Document text
Approximately 2,800 words
77 B.
TITLE:
souni CAROLINA WRITERS' PROJECT
LIFE HISTORY
HE AND THE OLD WOMAN
Date of First Writing
Name of Person Interviewed
Fictitious Name
Address
County
Occupation
Name of Writer
Name of Reviser
January 12, 1939
Enanuel Schunpert (white)
Ed Leightsey
West Columbia, S. C.
Lexington
Mariner and Market Gardener.
John L. Dove
State Office
"As fresh as the water in the Congaree," shouted Ed Leightsey, as he
patted the tender green leaves of a huge collard lying on a counter under
a big signboard marked WINDMILL ORCHARD Peaches and Grapes on the long
curb market. "Top of the morning to you, sir! Yes, sir, it's collards
today from over the river, and they are good," he greeted the writer that
chilly morning in December, 1938.
When the old gentleman was told that his collards needed no further
advertising, a smile lighted his wrinkled sun-tanned face; not just a
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business -getting smile, but one that expressed the warmth of human kindness.
People stopping at his market stall,
with that smile and his beat wishes.
"But why do you say that?" he inquired.
"Because the market inspector placed his approval on your collards when
he said just a little while ago, 'If you want a story of a good man and a
good farmer, see old Ed Leightsey down on the 1100 block of Assembly Street.'
And it's yours, not the collard's story that is wanted, Mr. Leightsey. See?"
"Fresh collards, fresh Congaree ----Oh, yes, yes, the market inspector.
He's always pulling things on me." Grinning good-naturedly, he inquired, "A
story did you say?" Oh, well, I'll be glad to tell what **,41, there is to
tellA but I -don't think it will excite you-mmeh-ro
He turned to mrs. Leightsey, his wife, a small gray-haired woman of
around sixty years, and inquired: "Minnie, where'd be the best place to start
telling of our troubles?"
"Just anywhere you wish, Ed, but don't
to Charleston."
While Mr. Leightsey was left to tell the story of his and Minnie's troubles,
Leightsey attended to the wants of the many shoppers who stopped to
trip
Mre•
or even looking his way, were greeted
forget our
school days and our
price the neatly arranged piles of onions, cabbage, collards, turnips,
potatoes, pecans, peanuts, eggs, fruits, and flowers. All of this, except the
apples and citrous fruits, had been produced at windmill Orchard the
Leightsey farm six miles west of Congaree River and the town of West Columbia.
Nodding in the direction of the Congaree, he bMgan: "I was born just over
the river, a few miles in Lexington County, on January 3, 1871. So you see
I'm past my sixty-seventh birthday. I went through what they would call, I
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reckon, the seventh or eighth grade at school. :Anyway, I studied the old
blue -back speller, the dictionary, Reed and Kellogg's grammar, history,
arithmetic, through stocks and bonds, and the big geography that had the
pictures of wild animals and big snakes living among the trees in the jungles.
I quit school at twenty years of age to take a job with the Danville Lumber
Company at Dixiana, South Carolina, at seventy-five cents a day and my board.
well, sir, Dixiana is one of the few places in the world where one can
be out of sight of land and water all at the same time. It's not far from
where I was born, and I know every pig path and cow track in it. Like the
greenhorn I was, r took a notion that I could grow farm crops on that land.
So, after two years at the sawmill,' quit my job and used the money I'd saved
to buy a mule and a few farm tools. I pitched my tent, early in 1894, on
some cut -over land in that God -forsaken sandhill community and started to farm-
ing. The land around Dixiana was, and still is, so poor that the only use we
Lexingtonians can find for it is a sort of space filler, or just so much poor
sand put there to hold the world together. That's why I just said that
Dixiana is one of the few places where one can be out of sight of land and
water all at the same time.
"Well, of course, I had no trouble in renting enough land at Dixiana
for a one-horse farm. And I got down to work like a smart fellow in the
spring of 1894. Soon I had the land prepared and my crops planted. The
seasons were very good that year, and my cotton and corn, my punkins and
taters, and my other crops bloomed on that fresh sand. Butrae-itftk-Would
-hail-MN the bumblebees and caterpillars found those loway blossoms and
admired them so much that they charged upon them, wearing themselves and
the blossoms out against the ground.
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"You know we old-timers used to leak-oeTest the poor little cotton stalks
that produced no more than one or two blossoms.* bumblebee cotton. The
bumblebee is a pretty heavy bee, and I've seen the puny cotton stalks bend
to the ground under iota weight when it lit in a blossom to such honey.
"Well, I made a failure, and a big'un, at trying to farm on that poor
land at Dixiana. My daddy, Jacob Leightsey, heard about it and came to see
me. He persuaded me to return with him to the old home near West Columbia.
So i. swallowed y pride, mounted my little mule, called my dog, and return-
ed, like the prodigal son, to the land of my father.
"At the beginning of 1895, I went to work as a one-horse sharecropper
for my daddy. I slept in the back room of a little commissary st;)re and
cooked and ate my scant rations of meat and bread and buttermilk in the same
room for two years. I worked hard, too, during those years at growing corn,
melons, taters, tomatoes, beans, turnips, and a little cotton. Luck was with
me, and I was able to produce a lot of stuff to sell in Columbia. After giving
my daddy one-fourth of the receipts for rent, I had $800 saved at the beginning
of 1897."
At this point in his narrative, Ed Leightsey paused for a moment to re-
fresh his memory on an important event in his younger days. Then he continued,
'When 1897 came, I did a very wise thing I bought, mainly on credit, twenty
acres of my daddy's land and built *hareem a fourhoroom cottage,
Ha paused again just long enough to walk around to the opposite side of
the counter from where Mrs. Leightsey was standing. Squinting in the direction
of the "old woman", as he oftentimes refers to Minnie, he sighed and remarked;
"I then did a very foolish thing I bought a buggy." Mrs. Leightsey, Hearing
the remark, looked around just in time to see his big left fist upraised and
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"Ton know we old-timers used to 4mmiewmpem the poor little cotton stalks
that produced no more than one or two blossomss. bumblebee cotton. The
ronj 0-
bumblebee is a pretty _heavy bee, and I've seen Wm puny cotton stalk', bend
a bee'sft
to the ground under *iweight when it lit in a blossom to suoiM honey.
"Well, I made a failure, and a big'un, at trying to farm on that poor
land at Dixiana. My daddy, Jacob Leightsey, heard about it and came to see
me. He persuaded me to rettnt with him to the old home near West Columbia.
$0 I swallowed my pride, mounted my little mule, called my dog, and return-
ed, like the prodigal son, to the land of my father.
"At the beginning of 1895, I went to work as a one-horse sham:cropper
for my daddy. I slept in the back room of a little commissary store and
cooked and ate my scant rations of meat and bread and buttermilk in the same
room for two years. I worked hard, too, during those years at growing corn,
melons, totters, tomatoes, beans, turnips, and a little cotton. Luck was with
me, and I was able to produce a lot of stuff to sell in Columbia. After giving
my daddy one-fourth of the receipts for rent, I had 41800 saved at the beginning
of 1897."
It this point in his narrative, d Leightsey paused for a moment to re-
fresh his memory on an inportant event in his younger days. Then he continuo',
"When 1897 came, I did a very wise thing I bought mainly on credit, twenty
acres of my daddy's land and builtAbhmemm a fourmmmn:440biNgs40-1,
He paused again just long, enough to walk around to the opposite side of
the counter from where Mrs. Leightsey was standing. Squinting in the direction
of the "old woman", as he oftentimes refers to Minnie, he sighed and remarked:
°I then did a very foolish thing I bought -a buggy.* Mrs. Leightsey, Rearing
the remark, looked around just in time to see his big left fist upraised 'and
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shaking in the direction of her face, and to hear him say, "And in the fall
of 1897, I married that 'old battle-axe' standing over there. Then my troubles
really began. I once thought she was pretty Minnie Berry.
My! how she could
always manage to find a seat by the side of me when we were in school together
and sat on the old slab benches placed around the fireside in the schoolhouse."
Ed Leightsey backed away just in time to prevent a board off a packing
case, held in the uplifted held, of his beligerent appearing Minnie, from fall-
ing on his head. At a safe distance, he stood and stared at Minnie for a
moment, while he rolled a cigar between his thick lips like a bulldog gnaw-
ing on a meaty bone.
The demonstration of good-humored badinage over, Mrs. Leightsey joined
Ed, or "He" as she referred to him, in telling the story. And both tongues
chimed competitively in detailing the incidents the ups and downs, gains
and losses of the decade between 1898 and 1908, when they were struggling
to make secure the happiness they now enjoy. It was revealed, however, that
Minnie cooked and washed and nursed Ed and the children while he pulled the
bell -cord over his mule; that they worked and saved; and that, through crop
rotations with the use of lime, legumes, and home-made fertilizers, they de-
veloped their land to a high state of cultivation.
A number of shoppers having called at Windmill Orchard stand to inspect
some flowers, Mrs. Leightsey left Ed to continue the story: 'Yes, Minnie was
a real battle-axe in the struggle during those years, and she never complained.
Without her help, I couldn't have made the grade. Just as fast as we could
produce flowers, fruits, vegetables, eggs, chickens, and other things suffi-
cient to pay the cost, ten dollars per acre, of one twenty -acre tract of my
daddy's farm, we obligated ourselves to buy an adjoining twenty acres of the
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old farm. I found, all the while, a ready market for our produce among the
people living in the city across the Congaree, six miles away.
'Yea, Minnie and i worked hard during those years, and luck,on the whole,
was with us. Our acres increased rapidly in length and fertility, as did our
family, until we had eleven children. After ten years of hard work and penny-
pinching, we managed to save *1,350 the amount we paid my daddy for the 135
acres we now own. And during the entire time, L didn't buy a single bale of
hay or bushel of corn with which to feed man or beast.
"After we had finished paying for the farm, in 1908, Minnie and I agreed
that the time had come for us to take our long delayed honeymoon vacation, the
trip to Charleston she mentioned a while ago.*
He took in a deep breath "But, maybe I'd better let her tell v
about that, for I believe she got more out of the trip than I did."
Mrs. Leightsey had just closed a sale, deposited the receipts in the till,
and was again listening intently to Ed's narrative. Catching the cue, she
began: "You see, it's like this, he has never wanted much said about that
Charleston trip. Well, I finally persuaded him that he needed to get away
from the farm for a few days. go, during the winter of 1908, he agreed that
we shot ld go to Charleston, and to Charleston we went. Everything went
lovely until we reached the city by the sea; then trouble, as well as fun, began
for me. Neither of us had ever seen the ocean, and, of course, we were not
familiar with boats and boating. When we looked out upon those rolling waves
of water, i decided it would be nice for us to take a boat ride around the bay.
I wanted to get a close view of Fort oumter and other places in and around the
harbor we had read so much about. But, when he learned of my desire, he buck-
ed like a stubborn old mule, and said, 'Why, Minnie, the very ideal I have
always felt there was just as much water in Congaree River as I would care to
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undertake to pull you out of in case of an accident to you in crossing. I
just can't and won't risk your sweet life out there in that pond.' So we
didn't go. Anyway, we enjoyed our trip to Charleston, and believe it helped
to get us out of the old rut."
"Yes, I'm sure the little vacation did us good," agreed Mr. Leightsey.
"The old farm and home were now ours, paid for by the sweat of our brows. We
felt that we needed a number of conveniences and a few luxuries. b'o, during
the next few years, we made improvements on the home; built new barns for the
livestock and poultry in accordance with plans furnished by the Clemson
College Extension Division; and then we replaced the scrub and mixed breeds
of cows, hogs, and chickens with purebreds. vie also planted a new peach
orchard, a grape vineyard and a flower garden. Later, the pastures were
newly fenced and sodded to adapted clovers and grasses and, of course, we
bought an automobile." He then looked up at the big signboard above his
head and added, 'We then built a windmill with which to pump water into the
home, and to the barns. Thus it was our place became known as Windmill Orchard.
'When the time comes for me to be at home to look after the planting,
cultivating, harvesting, and packing of the crops, Minnie comes to Columbia
and looks after the selling on the market. I have learned through long ex-
perience on this market to make my plantings throughout the year, as the season
permit, and I generally have the right amount of produce to sell at the right
time on this market. This curb system of selling home -raised produce fits into
my scheme perfectly. It is a great improvement over the old street peddling
system I once had to practice in dolumbia.
"I sort(grade) every pound of my produce; then I put it up in even weight
boxes or bags or baskets before offering it for sale. No, sir, there are no
8.
little taters at the bottom of the pack and big taters at the top of the pack.
I fix them all as near alike in size, color, and quality as is possible for me
to fix them. Too, I've been in this business long enough to know I've got to
give the trade what the trade wants; not what I want the trade to take. When
I once sell a person, he stays sold. He comes back again for more. Yes, sir,
that's what it takes to make 'em keep on comini to our stand. And we sell
from this curb stand around 300.00 worth of our produce each month. We also
make sales elsewhere.
"I'll be very glad to have you drive out to Windmill Orchard, the farm.
Annie and I sleep there at night, and I'm there part of the time during the
day. Come when it suits you, but I can come nearer being found at home dur-
ing the planting season in the spring. The place is located on a country road,
six miles west of the Congaree River bridge that separates the city of Columbia
from the town of West Columbia."
Windmill Orchard is, in truth, a well kept farm. Some of the land is on
the streams, where there is the choicest of grazing for cattle, sheep, and hogs;
other portions of the farm contain forests of tall, straight, long leaf pine;
and others again are the well -cultivated fields, orchards, and vineyards. In
close proximity to the modern livestock and poultry barns is an old well-pre-
served two-story residence. There, too, a windmill slowly turns at its task
of raising and lowering the long pump shaft over the well. It keeps a fresh
supply of water for the birds and the beasts around the barnyard; for use in
the home; and, figuratively speaking, it keeps the name Windmill Orchard
on the board in the market place.
Ed Leightsey, progressive in his farm management methods and of a practical
turn of mind, has no particular interest in legislation or politics. "Farm
legislation can have but little meaning to me and the old woman, for we've always
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lived and boarded at the same place,' he boasted.
By that, he means they produce their fruits and vegetables, bacon and
grits, milk and honey, and, in short, their entire living at Windmill Orchard.
"And I've crossed and recrossed Congaree River with loads of produce to help
feed the people of Columbia for forty-one years. And you bet I've fed 'em
good."
The market inspector and many others, who have long known the old Dutch-
man, refer to him as "Old Ed Leightsey•" The market inspector said: "Long
before the newsboys begin their chant, 'Morning State,' on the streets of
the city, you can see old Ed Leightsey drive up Gervais Street with his
flivver loaded to its gunwales with potatoes, turnips, peaches, grapes, melons,
chickens, eggs, and other things in season all ready for sale when the market
opens at an early morning hour. k16 never lets the grass grow under his feet.
He never walks to his work;
While old Ed Leightsey
people of Columbia, you
the
he runs."
says that you can bet on his having helped to feed
can bet your bottom dollar, with safety, that he
has fed those eleven children of his at the fountainhead. Judging from the
hale and hearty appearance of them, they must have been "buttermilk fed
chickens."
Yes, old Ed Leightsey claims that he and Minnie have reared eleven
children six sons and five daughters at Windmill Orchard, and that each
has been given a high school education. "And they are all married
now." he said with a sigh. "Ira is a building contractor; Vernon,
dealer; John runs a garage; Arney is a textile worker; and Charles
and gone
a lumber
is a farmer.
The girls are now Mesdames Stuckey, Williamson, Jeffcoat, Senn, and Sharp.
And according to the last count, we have thirty-one grandchildren."
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Even though the songs and cries of the Laightsey children are heard no
longer around the old home, Ed and Minnie play, as well as work. It is fun
for us to come to the market every day and match the cars and the people go
by," is the way she put it. And they continue to cross and re -cross Congaree
River each day, except Sunday, on their may to and from their produce stand
on the big curb market under the new steel shed. Under the sign Windmill
Orchard they carry on, side by side, as was their wont in their childhood
days at the old backwoods school.