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Mari Tomasi
FOUR WOMEN
1.
Scotch Quarryman's Widow.
The yellow house on Quarry Hill had seen better days.
Two tiers of kitchen porches sagged beneath the weight of ice-
boxes and chairs. The woman spoke from behind the screen door
of the lower porch. She fumbled with her apron, and wiped
her red hands dry. "Sure, come in." A good natured mails
wrinkled the corners of her blue eyes and wide, firm mouth.
"Alex said you would be coming today. Come in.
"This used to be rooming and boarding house for quarry-
men. My mother-in-law ran it when she came from Scotland.
She did well. Her husband worked in the quarries. They worked
full time those days, and what with the board -and -room money
and being thrifty, and having only one child --that was my husband,
Johnny —they were able to buy the house for their own. No, I
was born in Barre. Me and Johnny, its came here to live after
his folks died. There aren't so many single quarry workers
as there were years back so we did away with most of the roomers.
We've made it into two apartments. The family upstairs have
no roomers at all. I've taken in two since Johnny died, that
was three years ago. Lots of the single fellows have oars now,
they'd rather rids back and forth to work, and live in Barre
where there's more going on.
"They haven't been very busy in the quarries this spring.
k -q
Recorded in
Writers' Seetion Files
DATE: c rn 3 1940_
2
My roomer Alex is working only three days a week now. And
pretty moon there'll be a two weskit' rest. There always is
after Memorial Day.
"My husband didn't di. of stonecutters' t. b. but I've
seen it take plenty around here. It was an accident he had,
right here in our yard. It was the fall of the year and the
kitchen steps were slippery with the first snow. He slipped
and out his arm on the axe he'd been chopping kindling with.
He got infection, and on top of that he had to have an operation.
It WAS too much for him, All those times he climbed up and
down the quarries, with me worrying and begging him to be care-
ful, and he never got any more than a crushed finger. And then
to have it happen on his own doorstep, it seemed more than I
could bear. Of course, there're accidents in those holes,
there's bound to be. One fellow was killed last year. have
you over watched a good quarryman climb up and down those granite
walls? It's worth your time. I used to hold my breath watch-
ing them; I still do. I know one old man, a Frenchman, who's
been here, he says, since 1892. he swings a couple of 5 -ft.
iron bars across a shoulder, and steps down those dangerous
walls without so much as laying a finger to the granite for
support. he works in a small quarry. Sometimes his hat, face
and clothes are so grey with dust that he looks like a loosened
piece of the stone wall, rolling to the bottom.
"Most of the quarrymen are Union men. Both my roomers
are. It pays to belong. They've got a quarry life ahead of
than and they night as yell enjoy the Union benefits. Sone
of the older sines don't seen to ears any, more, they slip up
3.
on their dues.
*I 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 was like burying yourself in
a stone grim and hardly knowing there was a world and sun
around you* and what pay do you get? Good enough* by the day,
but there 'a always a month or two you lose in the winter when
the snow's bad, and the Is*. Then thore are seasons when the
business is slow* like now. It doesn't pay* there's no future
for a young fellow. I was glad my boys got °larking jobs in
Barre.
*They're both married. John* tho oldest* marriod an Irish
girl* a neighbor Niro* her father'd had a small quarry 'way
up back there. It wasn't good granite, he didn't do well so
he stopped working it. The other boy married a Bootah girl.
*The oldest boy doesn't make much monsy, Be was thinking
of coming bask here and taking the upstairs apartment* it would
cost him less than living in Barre. But much as I would like
to have him hero with me* X advised him against it. It's no
plow* to bring up lively children. I had my hands full when
John and Pets were littlo ones and always that osier to ex-
plore thaw* hills of waste granite and the quarries. And high
up as we are hero with always a little broom,* X can't help
fooling that the air is full of dust. Sometimes when the wind
is strong you'll see whole clouds of grey up there* almost as
if a storm was soloing up. Now Me* he'd like me to live with
him in Barre* but I'm still capable of taking oar of myself.
sq don't mind the Worry Moises. I've been bore so long.
4•
If I awake at night, I sort of miss thaw. And days when they
don't work I miss them, Looking at those piles of mast* granite
isn't 4 pretty sight, but I can look out my window at night
and see the lights of Barrow It's a nioe,pioturow And day
thus I ean moo for miles around, I can so* hills that are goose,
and fields that in the spring are just brown, upturned earthi
I can watch them through the summer getting green with grope.
It seems good to look at green bills that aren't spoiled with
quarry holes and those gray waste piles.'
1114114HHHHO011.
2•
Tranoh Utterer's Widow.
The woodbine shaded perch overlookod the cement highway
and the river taboos which lay the long gray string of Barris'
stone sheds, Brew Lachance sat in a reeker pooling potatoes,
You will oxeyes me if I go right on and pool,* she said.
have last so much time before supper, and so many things
to be done• Potatoes4 I hay* to cook mountains of thorn to
satisfy the men. Ten of them here, and all but one are stone
cutters.
IsIlvo had as many as eightson boarding here, but with
that number I have to take on an extra girl. With only ton,
my daughter and voyeelf manage. /f my daughter happens to want
the evening we him a girl from next door to hiltp with the dishes.
"I haven't always taken in boardormw It is only sines
my husband died nine years ago. Before that, I didn't have to.
He made enough for us to got along well* Bo was a letter carver.
5.
Seventeen years he'd worked at it. Most of the time in Barre,
but one year in Montpelier*
RI don't take roomers, you can see the house isn't big
enough for that. Since two of the girls were married we've
given one upstairs bedroom to the family on the other side.
My youngest girl graduates from high school next year. There
was an older boy, he died at the time of the 'flu'. He WAS
just a baby.
"I was born here in Barre. My husband came down from
Chambly, Canada, with his folks when be was a boY. They were
a farming family. He started working in the sheds when he was
eighteen. Doing odd labor, but he worked up to letter carver.
He made good money, but I wasn't happy having him in the sheds*
It's bad, especially for a man with a family, and most of the
French stonecutters around here have large families* Sometimes
I think granite isn't worth all the sorrow it brings, but it's
there in the earth, it's worth money to the owners, and if a
man works there, well --there's no one to blame but himself.
My husband used to say so, he still said so when he was flat
on his back. You'd think it would have made him bitter. It
didn't. He was resigned to it. He accepted it as something
he had expected all along. He didn't mind talking to me about
it, but when his friends visited him --other stonecutters
neither he nor they would mention the sickness that takes so
many of them. Perhaps they are all like that. They'll talk
about it only to those who are dear to them or, sometimes,
to a stranger they never expect to see again.*
Mrs. Lachance paused to give orders concerning the supper
6.
to her daughter who had appeared at the kitchen door. She was
a small girl with her mother's red cheeks, and an abundance
of black, wavy hair. Underneath the apron she wore a black
and -white checked taffeta dress.
When she had disappeared into the kitchen, the mother con-
fided in a low voice, "She's going to a dance tonight at Joe's
Pond. That's why she's all dressed for going out. She goes
with a ?rench boy She hesitated as if undecided to'con-
tinue. "Well, I guess I don't mind your knowing it. She goes
with that boy I was telling you about, the one who lost his
father and two brothers from t.b. He's a fine boy, I like him,
but I can't help wish that it was someone else. Someone strong
and well. I'd hate to think of her losing her husband as I
did. Usually they are sick for a long time. And afterwards,
to be left alone with your children. To struggle the best you
can. Ah, yes, it's a hard life. Sometimes I've wanted to speak
to her, but then I think: she knows the story as well as I do.
It won't do any good, she'll do what she wants, and it's her
life to live."
The potatoes were piling up. Oho smiled. *Almost enough.
Now my other two daughters have married well. One with a Frond)
boy from Chambly. Loot& met him when she was visiting her
father's people. They're living there now with her grandparents.
My father-in-law didn't like atonecutting. He went back to
the farm in Canada after a few years. The other girl is married
to an Italian. He sells insurance here in Barre.
"I've lived here all my life. I could have moved to 4uiney
when married. My husband had an offer from a shed down there.
7.
But I was satisfied with Barre. It's just large enough, the
stores are good, and it's always been lively enough for the
children. The only fault I find with Barre is that there aren't
enough jobs in town for the young people when they get out of
high school. Many of them get office jobs in Montpelier, the
rest have to go to larger cities. Not many of the high school
boys go into the sheds. You can't blame them. There's no
future for them there now.
'II don't know much about the big strike. I used to. My
husband struck along with the rest of them. I used to hear
him talk about it a lot, but you hear so little about it now
that I've forgotten. I do remember my husband saying that some
of the unskilled French who came in to break the strike could
be excused. That was quite a statement from my husband* he
was as much against them an anybody* One of those strike breakers
was a friend of his. They'd grown up together in Chambly„ good
friends. Re hadn't seen or heard from him for years, then all
of a sudden he sees him parading through town with the rest of
them. My husband was dazed, he could hardly believe it. Thin
friend, Pete was his name, came up to the house to see my hus-
band the next day.
"Perhaps Petels story is the same as many of those strangers'
who came into Barre. I don't know. Pete was badly in need
of money. His farm, like so many other French farms that year,
wasn't paying. The crops amounted to nothing. He had a wife
and three children to feed. Be could see no signs of work for
him in Chaubly. Not for months. Then this opportunity for
work in Barre came to him. Work meant keeping his family to-
a.
gether. Can you blame him for accepting it? I don't. He'd
never worked in granite. 2eld heard, of course, of Barre and
the granite workers. But e '4.new of them vaguely, just as he
knew of miners and steel workers. I mean, how hard the work
was, and dangerous. But he had to be amongst the workers, live
with them and do their work, before he could really appreciate
the fact that they needed a strike to better their conditions.
I haven't seen much of him since my husband died. But I know
he's a Union man now, and a good one."
Mrs. Lachance called to her daughter that the potatoes
were ready. She leaned back in her chair and began to rock
lazily, comfortably. "You know," she said, "the longer you
live in this world the better you realize there are always two
sides to a question. And it isn't fair to judge until you
study both sides. I wasn't thinking only of the Strike. Right
now I'm thinking of an Italian woman who lives down the street.
She sells beer and wine. She's had to pay a fine twice for
selling without a license. She still sells. Some of the neigh-
bors look down on her. They don't want their children to play
with hers. her husband died a few years ago. Ris lungs. ,11,
was a stonecutter. She has six children. None of them big,
enough to be working. Her hip was badly crushed the year after
her husband died. %hat could she do? It's hard for her to
get around. There aren't many kinds of work she can do. The
easiest way --so it seemed to her --was to sell liquor in her
own house. That way she could be at home all the time to look
after her children. It's illegal. But there's her side, too.
She wants her children. She's proud. She doesn't want charity.
g.
Sic does Italian baking, too. That brings in a little money,"
Mrs. Lachance sighed. "I don't blame her."
3.
Spaniah Stonecutter's Widows
She was a large, swarthy -faced woman. Heavy black hair
was drawn to a shiny coil low on her nook. Today she was
crocheting an edge for a linen tablecloth.
"I have crocheted for so long now that I can make my own
*patterns." Mrs. Vialez hold up her work for Inspections
not this one. This one I make for a woman on Barclay Bill.
A rich woman. She show ma the pattern from the book and she
say, 'Go ahead and make this one, I will pay what you ask.'
She pays good. I'do work for her for twenty years. My husband
used to out stone for her husband. Me, I used to clean her
house once a week. After my husband die, this lady did not
forget me. I used to take my crocheted work from house to
house to try to sell it. She bought some.
"I had three children. She say it was too hard for me
to go from house to house. Sometimes I bad to take the young
eat baby with me. She say I would make more money if I stay
home, and if people want the crocheted work they would come
and order it. She speak the truth. I have make enough to raise
the three children. The two girls are married. The boy is
work in the woods in Bakersfield, near the lumbar mills.
"I been in America twenty-seven years this August. Me
and my husband are both born in Biesca, Spain. On the Ebro
10*
River. That is a pretty river for you. Near our town the
river is narrow and deep. It flows past rocks that aro a little
like granite, but not good enough to work* They got big streaks
of yellow, red, and orange. From far away they look pretty.
But you get close and you see that they are dirty from the years
that water has run over them. All summer small blue flowers
grow between the rocks. I never see anything like them in
America. They are shape like daisies and very, very blue, but
in the center whore the daisies are yellow, these are pure white*
"11. lived just three hours' carriage ride from Saragossa..
That is whore my husband learn to out granite. A large city
with many beautiful buildings, it make ten or twelve of Barre.
He cut stone from the day he was seventeen* We are married
sixteen months when we decide to come to America* To Barre.
Another stonecutter and his wife from our town come with us.
We take the train to Bile°, and from there the boat. I didn't
like that boat and I didn't like the trip. I was used to ride
only in a wagon or carriage, and that boat it make me sick all
the time. I carry my first baby then. She is born four months
after we get to Barre. All that trip I am sick enough to die*
I want to be alone, but even that I couldn't have. The stone-
cutter and his wife from our town share our room, and besides
them there are two other couples.
"I an too sick to bother to look at New York. My husband
used to say it was lot like Saragossa. But, he was so busy
to take care of me that he didn't see much himself. Besides,
he WAS always say that when you look quick and short at big
cities they all look the same.
U.
"My husband was a good artist, more for pictures than
for stone, I think. In Spain there is a picture of our river
that he paint, and a good picture of his school teacher, then
we left Cpain both of them were hang in the school house.
Many times I have wish that he kept at his paint instead of
granite.
"He used to earn extra money in the sheds, then a cus-
tomer was not satisfy with the designs the boas show, then he
ask my husband to draw solTe special ones at home at night.
Many times he do this and the boas was very please with him.
"When my first baby is born he draw a pictures of a beaut-
iful bedspread. All in roses, a chain of roses. Together we
figure out how many and what kind of stitches to make to crochet
it. 7iverybody like it very much. My first girl is married
five years ago. For a present 1 make a spread just like the
first one.
'":7 husband die from pneumonia at the time of the influenses
But the doctor say that if his lungs were not already full with
dust, maybe he would have got well. It was Lard for me to get
along after he die.
"I learn to crochet in the old country. There was a con-
vent of white veil nuns just outside of Biesoa. Every Caturday
they give lessons free to anybody who want to go. Sewing,
crocheting, linen work. Their work is the beat I have ever
see. ahe linens they send to the cathedrals in the big cities,
Altar linens. I always say it is lucky for me that I learn
to do this work. How else then could I support myself and
three children, except that I scrub floors and do hard work
all the time?
"I have people left in Spain. I think I have. I have
not heard now for two, three years. The people of my husband,
they stop from writing just as soon as he die, so them I don't
count. My own father and mother are a long time dead. There
is only a brother over there, and I don't know if he is dead
or alive. I don't hear from the ltotters I write, I don't get
them back, I don't know what to think. There is nothing there
for me now. This is my home. As long as I got my eyes and
my hands I can earn enough money here to pay my rent and live
pretty good. I am satisfy."
*****411****
4.
An Irish Shed Owner's Widow.
The house, a large terreted wooden structure, stood in a
quiet residential street close to the city's business section.
Irises lined a stone path to the kitchen door, shrubbery bordered
the front walk.
"I was born here in Vermont," Mrs. McCarthy said. "But
John, my husband, came over from Ireland. He was already owner
of the shed when I met and married him. People said he had a
fine future, he was a good workman himself and he understood
the business thoroughly. he was a hardworking, sober young
man those days. We were happy. He talked granite day and
night. I didn't mind. It was good to see him so interested
in the business. It all changed when his uncle died. His
uncle had been a carver in Ireland, a skilled one. He'd worked
13.
in Barre only five years when his lungs went bad. He and John
were very close friends. His sickness was a blow to John. It
seemed to loose some devil in him. lie began to drink heavily.
Pretty soon it was every day. It wasn't unusual to see a couple
of his workmen half carrying him home after the shed closed
for the day.
Of course, business suffered. It had to with a drunken
mind supervising it. I tried to talk to him. I told him I
understood the friendship between him and his uncle, but nothing
could bring him back. He had to think of the living. tie had
to think of his wife and his three children. He wouldn't listen.
When one of his employees, a good friend of his, was forced to
leave work, too, because of his lungs, it was rore than John
could bear. He drank more than ever. I suggested putting a
manager in the shed. He wouldn't hear of it. Business became
so bad that we had to borrow money on the house to put into
the shed. We borrowed twice.
"I loved this home. We'd bought it from the people who
built it. They owned the old hotel on Main street. It was
torn dawn years ago. I liked the privacy of this house. But
a seventeen room house for five people was a burden in those
ti -es when little money was coming in. It could be an asset.
I sew my duty even though it was a painful one, and I did it.
John was so deep in liquor he never even raided a finger to
stop me. went up to the shed one afternoon and talked to every
one of the unmarried men. I explained the situation to them,
though God knows they must have known it, and told them I would
be zlad to have any of them as roomers. They were good men,
14.
they were eager to help. By the end of the next week six were
rooming at the house —three Irish, two Scotch, and one Italian.
"The extra money was a God -send. I went further. I boarded
those men. It was hard work even with a maid, but it was worth
it.
"I had hoped that my willingness to cooperate and my example
would straighten John. It didn't. He let go completely. He
didn't die of stonecutters' t. b., it was drinking that killed
him. But I,can't help feeling that the granite industry which
had taken his uncle and his friend was indirectly responsible.
"After his death one of John's best workmen assured me
that under his management the shed could again be operated on
a paying basis. He was a sober minded man and trustworthy,
but I'd had enough of the granite industry. I felt it had
robbed me of a husband, and the children of a father. I was
eager to sever all association with it. I sold the shed, and
paid back pert of the money we'd borrowed on the house.
"I kept the roomers. The children were growing, I wanted
to give them a good education. Neither of the boys lives in
Vermont now. One became an electrical engineer, the other a
doctor. They have both done well, my daughter married a local
merchant.
"About twenty years ago, she, her husband and two children
came to live with aid. She wanted privacy as much as I did,
we gave up the roomers. She and her husband paid off the rest
of the mortgage. Part of the house really belongs to them now.
It's just as well that way. I don't think the boys will ever
come back to Vermont. Not to live. They've families of their
15.
"There are eight of us in this house now. Five grand-
children, my daughter and son-in...law, and myself. The children
are grown. The oldest girl graduated from college last year;
the youngest boy will finish high school next year.
"The three grandsons know that their grandfather was in
the granite business. They don't seem to be interested in it.
I'm glad of that. I seldom speak to them of those past years."