The Path Was Steep (5 page)

The Kentucky job had been impossible, the pay scarcely enough for board. Working conditions were almost unbearable; houses were small shacks on mountainsides, far from civilization. Reports from West Virginia were encouraging. He had decided to try there.

David wrapped fifty cents in paper and enclosed it. “I’d send more,” he wrote, “but there just wasn’t anything left after I paid my board bill.”

He must be almost hopeless, I thought, weeping. Leaving again penniless—he should have kept the fifty cents. His clothes growing thin, he was catching still another freight train, hunting work when millions were jobless and tracking from place to place, looking for nonexistent work.

Then I read the West Virginia letter. He boasted a little. How could he help it after so many disappointments? One hundred men had applied for work the day he was there, and he alone was hired. Surely they were seasoned, robust miners. David was almost twenty-four. With his fair skin and bright curls, he looked all of nineteen. Besides his youthful look, he was handicapped with that almost perfect face.

But there was an intensity about David, a determination, an unquestioning belief in himself. “If Dave needed a job and walked down the streets of a strange town,” Clarence used to say, “some man would walk up and offer him work.”

I spared a few minutes to think of the line of despairing men who were not hired. I could almost see their gaunt, hopeless faces. They were growing familiar everywhere. Kimberly Mine had closed. Papa set aside a small field of okra. Anyone in need, black or white, was free to come and cut okra. Before summer was over, every day you could see two or three busy with knives, gathering supper.

I read David’s letter again. Penniless, he had found work, but special clothes were required. The company deputy had guaranteed his bill at the commissary. He’d even borrowed a stamp to mail this letter.

His second letter told of the $14.80 shift, and, as mentioned, word spread through three counties. I’d hardly arrived in West Virginia when a trickle of visitors, still hearing of that shift, came to look for work. As the Depression grew worse, the trickle became a steady stream.

That long, hard shift was beginner’s luck. The regular machine-helper came back to work the next day, and David began to dig coal. He seldom made less than eight dollars a day. This would have been riches in Piper, as the mine worked six days a week. But his board was $1.25 a day. His bill at the store would be collected before he could draw a pay. But just as soon as possible, he’d send for us.

The summer was half gone: full of laughter, tears, heat, and happy children who played all day long. Very pretty children. Miss Mildred had blue eyes, dark curly hair, and dark skin. Colleen had her great blue eyes, curls, and the Mosley fair skin. Daphne, too, and Royce and J. D. had inherited curls.

Meals were heaped up on the table, vegetables mostly. Eggs were legal tender, exchanged for necessities when the check gave out. I lived in a half-vacuum. Sometimes at night, I felt trapped and guilty. By day I felt better. Millions were in far worse state. We were not hungry. My children were well-fed and loved. Miss Mildred’s heart was big enough to love all the children in the world, so it was very easy for her to love step-grandchildren. The girls had all the milk they could drink. Davene, seated, would pull herself by her feet (before she walked), and say “bilk, bilk, bilk” when she saw the full milk bucket. Miss Mildred always gave her a glassful.

Oh, things were going well for us! Sharon had escaped a horrible death. No need to feel guilty. We hadn’t done anything to bring this on ourselves. Look at the Chicago gangsters: soaked in blood, doing every evil under the sun, and living in fabulous prosperity. Surely they couldn’t be happy. Money could not buy happiness.

We, the poor, knew far more happiness. We could sleep at night with no black deeds on our conscience. Besides, when things looked blackest, there was always David’s job.

And soon I was to have work also.

5

The Community Barber

My stepbrothers Grayson and Lee were as far apart as East and West. Grayson, the older, was bossed outrageously by Lee, a changeling, made up of quicksilver sweetness, meanness, and mischief. Lee’s charm clutched at your heart in the same moment you wondered why someone didn’t beat the daylights out of him.

A great romance had budded at the farm when the children and I arrived. Through the summer it sprang into full and glorious bloom. Lee, desperately in love with my cousin Pearl, babbled to anyone who would listen. At age twelve, his was a pure and noble love. To show his devotion, he stole eggs to buy candy for Pearl, and like a man, he spoke for her. Papa’s brother, Uncle Lish, his hazel eyes twinkling, listened and then discussed the matter of support.

“We mean to wait until we are sixteen,” Lee said bravely. He had blond curls, fair skin with pale freckles, and a dimpled chin that definitely proved the saying “Dimple in the chin, a devil within.” His wide blue eyes between thick gold lashes had such a look of innocence that he escaped the consequences of his mischief again and again.

He had a Tom Sawyer personality and would have liked a tough, manly exterior. Each morning he plastered his curls flat, but they soon sprang erect. If he had possessed sufficient funds, Lee, I am sure, would have bought hair-straightener. Not only was his hair incurably curly but it grew prolifically. Haircuts were twenty-five cents each. Men could scarcely afford a haircut in those days.

Lee worked a deal with the barber, and one day he approached me with barber scissors. “Sue,” he smiled. “Will you cut my hair?” I had never been proof against his charm, so we set up shop under the pear tree. I took the scissors, snipped the air a few times, then aimed at Lee’s curls. Soon I was snapping away like a turtle. His hair was much shorter, but I frowned. “Your neck is fuzzy,” I said.

Grayson had watched happily as I cut away at the pale gold field of hair. “I’ll get Papa’s razor,” he offered, and ran to the house.

Expertly, I swathed lather on Lee’s neck. Then, like a baseball player making false moves, I twisted and flourished my razor. I’d watched often enough to know how to use a straight razor. You must approach at a certain angle and scrape away. Either Lee’s good angel watched over him, or I was more expert than I thought. I took a trial run down his neck, and the fuzz miraculously disappeared.

Grayson had brought the razor strop. Pride now bouncing off my hands—my no-longer-useless hands—I sharpened up my weapon and started on the bowed, sacrificial neck again.

Lee had never been a coward. Now love added to his bravery. He didn’t flinch as I scraped around his ears, at fuzzy temples and the back of his neck. At last, hair shorn and ears still attached to his head, Lee rose, felt around his neck, and—eyes bright with gratitude—thanked me.

“Would you cut my hair?” Grayson asked, as always ready to follow Lee into any danger.

Sure of my skill now, I began work on Grayson’s equally thick mop of brown hair. Papa, coming to the house for a drink of water, saw me flourish the razor over Grayson’s bowed neck.

“Sue!” He started to run. “You be careful!”

For his benefit, I did an expert turn around Grayson’s left ear. Papa stopped; his waving hands stilled, and he sat down under the pear tree until my second haircut was finished.

“I didn’t know you could cut hair,” Papa said.

“I didn’t either,” I boasted a little. “Easiest thing I ever did.” It wasn’t necessary to tell the state of my knees, which had begun to tremble the moment the razor was in my hand. Only now that the haircuts were actually over did they seem to have strength to hold me erect.

Word of my skill soon spread, and I became the community barber. Uncle Lish, who lived the second farm away; my cousin Rob on the next farm; Forrest, whose land lay at the back of the pasture (Papa rented his farm from Forrest); and his sons Earl, Ed, and Junior—all Mosleys, close kin, soon came to sit under the pear tree for weekly haircuts.

It would have been an insult to them, to me, and to kinship to offer pay for my services. Didn’t they share fruits and vegetables with us if they had any we didn’t have? And didn’t the fact that I was of use make the long summer days pass more pleasantly?

The boys dug washer holes and set up stakes for pitching horseshoes under the pear trees. My tomboy childhood returned, and soon no one could beat me at those games. I became so expert at mumblety-peg (knife-throwing at porch planks) that I must have been county champion if we’d held a tournament.

The Depression was not so hard on farmers as on wage earners. Farmers had never been wealthy, but they did not fear hunger, which daily became a great national scourge. Strange tales began to circulate. Society demanded stern Victorian morals, so we were shocked at the tale of a young, pretty mother of three children. She had gone to the road, stopped a bread truck, and offered to sell herself for a few loaves of bread.

Gossips, eager to find fault, said, “She just wanted an excuse to have an affair with the man.”

“No,” a person who knew her well said. “She is a virtuous woman, but her children were starving.”

I’d look at the wide fields, hear the cackle of hens, the lowing of cattle with full udders. I’d gather baskets of vegetables from the field and be humbly grateful that Papa lived on a farm. And yet, Miss Mildred’s check would go only so far. Even on a farm, many things had to be bought: kerosene for the lamps, sugar, coffee, chewing tobacco. Papa grew thrifty with the latter. He would bite off a chunk of his favorite, Brown Mule, savor the first chewing, and then cache it on one of the logs at the old barn.

There was aspirin, too. Papa suffered from headaches; Miss Mildred was bothered with her teeth. The children must have clothes and shoes for winter, and school books and paper and pencils. Such were not furnished then.

I yearned to share the expense. David sent an occasional dollar, most of which I used on paper, envelopes, and stamps. In summer, work grew slack, even in West Virginia. The company was still collecting on his debt. Board must be paid weekly; there was carbide, Prince Albert, and his own paper and stamps. He had left home almost ragged. “If you don’t buy at least one outfit, I’ll buy them myself and mail them to you when you send money,” I wrote.

His next letter apologized, but yes, he really did need clothes. The company put them on his bill. But he was saving dimes and had a matchbox almost full. His debts would soon be paid, and he was sure to send for us by the last of August.

So I gathered vegetables, pitched horseshoes, took all the children swimming in a creek behind Uncle Lish’s place, made some feedsack dresses for Aunt Stella’s girls, wielded my scissors, and wondered what I could do to earn a few pennies.

Davene, a little spitfire, was petted and spoiled by all. Sharon, sweet and gentle, sang by the hour, played with the others, and longed for new shoes. Each night she ended her prayers, “And please let Daddy make some money and buy me some new shoes.”

Often, she slipped into the house to put on her tight, scuffed patent-leather slippers. Her plump feet were her greatest pride. “My feet are like Daddy’s,” she’d boast. “And he’s got the biggest feet in the world.” Poor Davene and I had bony AAA feet that demanded expensive shoes.

The summer before, farms had started blowing away in the Dust Bowl in the West. Drought again threatened. I’d find Papa under an apple tree or among the corn rows on his knees. When rains came just before the crop died, my own prayers would be more fervent that night.

No one could grow peas like Papa. He firmly believed in planting by the Zodiac signs. His peas grew low and bushy, with ripening fruit as thick as porcupine quills. His corn was low, also, with big fat ears if there was sufficient rain. Okra, tomatoes: everything was prolific. “Papa,” I said one afternoon as I walked with him through the fields. There were bushels of ripening peas, low on the vines among the corn rows. “We could sell these at Majestic.”

“You know I don’t have time to peddle.” His face was tired, but his eyes alight as always at the sight of corn and peas, and cotton across the road. He was never as happy as when walking through his fields.

“I do,” I said.

“You? A peddler?” He knew my pride, inherited from him. “Anyhow, you can’t drive.”

“Lee can.”

“He’s wild as a buck!” Papa spread his hands in emphasis.

“I’ll watch him.” The thought never occurred to either of us that it was against the law for Lee to drive.

And so I made a job for myself. Just after breakfast three mornings a week, Lee, Grayson, and I shuttled off in the Model T Ford. Lee, exuberant, desired speed. I threatened to tell Papa. He was not afraid. Finally, I turned off the ignition key. To start the motor, he had to get outside, go to the front, and turn a crank. After a few times of this, Lee settled down to erratic but reasonably safe driving.

We stopped at my sister Maurine’s for a few minutes’ visit with her and Lucile, then on to the dying coal-mining town of Majestic. As men and women came out to see what we offered, I felt a mingling of guilt and helpfulness. They could scarcely afford the small price that we charged, yet each could have planted a garden for himself.

We accepted company scrip and often, I knew, the ten or twenty cents handed to us was the last that person had for that day. We sold peas for ten cents a gallon and heaped the bucket high. Big melons went for fifteen cents, smaller ones for five and ten cents. They were always ripe. Papa could walk through a field, look at a melon, and tell the state of ripeness. Tomatoes and okra were plentiful; beans, too—bearing more the more we gathered. Papa didn’t sell his corn. That was kept for bread and food for the animals.

That first day we bought a tank of gasoline, a new broom, ten pounds of sugar, and a box of cocoa. The monthly hundred pounds of sugar had gone into apple and peach pies, preserves and jellies. Miss Mildred had begun to crave chocolate cake. We also bought thread, aspirin, coffee, and a plug of Brown Mule tobacco.