Document text
Approximately 2,525 Words
SOUTH OAROLINA WRITERS' PROJECT
LIFE HISTORY
TITLE: TOM BIRD
Date of First Writing February 10, 1939
Name of Person Interviewed Mr. George Tanner
Fictitious Name Tom Bird
Address Highway 175, Rural
Place Marion County
Occupation Tenant Farmer
Name of Writer Annie Ruth Davis
Froject t3613
Annie Ruth Davis
Marion, S.O.
Feb. 10, 1939
14EfiP
MAANLMITY
SOUTH OAROLIRk
In sight of the crossroads of Highway No. 175 and
Highway No. 502„ three miles from the town of Marion,
stands a four -room, unpainted, tenant house, which has
been built in the midst of open fields. Tom Bird and
his wife, Miranda, have lived on this fifteen -acre farm
for the past seven years and have managed to make a fair
living by sharecropr)ing their money crop with the owner
of the land.
Seldom may one pass this little home during the winter
months that they cannot glimpse a curl of smoke disappearing
into the air from one of the chimneys. Miranda Bird is quite
deaf and can count her yearly visits on her fingers, while her
husband leaves home only to attend to some necessary business
or to chat with some of his country friends or neighbors about
the times.
As one nears the little dwelling, it is impossible to over-
look the fact that some careful hands have recently swept the
yard about the house nicely. A few rose bushes grow at scattered
places about the front yard, while a couple of large oak trees
shade the tiny back porch. Bright pink frilled curtains adorn
the windows of the two front rooms and within the house, every-
thing is in perfect order. Two bedrooms, furnished with highly
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polished furniture, stretch across the front of the house and
behind these extend the kitchen and dining room. The house is
lighted by kerosene oil lamps and a pump, standing on the end
of the back porchosupplies all the water used in the holes.
Everything about the place gives the appearance of humble,
yet thrifty living, showing that Tom Bird and his wife make
the best of the little they have.
After rapping several times at the front door of the house,
the door was slowly opened and from behind it stood a little old
woman with tiny gray eyes, which looked up anxiously from beneath
an old time sunbonnet. Without hesitating a moment, Miranda Bird
explained that she was hard of hearing and could not talk to ms
herself, but that I might step into the newt room and talk to her
husband, who was lust back from the hospital. Tom Bird had been
operated on a few weeks before for the removal of a stone from
his kidney. Dressed in a heavy brown shirt, he was lying in bed
mainly from weakness. He seemed anxious to have company and in-
sisted that I sit by the bed and talk awhile.
"No's, I'm just suffering from weakness, that's all," said
Tom Bird. "I'm glad you've come for I've been wishing somebody
would drop in and sit with se a spell. It don't worry me none
to talk and me and my wife have 'bout talked all we know. I
suffered torture for seven years with a stone in my kidney till
I went over to Florence 'bout three weeks ago and got operated
on. That operation done me so much good, I'm 'bout to believe
all doctors are good people now. Maim, I'm 'bout to believe
that we couldn't live without them. I got to where I was so
poorly and no -count, I wasn't worth nothing, but I feel a lot
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better now. It looks like doctor's prices runs high, but don't
reckon we ought to grumble being they have such a lot of expense
to carry on. I stayed in the hospital eleven days and it cost
me $35.75. That looks high, but I wouldn't be baok in my old
shape for the same money and right mart of difference.
*Teem, my father was a farmer and that's what I've always
been. I was born and raised down on Big Pee Dee Swamp in Marion
County. I've done a little other work catching jobs in short
times, but I've stuck to farming mostly and that's good a life
anybody wants, I think. Coos I'm sixty-seven years old now and
getting so old and poorly that if I could find something easier
to do, I might like it better.
"I've shoo had to work hard for all what's come to me ever
since I got big enough to handle a hoe. My mother died when I
was a infant, and I lost my father when I was 'bout twelve-year
old. At that time, wasn't but se one left, for my step -mother
taken my half brother and went to Columbia to live. I was forced
to get out and hunt my own way of getting along, so I stayed from
house to house and worked like a dog for other people. You see,
when I was oomine up, children that lost their parents had to
take it rough or tumble worked for what I got to eat and a
little something to wear. Oose tne people I stayed with was
good to me, but I had to do as they said do and make out on
what they chose to give me. In those days, I didn't know
nothing 'bout no money. I remember the first twenty-five
cents I ever got; know how I come of it. Man come down in
the river swamp to run some timber off and give ma twenty-
five cents to tend his stock while he was down there. Thought
I had some money with that quarter in my pocket, I'll tell you.
"No, I don't remember of ever going to school a day since
I've been born; didn't know nothing tbout there was such as a
school in my young days. But education's oho' a good thing and
something everybody ought to have. I feel like I've missed half
my share in life not knowing no learning. Ain't learned my A.B.O's
yet and can't filers no count coming up. For instance, a man that
don't know e figlre, don't never know what to do or how he's done.
If I hadn't been blessed with such a good mother wit, I don't know
how I would've done, but I got my portion of that. My wife, she
tends to my figlrinc mostly and after my three daughters got up,
they helped me out till they all got married and left us. I sent
my children to that big echo )1 in Marion, but all of them quit
school and married while they wasn't no more than kids. I wish
they'd gone on and finished, but people makes mistakes that they
can't se- till it's too late. Didn't none of them think they'd
need a education, but there ain't nothing amiss getting one 'cause
that's something can't nobody take sway from you. My youngest
dauL;hter, her husband died last June and she shoo needs her learn
in; to take care of herself and her six -year -old youngun._ Thought
when she quit school and got married she was fixed, but she's got
to get out and make them a living now and oan't find nothing to do
what ain't calling for a education. Cose some people have so little
sense till if they gets e little learning, they think they know it
all.
°I worked around for other people till I got married and that's
been 'bout forty years ago, being I'm sixty-seven years old now.
The first year we was married, I sharecropped a little piece of
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land down next Pee Dee, so as to get something to give me a
start.. You see, I was set out in the world with nowhere to
lay my head and nothing to do with, but folks was good to help
us along till we could get a little ourselves. The second year
we was married, I rented twenty-five acres of land for $50.00
and rented a twenty-two acre farm the next year for a dollar
and a quarter a acre. Both places been over next Pee Dee Swamp.
We made pretty good them first two years, but lost 'bout every-
thing that last one and had to start all over new. We was living
down on the river's swamp and the fresh water come up in August
and drowned everything we had. At that time, I was so down and
out that I just worked around here and yonder for what I could
get four or five years. But I couldn't make no headway in that
line, so I moved over on Mr. Foxworth's place and sharecropped
a couple of years to get me another start. After that, I moved
up on Sheriff Blue's place, where we lived something like twelve
years. I worked on Mr. Blue's plantation three years for fifty
cents a day along with a little extra land to tend for ay own
planted a garden, little potatoes, corn, and such as that. And
when there wasn't much to do on the farm, I worked on the rail-
road shoveling for ninety cents a day. Then I worked in the
timber woods sometimes a little along and along and drawed a
dollar a day for that. Them odd jobs fitted in mighty well in
short times, too, I'm here to tell you. We just rented clean
out them last nine years we lived on Mr. Blue's plao0 and spent
our money like we pleased. We didn't make no money crop then
but cotton, something like four or five bales a year, and it
never brought but five cents a pound. Still we got along pretty
well to Sheriff Blue's place 'cause we made what rations we need".
ed mostly. That's where my children got most of their raising.
"After the old sheriff died and all my children married off,
me and my wife thought we could do better trying a little share-
cropping again. Well, we got word that a man wanted somebody to
run his fifteen -acre farm over here on shares, so we made up with
him to move on this place. The man what owns this place, he
furnishes the land, the manure, the house we live in, and that
big oorn barn out there, while I puts in all the work and carries
the crop on my one horse for half what money crop we make. It
used to be I farmed the whole outfit for half the crop, even the
potatoes, but that didn't noways make enough for us to get along
on. Cosa our corn land, that's always been ours.
"I don't know exactly what I make on this land, but I've a
pretty good idea of what it comes to. I made something like $500.00
money crop last year, including tobacco and cotton, but cone that
had to be divided half with the other man. Then I know I raised
125 bushels of corn and I think that will be just bare enough to
carry us through. Made 'bout fourteen bushels of potatoes in all,
'bout enough to run us to spring, I reckon. Potatoes will shoo
surprise you though might taink you've got a lot, but when they's
measured up, seems like there ain't none hardly. We have 'bout
twenty head of chickens and four hogs what I raises mostly for
home use. Always try to have a little hogs, so as to eat a little
hog and hominy as the old saying is. We sell a right smart of eggs
along and along and have a nice gentle cow that furnishes us in
milk and butter. I wish we could raise turkeys and guineas,
but we can't keep them hers because of living so close to the
highway. We can't watch them all the time and they will wander
out on the road and get run over. Tee's, we commonly uses what
we sakes a year on this place for what were obliged to get.
Like all these farmers 'bout here, I don't plant much
money crop these days because of all this government control.
It looks like it ain't right to what we've been raised, planting
what cotton and tobacco we pleased, but still it ain't near like
it used to be. Teem, I'd rather have tobacco control myself
for it gives us poor farmers a better ohanoe, but it ain't all
dealt right. I believes in some of this farmer business and if
they'd treat everybody right, I'd rather have government contracts.
But some gets more acres to plant than others and that just ain't
fair. I think everybody ought to get so many acres to the horse.
Said that time the racket of it started.
*I'll tell you what's my opinion of this government 'lief
work, too, if you want to hear it. In some sense of the way,
it's hurting us; don't see where it's doing us much good. In
fact, I know lots of people get help that don't need it and a
heap of them that needs it ain't getting none. Take a big
strapping Nigger man, he can draw forty cents a hour a fooling
around on a government job doing nothing. That's how -come
people oan't get no labor hardly these days to make a crop on
the farm. Yesom, this government work, it's giving the black
man more independence and making the white man more dependent
every day that comes. Well, I just don't know what to make of
the times nohow just can't see into this 'lief work.
"My idea of voting's just like this, people vote to be a
voting. Then again you mighty apt to have friends you want to
vote for and while you voting, think mighty as well vote clean
round. I used to vote pretty regular for a spell and then I'd
hit up with bad luck and quit off for two or three years. It's
like this, if a man votes, he'll have plenty friends, but he
ain't counted much if he don't vote. I know I have as such
right to vote as another fellow and if I don't do it, I'm
throwing away part of my rights. Then I vote because I think
the man running is a good man for the place. But you can't
tell for true if he'll be a good one or a bad one for the place
'cause when a man's running for office these days, he's every-
body's friend. After all, it's just a chance of biting on the
right one, I reckon.
"We belong: to the Baptist Church in Marion, but me and my
wife don't go muOn now. Figire we oan live just as good staying
home and behavine, like we ow8ht to on a Sunday, for things ain't
like they was a time back. People used to go to church for the
good they got out of it, but the church is more of a society now
than anything else. A man joins the church these days and if you
don't watch him, he's liable to do you dirty. People take the
church for a kind of a blind nowadays used to go to church to
worship the Lord, but now the most of them goes for big looks.
I've been noticine and watching around a heap and things shoe
have changed up since I come along. When people got home from
church in tr.e old days, they'd eat dinner and set around and
talk, but no they hurry home from church to get to some big -to-do.
That's what ails the world now, I think. Ain't no rest nowhere.
I used to drive my horse and buggy to town to church every Sunday
and if a notion struck me to go these days, like old style, I'd
travel that way again. But we've both just got out of the habit
of going mostly 'cause old people can't get along like young folks,
you know.
"I'll tell you, people just ain't healthy like they used to
be and it's nothing but the rush they lives in and what they eats
now that's causing it. Old people used home vittels altogether
and they was heap healthier and lived longer than people of this
day and time. And can't nobody stand this ripping and a tearing
like most people goes these days. Like when tobacco time comes,
I don't get no rest. Teem, all the objections I have to tobacco,
it works you instead of you working it. Sometimes I have to work
all night and all day in rushed tobacco time. Then right after it's
over, cotton picking's a staring you in the face. Life on the farm
shot keeps you stirring, but I don't reckon nothing else would suit
me, being that was my raising."