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7iss nary Tomasi
63 Barre St,
7:ontpelier, Vt.
The ,Oranits ?Irks,
Scotch
SCOTCH QUARHTEANIS WIDOW
rrom Quarry Hill the far horizon is a series of sort
poundings, Green lountain ouress rimming a blue Sky. Closter,
slanting fields patched sdAdibrown scores of newly ploughed
earth. Nearer, in the yards of the Hill dwellers, a blosaom.
in apple or Mao, a straggling *birth or two striving te
thrust its flowering **ler beyena the film at granite dust.
A Timrleful of Children play unoonserned37 on this porch and
that, darting between heavily laden eletheeline. All their
lives they have heard the wearying carry Minds d• the
nonotonous rut -tat -tat of pneumatic drills, the exhausted,
vhining breath from an engine house Hew they are Maoism*
of them only when they °ease.
The yellow house beside the struggling lilacs lad seen
better days. Two tiers of kitchen porOhes sag beneath the
weicht of ice.boxes and Chairs. The woman spoke from be.
bind the screen doer of the lower porch. Her hair was
pulled back to a grey, drab knob. She fuMbled with her
apron, and wiped her red hands dry. "Sure, one in."
After the noise of the quarries her voice, any voice,
was pleasant. good natured simile wrinkled the corners
of her dark eyes and vide, firs mouth. "Alex said you
would be coming today. Come in. There's little eau
tell you, but you're welcome to what little I know, and
nore that I feel"
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This used to be a rooming and boarding house far WarrY-
men. VI motherednwaini ran it ehen she same from Seotland.
She did well. Her husband worked in the quarries. They
werked full time those days, and what with the board. -and.
room money and being thrifty, and having only ono child
(that was my husband :dhow) they were able to buy the
home for their own. NO, I was born in Barre. Us and
Johnny, we came here to live after his folks died, There
aren't so many single quarry workers as there were 'repro
back so we did away with most of the roamers. We've mode
it into two apartments* The family agstalre have no roomers
at all. I've taken in two sines Johnny died, that was three
years ago. Lots of the single fellows have cars now, they'd
rather ride back and forth to work, and his in Barre el:law
there's more going an.
They haven't been very busy in the quarries this spring.
II roomer Alex is vorting only three days a week now. And
pretty soon there'll be a two seeks' rest. There same is
after Uemorial Day.
my husband didn't die of stonecutters' T. Be al-
though I've seen it take plenty around here. It was an ac-
cident he had, right here in our yard. It was the fall of
the year and the kitchen steps were slippery with tit first
snow. He slipped and cut his arm on the axe he'd been chop-
ping kindling with. ne f-ot infection, and on top of that be
had to have an operation. /t vas too much for him. It Just
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shows, as Alex says, that accidents will happen here you
least =poet then. All the times be climbed up and,down
the quarries, with me worrying and begging him to be careful,
he never got any more than a crushed finger in the quarries.
And then to have it happen on his own doorstep, it seemed
more then I could bear.... Of sours., there are aeOldents
in those holes, there's bound to be. One follow was killed
last year. Have you ever watched a good quarryman ell up
and down those granite walls? It's north yew time. limed
to hold my breath watching them; I still do. Old men, past
66, that you might see doddering down a street and nivor ex.
peet to be able to do a good day's work. I know one, en old
Frenchman, who's been here, he says, sine* 1992. Bo Swings
a couple of 5 -ft, iron bars across a shoulder, end stove
down those dangerous walls without so such as laying a finger
to the granite for support. Sometimes his hat, fae0 end
clothes are so grey with dust that he looks like a snail,
loosened pleae of the stone calls rolling to tale bottom.
Yes, most of the quarryman are Onion men. Loth of xy
roomers are. It pays them to belong. They've got a qsarry
life ahead of them and they might as well enjoy the Union
benefits. Some of the older ones don't seem to ears anymore,
they slip up an their dues.
have two sons. Good boys they are, too. They didn't
want to work here after they left school, nor did I want them
to. Their father always said it we like burying yourself in
a stone grave and hardly knowing there was a world and sun
around you, and what pay do you get? Good enough, by the day,
but there's always a month or two you lose in the einter
when the snow's bad, and the los, Then there are seasons
when the business is slow, like now. It doesn't pay, there's
no future for a yotusg fellow. I was glad as could be when
the boya got clerking jobs in Barre.
Yes, they're both. married. Atha, the oldest* married
an Irish girl, a neighbor here, her fatherld had a ell
quarry "way up back there. It wasn't good granite, he,
didn't do well so he stopped working it. The other bey
married a Scotch girl.
The oldest boy doesnst make much sinbri. Ho was Itbitork..
lug of coming beak here and taking the Alistaire apartment*
it would cost him leas than living in Barre. But ma& as
laved like to have him here with me, I advised him against
it. It's no place to bring up lively children. I had my
hands full then :Win and Pete leer, little ones and always
that eager to explore those hills of waste granite and the
quarries. And high up ae we are here with always a little
breeze, I can't help feeling that the air is full of dust.
nometimes eh= the wind is strong you'll see whole clouds
of grey up there, almost as if a storm was Gaming up. Now
Pete, hold like me to live with his in Barre, but I'm still
eapable of taking care of myself, besides I figure an in-law
is always in the say.
rib, I don't mind the quarry noises. I've been here no
long. If I mat* at night, I sort of miss them. And days
when they don't work miss then. Looking at those piles
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of waste granite isn't a pretty eight, but I can look out
from u7 window at midst and see this lights of Barre; It's
a nice picture. And day times I son see for miles around,
I can see hills that are green, and fields that in the spring
are just brags, upturned earth, I can watch them thmmughtbe
summer getting green with vegetables and crops. It seams
good to look at green hills that bold the shape God gave
them and aren't spoiled with qrry holes and those grry
waste piles.