain't to mention Russell. He lives down yan a way. He
Zama too, but he doesn't get along so well.
"What's that? Yes, it is a pity. But it ain't
Russell's fault. It's that boy of hisn. He turned
out so bad and got into so many mean doings that it
just took the heart out of Russell and spoilt him for
farming.
"Hubert, that's Russell's young-un's name, allus
was a leetle scoundrel, although I do declare you
couldn't help liking him. I remember a time when he
could just barely walk, and I run up on him a -stealing
tobaccy from pore Gusts kit. He didn't think he had
done anything wrong, and he looked so innocent that
we just let him get away with it. Rut he got worse
and worse, till now he's on the chain gang for breaking
in one of tiler', there tourister's cabins. I reckon
e should of been set rignt tae very first time. I
know if it was to do over again, and I kotched him
a -stealing, I'd cut tae blood outen nim, and me not
his mother at that."
Aunt Sarah spoke seriously. A worried look crept
over her brows.
"But I never dealt with a rascal like that afore,"
she went on. "And I never dreamt that there young-un'd
9
carry his plundering so far. Why, be got so that he
couldn't lay hands often a thing he'd see. Just last
Christmas he staled six of the nicest fryers you'd
ever see from me. And I seed him do it. Right under
my nose. Ho knowed I saw him, too, for I hollert out
just as loud as I could. And what do you think he done
then? Why, on New fears day he come to sit with me
and visit just as nice as you please. Lord, what are
you going to do with someone like that?"
Aunt Sarah raised her wrinkled hands then plumjimmi
them down in her lap in a geature of despair.
"Finally I give him a good old-fashioned talking
to," she continued, "and be agreed to do something
worthwhile with his time. So he went and told his
daddy he was a -going off and shore enough be went and
'listed in the CCC's. Well, that was a load often
everybody's minds. Russell he perked up when he figured
the boy'd gone and did the right thing, and I felt
tolerable myself because I figured it was my reasoning
with him that straightened him out.
"But in two months be was back. ,4ith a dishonorable
discharge. I felt so ashamed I could of cried. There
ain't never been nothing like that in our family. Pore
Gus must of turned over in his grave. And Russell he
just throwed up his hands. He figured if the CCCIs
couldn't do nothing with that boy it was nigh to hope-
less to expect him to.
"Well, after that, the scamp fell to thieving in
real earnest. Then they kotched him a -breaking in a
summer folkses house and sent him over trio road."
Aunt Sarah sighed in contemplation. Her mood
was difficult to probe, but he* next words revealed
her thoughts somewhat.
"Oh, I don't know rightly what to think," she
faltered. "Sometimes I wish they'd keep him locked
up and sometimes I feel right sorry for him. After
all, I allus did think there was some good in the boy,
even after he got throwed out of the CCC."
"Even after he sold you a skinned cat for a
rabbit?"
Aunt Liarah reddened. She hesitated a moment, as
if she would rather discuss some other subject, but
at length an innate sense of propriety, if not honesty,
compelled her frankly to admit that she had heard of
the prank, although she would neither confirm nor
deny that she had been tae butt of it.
"Some old woman did ask that uagodly young-un to
bring her a rabbit, and he bruhg her a skinned cat,"
she revealed. "But I ain't a -saying who it was."
She bared her toothless gums and chuckled silently.
"Lor4y," she exclaimed at length, "it tickles me to
think that a old woman that was brung up in the country
would be took in like that." her mirth became audible.
"And I littered she at it, tool" she finally buret out.
It was a little while before Aunt Sarah's mirth
subsided. When it did sne took up again the evaluation
of her grandson's waywardness.
"As I was a -saying," she went on, 42 can't help
thinking there used to be some good in that boy l If
he is good-for-nothing now it ain't just his own fault.
No's. There'll be some to answer to the Lord just as
much as him." Her voice grew contemptuous. "Shucks!"
she spat out, "I'd say that if he'd had a decent mammy
he'd of growed up different. 14hy, when that young-un
first began to pocket things that wasn't hien, his
own maw'd keep the plunder, instead of taking a hickory
to him and a -marching him right pack with the stuff
like she should of. She'd say she was 'shamed to have
anybody know be took things, but I'll bet she just told
that because she wanted to keep the plunder herself.
Always, she really did mass up the life of that boy
of tarn. I know in reason Robert never meant to steal
real like at first. Just did those things to be smart,
just like a boy. Then and there be should of been
broke of it. If that woman'd had any sense about her, he
wouldn't be a -setting in the jail house this minute, God
forgive him. But when he seed his own maw use the things
he brought home, he 'lowed it was cute to steal, and
that's what set him off in real earnest."
Aunt Sarah indicated the end of the interview by
rising from her chair. She shuffled across the porch,
down the front stairs, and into the yard.
She plucked a bouquet of old-fashioned flowers and
thrust them in my hands. As I turned to go, she cleared
her throat. At length she said:
"I do declare! The day I heered Hubert was put
away I just couldn't help feel right bad. It does seem
a shame that a young feller like that aas to come to
such a bad end just because his maw didn't have the sense
to raise him right, don't it?"