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Larch 13, 1939.
Billy Gilbert (white).
Leicester, N. C.
Farmer
Anne Winn Stevens, writer.
Douglas Carter, reviser.
GONE TO SEED
Original names
Billy Gilbert
Changed names
Bobby Gardner
GONE TO SERJ3
The older Mrs. Gardner tramped through the mud on her
way from her son's small, boxlike store at the corner of the
school grounds a brawny, elderly woman. Her bobbed
white hair was unkempt; her elbows stuck out of holes in
her red sweater; her green skirt was as short as a 16-year-
old's; her stocky legs were bare, and she wore striped socks
and heavy shoes run down at the heel.
She fitted appropriately enough into the run-down farmhouse
toward which she plodded. And yet in spite of its
neglected, run-down air, the farm must once have been
very prosperous. The great oaks between the paved highway
and the big, green -shuttered white dwelling were badly
in need of trimming. Many of their branches were dead,
and so were some of the trees. Beneath the oaks, cedars
which must have outlined a walk were untrimmed and running
wild. The front of the house showed yellowish splotches
where the front piazza had been before it was allowed to
rot down and fall apart. The long L trailing at the rear
of the house supported an unpainted piazza, piled with old
planks, old boxes, broken farm implements, stovewood, and
-Names changed.
March 13, 1939.
Billy Gilbert (white),
Leicester, N. C.
Farmer.
Anne Winn 6tevens, writer.
Douglas Carter (Reviser).
GONE TO SEED
The older Mrs. Gardner tramped through the mud on her
way from her son's small, boxlike store at the corner of the
school grounds a brawny, elderly woman. Her bobbed
white hair was unkempt; her elbows stuck out of holes in
her red sweater; her green skirt was as short as a 16-year-
old's; her stocky legs were bare, and she wore striped socks
and heavy shoes run dawn at the heel.
She fitted appropriately enough into the run-down
farmhouse toward which she plodded. And yet in spite of
its neglected, run-down air, the farm must once have been
very prosperous. The great oaks between the paved highway
and the big, green -shuttered white dwelling were badly
in need of trimming. kany of their branches were dead,
and so were some of the trees. Beneath the oaks, cedars
which must have outlined a walk were untrimmed and running
wild. The front of the house showed yellowish splotches
where the front piazza had been before it was allowed to
rot down and fall apart. The long L trailing at the rear
of the house supported an unpainted piazza, piled with old
planks, old boxes, broken farm implements, stovewood, and
miscellaneous junk, all of which was partially hidden from
the highway and the intersecting side road by a tangled
clump of cherry trees.
The road leading to the kitchen at the end of the L
was muddy and deeply rutted. Several ramshackle outbuildings
garage, barns, chicken house showed also a clutter of
indescribable junk. Fenced in a muddy yard at the backs
a number of half-grown hunting dogs tried miserably to
escape the red mire, pawing desperately at the fence.
Beyond the house, huge grapevines did show some evidence
of care and pruning, out the sprawling apple orchard seemed
uncared for.
As I accompanied Era. Gardner up the muddy road, I
tried vainly to make conversation.
"I see you have hunting dogs for sale," I said, referring
to a sign. *What kind are they?"
"There are several kinds," she replied.
"'What do you charge for them?" I continued.
"My son charges different prices," she said.
"I'll have to ask you into the kitchen; it's the only
room that has a fire," she explained. The morning was cold.
The kitchen presented the same disorderly, cluttered
appearance as the outbuildings and the side piazza. Behind
the kitchen range the shelves were filled with empty tins,
boxes, pans, and pots, in complete disorder. The walls
seemed never to have been painted. A sullen young woman
was washing a child's socks in water as inky as if it had
been used to mop the floor. Her dark hair was in disorder;
her ill-fitting gingham dress was by no means clean. Her
gray eyes smouldered and her answers were curt. She wrung
out the socks without rinsing them, and hung them to dry
on rods above the range, on whose top beans and potatoes
were simmering for the midday meal.
The farm owner, Bobby Gardner, seated in a low chair
beside the stove, was reading a magazine. He seemed superior
to the clutter. His thick, neatly brushed, white hair
contrasted pleasantly with his clear, ruddy skin. His
features were good. Through the open doors Bobby's crippled
son, a young man in khaki and high boots, could be seen
limping through the mire.
Bobby closed the magazine and pointed to an illustration.
on the back cover: a glamorous cigarette advertisement.
"That advertisement," he observed, "is a anare. The
manufacturer is the only person who finds tobacco profitable."
His wife and daughter-in-law remained standing, but did
not comment.
"You raise tobacco?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied, "but there's nothing in it for the
farmer. It's all a lottery, and the farmer is the loser.
This past year I raised 1,940 pounds of leaf. I had to sell
it at 120 a pound. There ought to be some way of regulating
the price by law."
He continued in the same vein: "The farmer has no chance.
Look at the taxes he has to pay:. Like as not, he lives on
nothing a year, so that officials up in Washington can draw
big salaries."
A child ran out of an inner room and climbed into Bobby's
lap evidently the child of the sullen young woman and
the crippled young man. He seemed intelligent, but curiously
small for his three years. Perhaps it was because he was
clad in clothes much too large and old for him that he seemed
so tiny.
Conversation lagged. Mrs. Gardner murmured something
about having to dress for a funeral to be hold that morning
at the Methodist church. I took the hint.
But several days later I said to Mrs. Cooper, whose
husband owns the twin -looking farm next to the Gardners,
"Tell me- about your neighbors."
Mrs. Cooper fenced. "There never were kinder, more
considerate neighbors." she said. "They would do anything
for me."
"Yes, but what are they doing for themselves?"
"Well, there's nowhere a better man than Bobby Gardner,"
she answered. "He s honest, sober, hardworking; but he just
doesn't know how to manage."
"The place used to be prosperous?" I said tentatively.
"When Bobby's father was living," she replied, "it
was the finest farm in this section. He owned from skyline
to skyline." She pointed out the boundaries. "He had. upland
farms, and rich bottom land. He kept the house and surround-
ings in beautiful order. Bobby just farms sections here
and there. He raises tobacco chiefly. He's no manager,"
she repeated.
"Besides, his son is no help the crippled boy you
must have seen."
"What happened to him?"
"He had infantile paralysis as a very young child. But
he could be of more use if he wasn't so dissipated. He is
kind and generous when he's sober; but he's always in trouble.
He's been in several automobile accidents driving when
drunk. Recently he lost his driver's license. About a
year ago he was nearly killed in a fight with his father-in-
law, Nike O'Brien, a rough and tough fellow who lives over
on Mushy Clay. It's a wild section."
"What happened there?"
"'Well, Dick that's the crippled boy carried a
woman over there. He claims he met her by accident, and
she begged a ride. His father-in-law had been drinking.
He cut Dick in several places, across the stomach and on
the arms. Dick had to drive a mile before he could get any—
one to bring him to a doctor. When he reached the hospital,
my son, who is a surgeon, sewed him up. A little more and
Dick would have bled to death. His mother was ill in Florida,
where she was visiting her married daughter, so they didn't
let her know at the time. I was mighty sorry for Dick's.
wife. She nearly died of shame. You see, he's in trouble
so much, he's very little help on the farm."
An. acquaintance in town -Wire, further light on the
situation.
*Did you hear Bobby Gardner's wife talk?" she asked.
*No, she said very little to me.. Her husband did the
talking."
"Bobby's wife," she observed, "is a woman of no education.
Bobby is. much better educated than she is. But he's always
been eccentric. His son is no help to him, as you have been.
told. Now, when Bobby's father was living that farm was a
show place, the most beautiful in the neighborhood. But
you saw how they let the piazza just rot down and fall to
pieces. And did you ever seen anywhere such piles of junk?
And Bobby," she continued, "isn't as young as he used to
be. He raises and sells fruit, though, as well as tobacco,
and in the summer he has a pretty good truck farm. But as
Mrs. Cooper said, he just ian't any manager.*