Document text
All names of persons and places used in the attached life
history have been changed.
Title.
rom 141ARDI_ PLOUGHMAy
OrWaikl. names
quay Corn
Belle Corn
Ruth Corn
Aunt Sis
Lee Corn
Mr. MOMurray
Mills River
ChUllied
John Leard
Carrie Leard
Annie Leard
Nigger Bess
Albert Leard
Mx. Gillam
Agiqua River
June 19$ 1939
quay Corn (White)
(Wenner)
Route 2
Hendersonville, N.C.
Prank Nassimino (Interviewer)
Prank Nassimino (Writer)
JVIEM WARDI P4OVGHMAN
"The first year I was married I had a good crop,
one kid, and five dollars. Today I have nine kids and
not even a job. It'll be a miracle if we don't all
starve."
This was a statement, not a complaint, delivered
with no resentment whatsoever. John Leard is like that,
intent, but mild-mannered, cheerful, unimpassioned. At
the moment he was engaged in pulling a ragweed from be-
tween the rows of corn in his garden, his movements
deliberate, his hands gnarled and strong, his dark,
almost saturnine features turned coppery -hued by the sun.
He straightened up and resumed his cultivating with a
hoe, chopping between the stand with short, effortless
strokes. He was not a large man, but powerfully knit,
with all the muscles of his body seemingly concentrated
in his shoulders and back.* His overalls were patched
and repatched, his old army shirt was mottled with
sweat stains, and the soles of his heavy-duty work shoes
left the imprints of ragged holes upon the freshly
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turned earth of the garden.
"Yes, sir," he resumed at last. "It'll be a
miracle. Why, I come near worrying to death last spring
when my oldest kid graduated high school. Couldn't
do a thing -for her, I was that poor. Not that she asked
for anything. No, she's sensible that way. But you.
know how those things are. Like to do something for
the kids when a big time like that comes around. But
I was so danged poor it was all I could do to afford
to git to the school to see her git her diploma. The
school's fifteen miles from here, and I had to hire me
and Annie, that's my wife, a ride there.
"But Carrie looked right near as well as the rest
of them kids. I mean Annie had gone and got some
cotton stuff in town and made her a dress for the affair.
Annie's is handy that way. Carrie looked all right.
Only 'one thing made us feel funny. She was the only
one of the class that couldn't afford a class ring.
Said she didn't care none, but I reckon she did, at that.
Once when her girl friend was introducin' her to some
folks, she sort of hid her hand behind her back.
"I hated to see that happen. And if times was back
to twenty years ago, it wouldn't have happened, either.
Then I could of turned my hand at most any kind of job
and made decent money at it. But today it's different.
Been different for eight or nine years now, ever since
the depression.
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"Used to be a time when I drew a steady pay
check. 'Course, even in them days I'd stay awake nights
worryin' about havin' so. little of it left at the end
of the week. But now I can't slpep for studyin' how
I'm going to take care of nine kidsland no pay check
at all coming in. Looks as if I'll never be able to
git a good night's sleep." And John Leard quit his
hoeing ff)r a moment and grinned.
I asked him about his house. He pointed to
a three room structure that lay a couple of hundred
yards or more from his garden. "That's it," he said.
"And it's all I got to show for a life time of work
and worry."
I turned and saw the small, unpainted cabin
where inside this man, a woman, and nine children lived.
It lay a quarter of a mile from the dirt road; and in
turn from where we stood it was exactly three miles to
the nearest raved highway and another three miles to
the nearest s? -lop in town. Truly the backwoods of
mountainous Western North Carolina, this. As I looked
along the road, I saw a youth driving an oxen in a
swirl of dust. The lad's nakedness was clothed only
by a pair of abbreviated overalls. The oxen was small,
leg -weary and boney; and even from where I stood I
could see that it was dung spattered and ill-kepto
On sudden impulse I looked again at John's cow,
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in the pasture beyond the garden. It was sleek and clean,
and its udder was adequate -looking, even to supply milk
for eleven People. But then its owner had been around,
as the saying goes. He had worked out, wasn't really
a hillbilly. But...
"How did you come to buy 4. place oUt here?"
"Well, I didn't r ghtly buy it. You see, it
was handed down to me. Y; own folks they are the oldest
settlers known hereabouts. One of them fought in
the Rev'lutionary War. Had heaps of land, they dil.
Got it mostly from the Inqians, I reckon. Anyway, they
owned all back through here, for miles, and the land's
just been handed down and down till now there's a
whole settlement of us leards about here, each with a
piece of the original holdings.
Myself, I got eight acres. Yes, I'm satisfied.
You see, it's better'ri most mountain land. There
wasn't much of anything had to be done to it. I mean,
it was cleared and there was already a building on
it when I got it. Them old settlers done all that.
They were real workers in the,i days. They cleared the
land, mar'e it livable, and most of us is glad to have
even the little we got. "Course, the land ain't what
you might call real good growin' land. But it makes
passable corn and Itaters, and there is some pasture
left that is still right good."
He neared the end of the last -row to be hoed;
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He finished quickly, for it was about noon, his hands
driving the implement with quick, sure thrusts.
"It'll do," he said at last. "Come go to the
house with me."
The cabin was surprisingly light and clean; and
there was an appetizing odor of cnoking about the place.
There was a fireplace and a Aantle in the front room, and
two beds of the old fashioned iron variety; and above
the mantle and on the walls there hung pictures, magazine
prints mostly, each with a religious significance.
A strapping girl of sixteen knelt on the rough-
hewn floor nursing from a bottle a seven -months -old
infant; and around her crawled and ran and tugged four
noisy children ranging from tv'o to five years old. In
the kitchen, helping their mother prepare dinner, were
two other girls, one twelve and the otAer fourteen. Two
remaining children didn't put in an apTearance. They
were 'off sum'ers a-loafin',' as their mother put it.
The mother of this group appeared to be about
fifty. But at the table she announced her age as thirty
sevens "I was born in nineteen and two," is the way
she put it. "That would make me let's see..." and
finally with the help of all of her fingers she arrived
at the correct figure. "Golly, darn, how the time does
fly," she said. And she tore off a piece of corn bread
and munched it meditatively.
We s: —t and ate and talked; and I asked her how
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in the world a doctor ever got back into these hills in
baJ weather to deliver her of her babies.
"Doctors?" she said. Why, I ain't never had one
'cept for the youngest there. Had th doctor that time
because I couldn't git aholt of ol' Nigger Bess to tend
me. She's the best there is for that kind of thing.
And everybody hereabouts calls her in. That's why I
couldn't git her that time. Out on another case, she was,
that day. So John here he got his brother Albert to
take him over in his oar and fetch the doctor from the
sanitarium. I hated to see him do it. Had enough babies
by now to know how to take care of myself, 'theut gittint
a ispensive doctor. But John wouldn't hear of that. He
got the doctor anyway. We couldn't pay for it, but John
he worked the bill out. Cost twenty-five dollars. That's
a right smart, too. Nigger Bess'll come for her meals
and a dollar or two. And I'd a heap rather have her, at
that. Anyway, we ain't got the money to be callin' in
a doctor. It's hard enough to scrape together enough
to buy fobd for these young-uns, not to say what it
takes for clothes, now that the girls are a-grovint up.
"Take what we got here, now. 'T ain't fit to
set before a stranger. But it's all we generally got
ourselves. 1Taters and eggs and milk. Sometimes,
like this, when the garden is in, we have garden vegtables
for salads what the girls taught me to make. But we
never have no meat. And when the cow ain't fresh we git
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might)little•milk to drink. It's a wonder we ain't all
of us skin and bones. But we ain't, and thank God for
that, 'though I don't know in reason how come. Alk't
none of us skinny and poor like them Linders in the holler
over yonder, though, which is somethin', and folks
do say as how. I set a reasonable table..." and her dark,
gentle, clean eyes looked str ight at me.
There was poverty here, unmistakably. Grim poverty.
But if it was grim, yet it was not squalid or sordid.
And it wasn't to be ritied, not openly, anyway, for these
people weren't the kind to be patronized. Their poverty
wasn't that kind. They weren't that kind.: And in the
first place you couldn't very well pity them for they
apparently felt no self-pity for themselves.
After dinner, the head of the house settled him-
self comfortably in the hade of the front porch and sat
chewing ruminatinly on a math stick, his eyes watching
the clickns foraging around the yard. 'le discussed
farming and other tyres of employment, and he said that
he wished that he had a 'steady -pay jrb' somewhere, any-
where.
"Money's the thing," he said. "It's the one thing
a man can't do 'thout nowadays.
And you can't make any
of it growin' corn and Itaters. No, sir. I know., Once
I tried that sort of thing. J-iented a big strir of
bottom land from old man Gillam, and that yer I growed
some of the best corn ever seen in these here parts.
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Then I tried to sell it.. Ilan and hoe- you should of
heared what they wanted to jive me. Nothint, that's what,
just nothint. Offered me thiry cents a bushel. Thirty
cents. Know what it takes to raise the danged sJzff!
Well, ayin' rent on the land like I did, it costs at
least fifty cents a bushel. And they offered me thirty
cents.
That's farmint for you. That's why IU rather
have me a steady-payint job any day.
"Take a few years back, when I Was working in
the bean fields over in the Agiqua diver section. "1-1y
I got ten cents a bushel for just the pickint. And tfie
feller that raised them had all the wo=y. That's what
I mean. I'd rather work for somebody else, and let
them worry, and take what I can get for my labor. It's
best that way.
'Course that fall, when the bean
nickint season was over, I was out of a job. That
made it pretty tough, end that winter I daneeed near
starved to death, till finaely I landed a job with the
WPA.
"That was a od send, that job. Lade enouh then
to live like a decent human being. I managed then to
rut some stockin's on th kids bare legs, that winter,
and got them shoes and other stuff they needed for
school. Annie she got some nel clothes too, and she
had some teeth that had been hotherint her -nulled. All
in -11 we 7ot -ion- beer 'n we ever had before.
''Course, wedidn't waste any money r r 1.9iuries.
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Had too many mouths to feed to do that. There wasn't
e I
a nick/zzet of the wages I earned then that went for as
much as a bottle of sody-pop. No, sir, I was a -'saving
as mortal man could be. And that was why I could never
see why I was picked to git fired off the job.
"Yes, sir, fired. Some danged cuss ran to the
boss with a tale that I was squandering my money. Said
I was showing signs of acting big because I had me an
easy job. Mau, helli I worked just as hard there as
I did here at home. Harder sometimes. Just somebody
that was jealous. Mountain people are funny that way.
Don't like to see a:feller git along. And them that is
the most shiftless is the ones that will do you dirt the
fastest. At least, that's the way I see it.
"Anyway, somebody told the boss man that I had
gone and got a nigger to do my work for me at home. Said
If I Gould do that they didn't see that I needed a relief
job. Well, that was partly true. I did hire a nigger,
Hired him to do a little work on my garden that I couldn't
rightly do 'thout,I was to lay off work myself, gardening
being what it is, and there being special times when it
has to be worked. But I couldn't see as haw I did
Wrong. I was needing that garden. Wen with the !know
I was making, I couldn't clothe and feed the kids and
Annie right without a little help with what I could grim.
But they couldn't see it that way. They fired me. And
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here I am broke again, no job, times worse'n ever,
five kids in school, another one to go in the fall,
and Annie likely to have more."
More?"
'Well, I ain't sayin' for sure. But she wouldn't
hear of doin' nothin' not to have them. It's not
right with the lord, she says. It's wicked. And I
reckon mebbe she's right. If it wasn't sinful the Bible
would say so. 'Course, there is ways. Honest ways, I
mean. Annie and me tried sleepin' in different beds,
but that didn't work. Annie's likable, and all of vs
Leards can't stay away from the women....Our awn, I mean.
I -guess in that way we take after our Daddy.
"He had nine children hisself. And all my
brother's got five or six. James, he's the youngest,
hp's got six. And my youngest sister she's got grand-
children, and she's only thirty three herself. Yes.
She did marry right young. And so did her oldest girl,
for that matter. Too young I guess. The kid's never
been in good health. Doctor says she's got pellagra.
And one of her young-uns died of it here a while back.
Scrawniest little thing you aver saw. All drawn up,
it was, and it didn't have as much good red blood in it
as that there blade of grasss. The kid's mother's the
4111m way too. All white lookin' and skinny' We look
for her to die most any day now.
"Doctor says that kind of thing comes from not
eating the right kind of food. Well, if that'S the
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case, then half the folks hereabouts is sick with that
pellagra. Some of 'em don't never eat anything but
fatback and cabbage. Hog food is what it is. Some
of 'em can't afford no better. Some of 'em lust don't
know no better. And some of 'em just wouldn't eat no
other. Why, one clanged old woman, whose name I ain't
sayin' out plain, told one of my girls that the stuff
they learned to cook in the domestic science class at
school wasn't fit for a mortal man to eat. Called
salads and fruit juices and things like that starvation
food, and her eatin' fatback and corn bread every day
of 'her life herself. Said that lady -like stuff wasn't
goin' to keep a man a-workin' in the fields all day.
She said har man was skinny, but he was strong, and it
was all 'caumielthe knowed what to fix for him
"Now Annie, she's different. She has minded what
the tide have learned.amWschool and have told to her.
She's tried everything we could afford, like mixint up
the vegtables in salads and things like that.. And she
'sees to it that the young -tins git eggs and milk when the
cow is doin' right well and the chickens are haying.
"Yes, Annie's been a good woman. She don't go
nowheres, she don't 'pear to want anything better'n
have the kids around her; and outside of church she ain't
got a thing on her mind except them. Church, that's
different. She'd give everything she had to it if she
had anything to give. As it is she's always workino for
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the church, gettin' new members, callig' on the sick,
and doin' such as that. It takes up a lot of her time
when she ought to be takint her ease here at the house,
what with the hard days she puts in, but religion means
too much to her for her to think of the time she gives
it. And I reckon she's right too. A man can't go
to Sunday school of a Sunday morning without hearing
the good the preacher talks about and seeing how
happy it makes some of the folks. I'm all for it; and
feckon if I had a steady job, I'd buy up an education
for one of the kids and in time have him become a pflacher.
It would please Annie to beat nothin't and it would
do the kid a lot of good too.
*But I ain't got the job, and it don't look like
I am ever join' to git one again. I been poor, I am
poor, and I reckon I am goin' to stay poor. But I
reckon it's like the Preacher says.- Re says life just
ain't Out out to be the same for everybody. Says that
some people git rich and some git poor and stay that
way. But he says for the poor man to just keep on
tryin' and doin' the best he can. Well, that's the
way I feel about it, too. Itolde, I'll worry. I
A
always did. First it was about saving. Then a job.
Now it's food and clothes. Then, in a couple of years,
it'll be seem' that the kids git a start themselves.
But them things will sort of work themselves out, mebbe,
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and if they don't well..."
The man's pause was more eloquent than words. But
the most surprising thing about him was that during thu
whole of his recital be showed in his voice no trace,
whatsoever, of hatred or rancor. Instead he talked with
warm,level, unimpassioned tones, with a score of years
of patience in them. It was easy to listen to him, easier
to talk to him. There was no barrier to negotiate.
There was no distinction made, no discussion, no hint,
of class against class, no compassion spent on his owl
lot. Simply he talked about life as it was for him,
and as he viewed it, as a fact, nothing more*
Thus it was that when he arose and brought out
chat to a close that I viewed him with admiration, not
pity. For the man was beyond that, simply because he
felt no mill -pity for himself.