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March 27, 1939.
Lester Gerren (white)
The Rutledj,e F..trra
71dtaher,
m
a.
Tenant Farmer
Anne Winn ".'teveno, writer.
Douss.las 1/4".lerter, reviser.
Ortitinal Names
Mrs. Oarren
The Kutledges
lite, Garren
Lester (0arren)
Fletcher
',ALL OUR FOLIC; WAS ?ARMTA7
Obalyked p.m.!
Mrs. Riddle
The Middleton.
Jane Riddle
Zim(Riddle)
Fielding
"ALL OUR FOLKS NAAS FARIERS"
At the top of a raged hill drown over with 3crubby
oaks stands a dingy, four -room cabin. The two rooms of
which it eonsisted originally had been painted dreen, but
except for a few streaks here and there the paint has long
since rubbed off. A lean-to of rough boards has been added.
Freight and passenger trains chug along the tracks beyond
the country road leading from the village, and cough up
smoke from their toiling engines. The smoke caught by
the wind swirls over the bill and still further blackens
the cabin mad outhouses. Although pleasant, green fields
rimmed by distant mountains partially encircle the hill,
this house near the railroad tracks is as unprepossessing
as the shacks in the meanest mill village. It has no
modern conveniences. Stoves heat it, and it is lighted by
kerosene lamps. Water is secured from a well adjacent to
the pig sty in the middle of the barnyard.
No attempt has been made to grade the yard, and the
only evidence of care is a gravel walk outlined by bricks
set edgewise, which leads from the front porch to the brink
of the bill, where it stops short. At thP back of the house
is an irregular clearing, muddy in wet weather, dusty in
dry, and cluttered with snail stones. Here stand the barn,
stables, and corncrib, patched loosely with rough boards.
They have never been painted.
NY husband patched 'em up loose on purpose," said lbs.
Riddle, "so if we move he can pull down his boards and take
'em with him."
"Don't the owners keep up the property?" I asked.
"Nought but the big Uouse," she replied.
At first view from the rocky, deeply rutted road the
place seemed abandoned, except that a brood of baby chicks,
on hearing footsteps, rushed out from under the house, climbed
all over the porch, and narrowly escaped being stepped on.
The rough cornfield to one side of the cabin still has last
year's stalks standing at the end of March.
On the opposite side of the hill, overlooking wide grain
fields and distant mountains, is the red -roofed, many -gabled
summer home of the Middletons, aristocratic coast dwellers,
who rent part of their mountain estate to native farmers.
The Middleton homestead is approached by a neatly graveled
road, outlined by trim shrubs. An intervening grove conceals
from the summer occupants the tenant houses along the rail-
road track.
Jane Riddle, the tenant's wife, is a brawny, masculine
type, about 45 years old, with deeply tanned akin and rough-
hewn features. Her hair was entirely hidden by a cheap,
red and green wool cap; her cotton dress was faded and shape-
less; and, although there had been no rain for a week, she
strode along in galoshes.
She was getting dinner. "My husband will be cominl
any time, now,' she said.
"What are you giving him for dinner?" I asked.
"Potatoes," she grinned. "Every day it's potatoes:
boiled potatoes, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, potato
soup."
Peeled Irish potatoes in a yellow bowl an the long,
sin -covered table confirmed her statement. A range
occupied one and of the kitchen. Rough shelves in the
corners bore coarse earthenware dishes; a few pots and
pans hung on the walls. The adjoining room, barely furnished,
was evidently the living room. It had faded, large -flowered
curtains at the windows, a coal heater, and a few cheap
chairs. The walls were cluttered with a miscellaneous
collection of ay -specked calendars.
"That's a picture of my youngest son," said Jane,
pointing to a large photograph on a dresser in one corner.
"Ha graduates from high school this year." Later in the
day when the boy came home from school, it appeared that
the photograph flattered him. He was cia/qc and thin, and
stooped badly. He had a sullen, hangdog expression. Like
his mother he was very closemouthed.
The older son, already graduated from high school,
rwiarks in the weaving room of a rayon factory at $22 a week.
He lives with his parents. The older daughter works in a
hosiery mill and also lives at borne.
"She inspects the work of 100 girls," said her mother
proudly, as she drew from a dresser drawer a cheap, light
blue, rayon stocking. "This is one of the stockings they
make at the mill," she said. -"my dawter inspects the feet,
another worker inspects the legs, and another inspects the
finished stockings when they era 'Wady to be packed."
*Haw does yourdaughter like the work?" I asked.
"She likes it; but it's hard on her oyes; she complains
of them hurting her, when she comes home in the evening."
The girl makes $12.50 a week. She is pale and anemic
looking, and puffy about the eyes. Her expression is sullen,
and she answers questions in a curt, monosyllabic style.
Neither she nor her yourer brother seem to have shared
their mother's vigorous health. Although she has trouble
with her eyes, she does not wear glasses*
A younger girl, still in grammar school shares the
family reticence, byt is more attractive, with dark, curling
hair and serious eyes. A member of a 4-H club, she works
on her project conscientiously. Last year she planted and
tended a plot of beans. The vines bore abundantly, but
although the crop was good the market was already glutted,
ad that she could sell none. This year she is raising a
Hereford steer, a calf whose horns are still mere nubs.
On her return from school she went directly to its stall,
slipped a halter over its head, and led it out.
Her mother, who was haggling with a salesman over some
insect powder, stopped to sew, "Better water that calf;
forgot all about him. He ain't had nothin' to eat, or no
water, neither." It was then late afternoon.
The girl led the steer to the three stocks of fodder
standing out in the clearing, tethered him, and let him
munch from one of the stocks. Nearby was a harrow left
in the open to take the weather.
Jane Riddle and the saleaman continued their argument.
The salesman, middle-aged, sandy -haired, and bland, was
saying that Jane's hens needed delousing.
"Give the powder a trial, ma'am,* be said. Jane vent
to the corncrib it must have been a chicken coop, ori6inally;
it was built of slats and quite open enough to be soaked
through by rain and took out an ear of corn, and began
scattering the grains. At her call, some 30 hens came
tumbling over each other. There seemed to be no 11.--nhouse,
so they must roost in the trees, or in tne stables, perhaps.
They were a mixed brood: Plymouth Rocks, Ahode Island Reds,
games, white Leghorns, and less easily recognizable species.
5he ducked quickly and seized a big, squawking Plymouth
Rock. The salesman rubbed the yellow insect powder into
the hen's feathers, shook it out into a box lid, and pointed
to the lice that squirmed and then lay still. An argument
followed.
nhat there one," said Jane Riddle, pointing a long,
thick finger, "ain't dead."
The salesman smiled patiently and shook the box lid.
Beads together, they watched intently.
"It ain't dead yet," said Jane again.
"Mow look," said the salesman triumphantly. "It's
dead, all right. It's the fumes that kills /am."
The task of delousing 80 hens seemed to stagger Mrs.
Riddle, particulemly wnen the salesman declared the process
should be repeated several times at intervals of three
weeks.
"You could do it this way," he argued: "just put the
powder in the dust hole where the hens are accustomed to
wallow. That will do as well.
Then there began a haggling over the price. "A dollar
-7
and a half's too much," said the farm woman.
The salesman maintained his bland air. he
agreed to take as payment two living hens totaling 11 pounds.
"1 can sell them," he said, "at the curb market in town."
Mrs. Riddle brought out bathroom scales* which she
balanced precariously on the uneven :round. :len after hen
was caught and deposited thereon, but refused to perch,
until at last the salesman solved the problem. He placed
the hen's head under its wing, rotated it vigJrously, then
placed the bewildered fowl on its side on tne scales, while
Mrs. Riddle and the younger girl squatted beside him to
read the dial.
"Five pounds," announced the salesman' .as for a split
second the hen lay still.
"No, 'twee five and a half," said. Jane.
Hens were then fed and caught and rotated, until at
last two hens were found whose combined weight totaled 11
pounds. A debate broke out afresh about the price per pound;
Same demanding 160, and the salesman contending for 12i0.
Finally the salesman won, and tucked a hen under each
arm. He handed the container of insect powder to Jane.
"I ain't am-goin' to take that there box," she declared.
"You done used some of it."
The salesman waddled dawn the hill with his hens. Be
returned from his parked car with an unopened box of the
powder for aer.
3esides the chickens, Mrs. Riddle raises and sells
vegetables, and keeps nees„ but the real business of the
family ia raising beef cattle. Jim rents 120 acres from
the Middl tons and pays them a flat sum of $300 a year
for tne house and lot and tae farm land. Jane seems to
think this a profitable bargain and, while noncommital
about aiis, inthetes they are prospering. They have 25
full-blooded Herefords, several full-blooded Jerseys, and
other cattle of mixed breed. Those lying in the shade of
the trees adjoining tne lot looked rather gaunt. There
were no stalls for them. Evidently they sleep in the
grove.
Part of the land is wooded, part is pasturage, and
about half of it is arable bottom land, already green with
springing grain. They also raise corn, peas, beans, and
hay, and although Jim, 55 years old, is small and thin, and
does not appear to have much strength, he dan plow all day
without excessive fatigue.
"All our folks was farmers," said, Ara. Riddle, "back
up in the mountains. No, I don't know when they settled
there, or where they come from. Jim's people and my people
lived in the same cove. I've known him all my life. Hie
brothers and my brothers all fan.. Most of 'em are back
up there where we come from. I've got one married sister
living in Fielding."
"Did you and Jim go to school?"
"Yes, I finished the school went through the seventh
grade but Jim dropped out. They was only one teacher
it was a little log school and we didn't have grades like
they got now, but they told lue I went through the seventh
grade. I don't know how far Jim got he's older'n me,
and dropped out before I started."
Jim owns 102 acres of land back in the mountains, but,
"It's so steep," he said, "it ain't fit for farmin'." He
raises apples on this land, and pastures cattle on the
hillsides. Be tried renting the place, "But the tenants,"
Jane put in, "let the cows get into the orchard and break
limbs often the apple trees. They run down the property,
so we just locked up the house and let it stand."
*We've lived here about three year," Jim added, *but
we ain't brought our best things here. We sort of foal
like we're camping out."