Document text
Anne Win atevens
:ecember-16, 1938.
The Farlows
Mrs. Albert Farlow
15 Hall Street,
Asheville, N.C.
should you walk along Hall street facing a -,;ay from Factory
Hill, you could pick the Farlow Cottage from the others because
of its neat, ship-shape appearance. Though needing paint,
the cottage and the tiny yard show care. The low picket -fence
lacks no pickets; the gate hangs true. Inside the fence the
low hedge has been neatly clipped. On each edge, the paved
walk has been carefully sodded. In the summer there were
garden flowers.
On a Monday morning, a part of the family wash might be
hung on a cord stretched evenly from post to post on the front
porch, as well as on the clothesline in the narrow strip of
side yard, but the garments would ite noticeably well washed.
So would be the rag rug spread to dry on a clean newspaper
where the morning sun strikasa the porch floor.
The same order and cleanliness would appear within. The big,
brown heater beSide which sit Mrs. Farlow and her widowed daughter,
Mrs. Colbox, seems to have been polished recently. The blue
counterpane on the well mate bed in the corner, though faded, is
spotless and unwrinkled. So, too, are the white muslin half
curtains at the windows, and the hand -embroidered linen cover on
the dresser. The bright red, oil cloth square on the floor is as
good as new, and as shining. The furniture, though cheap, is in
good trim and well polished. A few framed prints on the wall, a
motto or so -the effect is distinctly cozy. The faded cotton dresses
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of the two women are perfectly clean. Even the tin cans, one
on each side of the stove, into Alich one woman and then the
other spit at regular intervals, wear an outer brightness.
The Farlows own the home, and are proud of the fact.
To win Mrs. Farlow's good will it is only necessary to
mention Mrs. Elizaceth Morris, now head of the Adult Education
-Project. Her face will glow as she says: "I well remem er the
first ti: e I saw Mrs. Morris. I was workin' in the garden,
and had my apron full of plants and roots. "Good Iibrning, Mrs.
Farlow; said Mrs. Morris smilin' and holdinl out her han to
shake hands with me. ""I stood up, holdin1 the plants in my
apron. I'm not fitten to shake hands with you; said;
I've been diggin in the dirt."
"Mrs. Morris said real hearty -like; I've come to give you
a special invitation to the night school. You must be sure
to accept'. "Well, I didn't wanCtO go to night school. I'd
been onct. And some boys and girls what was there laughed at.
my clothes and remarked on them and laughed at me, because I
couldn't read or write, so when Mts. Morris invited mei I
thought; here's a young sprig of a girl wants me to come to
night school, so she'll.have somebody to laugh at, and something
funny to tell her City friends aLout us pore mill people.'
"So I said; 'I don't think I can comes But Mts. Morris
kep' on insistini until I said; I'll think about it!
"That night I set out for the might school right after
supper. Albert, my husband, has a real good education."
Albert dropped out of school at fourteen. He was always
amused at me because I couldn't read, or rite, or figger.
When he saw I was goin' to that school, he teased me about a
woman of my age." Mrs. Farlow was then in the forties-
'settint out evenings' and he laughed at the thought of me
'Gamin' to read. Eut I thought I'd give the school a trial.
"When I went in, Mrs. Morris come u and called me y name,
shook hands with me, and said as how glad she was to see me.
"She gave me a chair by a ta -le' a sheet of paper and a
pencil, anci set me something to write.
"She saw that I was 4nOkkward and didn't know how to :pegin,
so she put her arm around my shoulders and tuk my hand to show
me When she put her arm around me, the tears come into my
eyes, and kepi comini, because I had been so mean as to mis-
judge her in my heart, and to thihk that she would maks fun
of me, and her so good and sweet."
"The next evenini, though I cou4dint go back, because
Flora here," pointing to Mrs. Colbox, "took sick with typhoid.
But every night Mrs. Morris sent me my lesson, and when I wrote
it and sent it back, she corrected and returned it. I made so
many mistakes I got real discouraged, and would have give up;
but Flora said, 'Don't worry, Ma. When I get well from typhoid,
I'll help you with yor, lessons.' Flora had finished the
fourth grade!
"so between Mrs. Morris and Flora, I learned to read and
write and spell and to figger a little.
"Albert still thought it was a joke; but it meant every.
thing to me. Why. before I went to night school, I coundn't
even read the numbers on the houses. When I wanted to finu a
certain house, I'd ask some one where it was. They'd tell
me the number. I'd go on along the street -as if I understood,
alt I was that embarrassed. *len I learned to read the house
:numbers, it maeme real happy."
when
"Pa made fun of Ma, learnint to read, because/she begun
to read the newspapers, she kepi up with what was goinl on
better'n he did. That's what griped him," interposed Lirs.
Colbox.
"I love to read newvapers yet," continued Mrs. Farlow,"
tkWhen I can afford to buy them. When Albert is sick at night,
he has suffocatin' spells with his heart; and I'm afeard to
go to bed 'til he's better, I sits and reads the paper 'til
eleven or twelve o'clock. If I couldn't'read I'd just
have to s it.°
"Sometimes I site and reads fastory-magazine'.
But Mrs. Farlow's tone of voice implied that she thinks
"story magazines" silly and perhaps a little wicked.
The night school taught Mrs. Farlow other things. "there
was community singing, and sometimes we'd get to act in a play,
and even to take it on the road.
"And there was cooking classes from house to house in the
morning'. Those who could cook nice, could take their biscuits
or cookies to give to people they wanted to interest in the
school. Maybe later the people would give us materials or
even checks to help furnish the club -house we was working for.
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"The reason I never learned to rend when I was smalll
explained idrs. Farlow," was eeciuse I lived too far from the
school house. My ea was a cei:ae, Confederate soldier,"
Mrs. Farlow is now sixty-six- and he lived on a farm at
Milledgeville, up around "Zaliscury. The school house was a
lone -eay off acrost the Yadkin aiver. There was no beidge
over the Yadkin, only a high foot -log. Pa was scared to let
us childeen cross the log, for fear we'd fall in the river.
"3esides, he needed us nine children to work for him.
He put each of us to work on the farm, as soon as we was six
years old. I hoed corn and picked cotton from the time I was
six years old to nine years. After I grew up, I even split
rails.
"Yes, we always had plenty to eat: Milk mad butter, beans
and potatoes, and other vegetables. We never had to wait for
Associated Charities to feed us.
"When I was nine years old, I went to work in the mill at
Milledgeville, N. C. I worked in the spinnint room every day
in the week, twelve hours a day. I was paid ten cents a day.
"Yes, the pay is better now, but the work is harder.
Workint in the mill now is just slavery."
"After Ma come to Asheville" chimed in Mrs. Colbox, she
kep/ on working' in the Cotton0011s. She met Pa here and
married him when she was seventeen."
"Albert was from the Country, too," continued Mrs. Farlow,"
He went to school until he was fourteen. His parents was
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renters and not stout. When he was fourteen, they died.
They had been sick so long they didn't leave him nothing. He
kepi on eerking' on a farm for a while. eut he wasn't paid
much. So he quit and come to work in the cotton mills in
Asheville."
When asked if many of the mill oeeratives come from the
co -entry, Yrs. Farlow answered.
"Yes, they think workin' on the farm is too hard. They
want readj citsh. So the:i, move their famelias, children and
all, into the mill village. The children ain't allowed to work
in the mill until they're eighteen years old. The law don't
force them to go to school after they're fourteen. o when
they reaches fourteen, most of them drop out of school, and
wander up and down the streets or thinks of nothing but dressing
up, and wasting their time in the moving picture houses. If
the children was taught to work when they are young, and was
made to work hard, there wouldn't be so many people have to
depend on the Government, novies
Mrs. Farlow's husband, a loom -fixer, has worked in the mill
since he was a boy. He now suffers from heart trouble and at
times can “nsk only two days out of the week. A part of the
time he can work feur days a week. Be gets four eollars,
forty cents a day. Mts. Farlow, herself, worked in the mill
for a long time after her marriage, dropping out only long
enough for her children to be born. Of her nine children,
seven lived to be grown and married. Four of these completed
high school. The others dropped out of school against the
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wishes of their parents. "And I raised three grand children
besides," she boasts; "And we never has hai to ask any body
for anything."
"No, we aint been able to save much; it toAc all we made
just to live and keep up the family.
"Ya to ..k in boarders 1.r a while;" contributed Mrs. Colbox,"
and with what she and Pa was able to save they bought this five
room house. That was eighteen years ago. We've lived in it
ever since."
"What money we did save," sighed Mrs. Farlow," was in the
Central Bank when it failed. Me and Albert had three hundred
dollars thar, and my daughter Flora here ,"indicating Mrs.
Colbox," had all the money left from her husband's life
insurance. It was six hundred and thirty-six dollars."
Mts. Colbox's only son, a boy of seventeen, was killed in
an accident "come six years ago."
He went to work at fourteen," said Mrs. Colbox. He
worked at the Western Union awhile, at the Langren news-stand,
and at the Postal Telegraph. The people who ran the Langren News-
stand thought so much of him they wanted to adopt him and
educate him. At the Postal Telegraph he worked twelve hours
a day, from seven in the morning to seven in the evening. Be
made from ten to twelve dollars a week including tips.
"He had just begun workinl in the mill" continued Mrs.
Colbox," when he was killed. No body knows how it happened.
He was riding on his bicycle on Buxton Street. He must have
been struck down tc, a car. There wasn't any witnesses. Some-
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body found him unconscious in the street. He died .our hours
later, without ever coming to".
Mrs. Colbox'can get no job. "The mill won't take me on
because m, eyesight is defective. The W.P.A. won't put me on
in the sewing -room, as long as Pa has a job in the mills. I'm
71umb wore out trying to get a W.P.A. job."
Mr. Farlow, who will be seventy-one "Come next June,"
works from two jays a week to four, as his physical condition
permits.
"Dr, Morgan says as how Pa isn't able to work. He has a
leaking heart and may drop dead any day. Pa don't know how
bad: off he is. o'ut if we was to tell hirp, it would only
bring on a bad spell, and. he'd itive right up."
"Sometimes he can't sleep nights, except sitting up in a
chair," said his wife. "lis has suffocating spells. When he
works in the mill, his ankles swell, till they hangs over his
shoe tops from standing' up so much. "Out of the money he
makes, he has to pay three dollars every six days for strychnine
and digitalis, and some weeks he don't work but two days."
"Seems like we can't get along this way much longer, what
with taxes, coal, light and water, life insurance cominl due,
medicines, an' doctor's bills," moaned Mrs. Colbox.
"We've managed to keep up this far," chorused, "Mrs.
Farlow," but we owe a sight of doctor's billstand we are
fallin' behind on taxes. The house needs painting, too."
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church dues, and lives right."
Mrs. Colbox admits having at onetime belonged to the
Salvation Army, but she doesn't find the Army as generous or
as profitable as it used to be.
To eke out their slender income both .omen mnke quilts.
When they furnish ail the materials and do all the work, which
includes the quilting, they collect three dollars a quilt.
2ut a detailed enumeration proves that the material alone
costs two d-llars an a half. "But someti.Les e .ake more.
My niece who was married last month wanted us to quilt her the
design called the "Wedding Ring;' s.o she furnished us all
the material and ordered two quilts at $1.50 a piece. We
generally makes two quilts a week. It takes a day ancia half
to quilt each one," concluded Mrs. Colbox. She displayed two
quilts they were making. They were, indeed, quite colorful
and gay.
"I used my quilt money to buy shoes and cotton cloth for
two dresses summoned up Mrs. Colbox.
Said Mrs. Farlowt "I haven't had a new dress in ten years."