Document text
:iorker: W. O. Saunders, Elizabeth City
Person interviewed: A. D. Pool,
Elizabeth City, N. C., R.F.D. 2
First version written Nov. 10, 1938
HE NETER -:AN'rED LAND TILL NOW
His house sat back from the road a distance of about
a hundred yards. Only it wasn't his house; it was his
landlord's house, for Mose Sutton is a tenant farmer.
On the way up to the house, which was a drab, unpainted
wooden frame building sadly in need of repairs, one passes
a oollard patch, behind which may be seen (and smelled)
a hog pen and pasture. Two scrawny and not very vigorous
looking mules were munobing grass in the front yard.
Knocking upon the front door of the unsubstantial -looking
house, I received no answer, so I walked around to the
back of the house.
Beek of the house was a dilapidated combination barn
and cart shelter. An old pea harvester stood under the
shelter. The pea harvester was ..cow -band when Mose
bought it ten years ago.
A rickety farm wagon stood in the yard. It had oost
$12 at a foreclosure sale several years ago.
Two old plows and a broken down drill completed his
visible farm e‘luipment, not to mention the two forlorn
looking mules moles that looked their abject ahame of ancestry
and despair of posterity.
Moss and his wife and two Youngsters were busily mi.
gaged in going through a poor stand of cotton, plinking
the white fiber from the soattered bolls and depositing
it, with an automatic -like movement born of long practice,
into sacks which were tied around their waists.
There was something about Woe's appearance that
reminded me of the two mules had observed in the yard
something that suggested too much hard work in the fields
and too little to eat at times. Be seemed glad of the
chance to stop gifting cotton and talk to me.
lith a little prodding and prompting, Hoe* told me
haw the Southern tenant farmer or sharecropper about whom
the Administration evincod so much °amen in 1938 lives
and what he lacks,
"'What is your average annual Lwow, Moss?" I asked.
"That is, how much money do you maks off your farm in a
normal year?"
w.Nothint, or famous nothin,„" he replied. "If I have
enough left over, after paying for my go.ano and sash, to
buy flour any meal and rice through de winter, den I walls
myself lucky. I ain't made no money farming in ten or
fifteen years.
"Be landlord, he gets a fourth of do peas (soy beans)
and de eotton and a third of de earn and sweet potatoes,
and I gets de rest. MA furnishes ne a house, de outhouses
and d* land, and I furnishes de teem, de work, de seed
and de go-ano. BA keeps all de bodice and aeeounts, and be
settles up wit ne at de end of de year. If I's* got
anything a -tall eoninl to we atter all de bills is paid,
feels lucky.
"You sees die cotton, don't you? 'No or three bolls
to de stalk, where der* ought to 111* two or three pounds.
If had to hire hands to piek it, I'd lose money on it.
Ilse got a pretty fair stand of peas, but day ain't selling
for nothint, And den's die only two crops I got dat I one
sell. I didn't raise no sweet potatoes to sell, and I jos
about got enough own to feed my team till next year."
"But how do you manage to live through the winter
when you have a had year like this?" I asked him.
"Well," he replied, gravely, owe just eats when we
got anything to eat and goo* hungry de rest of de times"
"Are there many days when you actually go hungry?"
asked him.
got a little
we ain't gat
he replied, "dere ain't any days when we ain't
some -thins Viet, but dare's lots of days when
nothin, but a little earn pone ant maybe a
potato or two."
"What do you have for Suede,' -dinner?" as
"Lousy, mister," he oxclaimed, "Sunday dinner aintt
no difforent from say other dinner yid us. We eats what
vets got, and if we ain't got nothinto we just dontt eat
nothing,.
"And what would you °all a good Sunday dinner?*
"A mess of collards, a plea' of backbone and hot corn
bread," he answered, after a moment's reflestion.
"Collards is nighty good .stint when doy Is cooked
right," he explained "when you (looks a piece of fat meat
in do pot mid de collards, don you ain't got much. But
when you fries di meat se/Orate and don pours de grease
from it over your pollards, den you got soiethie fitten:*
At this point our conversation was interrupted by a
hullabaloo on the other end of the cotton patch. A dog was
yelping excitedly and one of the boys was shouting at the
top of his voice. We found out what all the excitement
was about in a few minutia' when the boy ran to his grand-
daddy proudly exhibiting a rabbit which the dog had seared
up in the cotton patch and had succeeded in eatohing.
Wei" turned to ne and said, "We'll have neat on de
table today."
"I should imagine that the boys ',Dula provide you with
quite a bit of game during taw fall and winter months,*
I *aid.
°Webb* dey could,' said ose, sadly, 'if we could
afford to buy a huntint lieenee ant shells for de shotgun.
But It's been two or three years sins* we vas able to do
that. So we jos has to make out de but way we oan. De
dog, he catches a rabbit now and den, lik* he done Pm
now, ant d* boys have gar rabbit guns; sometimes d* boys
catchers a possum in a steel trap does got in de woods,
but outside of dat we dontt get hold of mush neat exeept
what I can get from my few hogs.
"And speakint of 'possum, dere ain't many things
datts any better to eat den a baked tpoesmm ant sweet
potatoes, Wan, datts shonuff good satin'."
Still pursuing the subject of diet, I asked Uoim if
his family liked fish.
ens likes em all right, he answered, "but we dontt
*at fish mush. Dere ain't no water aloe* by mime we can
oateh any, and jes oantt afford to go to town ant buy
fish. De few tines dat I felt able to buy any fish at all,
had to buy nanny shad, and you know what that is --it's
about de sorriest fish dire is.
"No„ we don't get muoh fish, and we dontt get nmeh
gam. We eats mostly out of de garden in do summer and
out of 4e collard patch and do hog pen in de winter."
Turninfr, the subject sway from food I asked Mose how
long it had been since he had purchased a new suit of
clothes.
"I'se pot cne suit of clothes," he said, "and its
eleven years It might have to last me another eleven
years, so I don't wear it no more den I has to. I wears it
'bout three or four times a year, such as when I goes to a
funeral or to sone bi doings in town."
"J,nd what about shoes"
"Lt year, Tame said, "I wore these gun boots that
Ilse -ot on ri021 new from de last of Septanber right smack
through till the ',at of lay. Then went to town and bought
a pair of shoes from n seoond-hand store for twenty-five
cents.
LIU
only :air of shoes It'se had in two years.
sees dat dress my wife is wearing.
that's an ola calico dress a white woman down the road guv
her about t..lo years ego. T. ain't been able to buy her a
new dress in seven or eight years, ,Jaybe ten. .h.en you
ain't cot nothint, you Jo,' has to do widout. let's one
thing we'se had to learn."
"Have you rot a honograpll or a radio?" I asked him
next, seeking to find out if 7,fose's family had any 2eans
satertsinent in their lime.
.7.
"No, suh," the old leTro replied, "I couldn't never
afford nothin' like that. 40 did have a graphophone one
tIme, but it got broke and I never was able to have it
fixed* But T reckonit's jest As well that I wasn't be-
cause if it was workinf! now I wouldn't be able to buy
records for it, when you has to work as hard as I does,
when night time oores on you don't want to sit up and
listen to no music; you don't want to do nothin' but
go to bed and try to oz,t some rest.
"By the way, ;,-lose, how old are you." I asked, noting
that his moustache was white and that he looked a little
tired and weary.
'Ise seventy years old, ndmy wife is sixty-five,"
he told me. "I tried to get some of dis here old age
help from de govermint, but day told me a man what lives
on a far n can crow all de sumpin teat dat he needs and
he don't in7,ed no hell) from dIe overr1nt. tut I knows
white folks with nice houses and autortobiles and a lot
more to eat than I got what's drawing money from de ver-
mint every :3onth.
"I can't get along =lob longer :1.-thout some help.
Mb and my wire ain't got no children of our m,in here to
home, but we's raising four gra&chillun, one four years
ole, one seven one eleven and one fourteen. The fourteenm.
8
year -old boy does most of de plowing for me now, cause
I just ain't able to do hard work eny more. But he'll
soon be rottinp big enough to co off somewhere and work
for somebody else, and den I reckon I'll jos have to give
up raring. Folks Jos don't want a tenant dat's wore
out and can't make somethie for them."
"But what in the world would you do if your landlord
decided to rent the farm to somebody else?" I asked,
realizing that such an occuranoe was not beyond the realm
of probability.
T'se thought about that," Mose replied,
thoughtfully. Ise going to ask de landlord won't he let
me have a little piece of land --about an acre --and if 11
do it I've going to build no s little house on dat piece
of land and plant me a garden and try to 7it along somehow
till I dies. Course, it won't be much of a house. Jes
a floor anc" a shingle roof and some weatherboardini', but
it ouflit to keep out de rain and de sun and de wind."
ft
hat makes you think your landlord might flve you
an acre of lan(7,Lose?" I asked.
"I ain't right sure he'll do it," Mose answered.
"but Ilse got strong hopes dat he will. You see, I has
been working die farm for him for forty-one years, and
before I came here with him I 'ass with his brother for
.9.
three or four years. Dat's a long time to stay an one
man's forms and 1 don't thidebe'll turn as out with no
place to go when I gets so I eset work his land no
more."
"Do you subserlbe to a newspaper?" I asked him
Maw mho* he replied; *Ain't mmeh of a hand at
read in' nohow; niggers didn't get =eh addyeatioa when
I was Gamin' along,
"I tuk a farm paper ones; white man eum up to me in
town en said Mr. Poe had tole him to make me a present
of a Blue Back Speller. I sho thought that was mighty
nice of A. Poe. I'd always vented to own one of than
Blue Bask spelling books. my peppy laid a lot of store
by it.
"I tuk de boa and de white man wrote somethie an
a piece of paper and gin it to me. I tuk the paper and
he said that would be Wt. lin he said it in a way dat
didn' seam to leave no roam for argymint. I didn't have
but one lone dollar to my name, but I just west down is
my pocket and hauled it out and guv it to him. Ho gin
me back two cents change and left me standie there
wonderin' how come. That farm paper has been oomin' ever
sine*. We find it mighty heady *Gera*, finis.
"Do ohillun wants ma to take a paper for de funny
paper dat comes yid it, ant Roscoe, (dates de oldest boy)
hots right smart wid his letters; he On road right
along, ant write and figger too. Uy ole toman ass hots
goint to bo a preeeher„ but I dean think R011000 has made
up his mind whether hetd ruttier be a perfesser in a
schoolhouse or get a job drivint a truck for somebody*
Rwty time o ottermobile goes by Rosooe be pm quit any.
thing he happea to be doint in jes matoh it till it's plus
out of sign.
Nose has never owned an automobile and be says he
is too old to aspire to ownership of one now. But Ros000,
that oldest grandson of his, is "jos plum sot on tem,"
he says.
Men somebody oma along and offer Mn a otteroobilo
reckon bed hire out to tea for his keep for tho rest
of his life," said lime with a shake or his head.
Woes oarries snail industrial lit. policies on his
four grandchildren, at a cost of five cents a week. "I
don't want de county to have to bury 'en it dey dies,"
he says; "about do biggest thing poor called folks get
out of dis life is a funeral at de end of it, and whin
do *aunty has to foot do funeral bill it ain't such of a
funeral /ft a telling you."
Mose Sutton is seventy years old; his wife sixty-five,.
And they don't own a foot of land. All their vordly
possessions exclusive of the two mules would hardly bring
forty dollars at the court house door and the mules have
seen their best days.
And not in all the years of his life has Mose aspired
to ownership of a farm. He was born of slave parents who
stayed on the plantation of their master after they were
freed, and ended their days in the selfsame quarters they
had oocupled in slavery. His peppy taught him that white
folks were the owners and bosses of the earth and that
the best way for "a nigger to get along" was to 'tit*
by his white folks. "Stand by your white folks a$d they
won't let you starve," was the slave philosophy that he
had been taught from childhood. Never used to much, he
never wanted much, and his simple wants were vouchsafed
him so long as he performed the tasks his white folk
assigned to him. He never aspired to ownership of land
until now. Now, with his sun law in the went, with hoary
head, bent shoulders an rheumatic joints, he hopes that
he may spend his remaining winters in a clapboard cabin
with a mud and stick chimney on a single sere of land
in a clearing, where he may have a little garden with
its rows of oollards, corn, beans and potatoes, and,
possibly, a pig in the pen. He will take his hount dogs
with him, and maybe they will stir up a rabbit for him
now and then, or tree a coon or opossum by the light of
a winter moon.