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MARIA GONZALES
FLORIDA SQUATTER
(Florida)
Maria came across the yard with an
apron full of vegetables which she dumped upon the back steps; then, as
several little pigs and a few chickens came forward to investigate, she
called to one of the group of five or six children following at her heels:
"Teeny, take them collards an turnips right on to the kitchen."
Dusting her hands upon her apron she came to the gate which was firmly
fastened with several strands of barbed wire and proceeded to open it.
"Won't you come in," she said shyly, "my house ain't very tidy and you
must scuse the looks of things. Seems like I'm so busy all the time with
my garden an the younguns, I don't have time to clean up much."
We then went up the steps and across the rickety porch into the front room
where we stood and talked for a while. "Them chairs ain't very strong, but
you can set on this bed. I know this spread looks kinder dirty for the
younguns will waller on it."
Maria stated that she was born in Florida in a nearby county, but she was
not sure whether it was Hardee or De Soto, about forty-two years ago. She
thought she might be of Spanish lineage but was not sure of that as she
had never heard her parents discuss their ancestry, and all of her
grand-parents died before she was born. "Sometimes people ask me if I am
Spanish because I am so dark of skin an have such big dark eyes, they
always tell me, but I don't know, an what difference would it make anyway,
I'd just be right on living like I am now.
"I was the fifth of seven chillerns, and was raised on a farm and I learnt
to do most all the kinds of farm work just as good as a man could. I never
went to school much for I didn't like it and my Pa he wanted me to work on
the farm most of the time.
"John and I got married about twenty years ago and my oldest boy, Jim,
he's nineteen now. John came here from a place called Carolina. No ma'am,
I don't know if it was North or South. Carolina is all I ever heard him
say. He was a farmer too and we started in to farm on a little patch of my
Pa's farm but we didn't do so well.
"Seemed like John just didn't take to the ways here and he was kinda queer
and never would listen to nobody. My family didn't like it much the way he
acted but we stayed on there about two years, then John got real mad with
my Pa and he moved me over here only we lived way out in the woods near a
swamp then. I didn't mind living out there, I liked it for there didn't
nobody bother us, we lived so far out. After you left the hard road you
had to travel the grade for a long ways and then walk through a patch of
woods for nigh on a mile, so didn't many people come to visit us. I never
was much to visit anyway, seems like."
Maria looked around her little rude poorly furnished room and signed.
"This here little house it's much better than what we had out yonder.
John, he always was queer and he said we didn't need no house so he built
us a shelter of palmetto leaves and put a floor in it and we lived there.
After a while he fenced it all round and got some pigs and chickens and we
had em all right there with us. Once a man said he would give John lumber
for a house but that made John awful mad and he wouldn't have it. He said
he had always lived just like we was then and he didn't want to change."
A look of fear came into her dark eyes as she peered about the room. "We
lived there for a long long time and it hasn't been but most four years we
been a livin here now. John kinder went out his head and took his shotgun
and said he was agoin to kill us all, so I got the younguns together--that
littler one was just a tiny baby then--an we ran into the woods and hid
from him all day. We could hear him a-rantin and a-cussin and sometimes a-singin
gospel songs and we sure was scared. Come sundown we made our way to a
neighbor on another farm about seven miles off an we all stayed there for
the night. The next day we got to town and folks there looked after us.
They got Jim a place to work on a poultry farm an they fixed up this old
place for us and here we been ever since."
Maria paused as if looking back to the shelter in the swamp that was her
home for so long. "Most of these younguns was born way out there. I never
had no doctor tend me, just a nigger woman most the time, but there was
times when there wasn't no one there with me but John. When he went crazy
I had to grab the little baby out the bed and run with it in my arms."
She went on to say that the family had never had much medical care. While
they were "on the Relief" a nurse went to see her and then came again and
said the whole family must be treated for worms. That made John mad too
but the nurse was firm and even came out to give the treatments. Then
John's eyes got so bad he could hardly see to work so they were treated
and glasses fitted. The children are rarely ill and castor oil is about
all they ever took.
"John went an lost his mind over thinkin too much about religion. He got
so he wouldn't work even in the garden and would just set out under a tree
an worry whether or not he was saved. He didn't go to church much. Way out
there it is too far to walk. Now I go to church some when I can and I take
all the younguns along. Some times we walk the grade; other times somebody
comes and picks us up and carries us to town. Jim he gives to the church
and sometimes he gives the younguns pennies to put in the basket just like
the other chillens do an he always gives me a dime to take. I don't know
what the church does with all that money. The preacher he must be powerful
rich if they give it all to him. But anyway they always ask us for it. I
never know just what the preacher is sayin, he talks too fast but I like
to watch him an I such loves to hear the singin. I have a bible but I
don't read much on account of my eyes ain't so good, but I tries to git
the younguns to read it sometimes. It's kinder hard for me to read anyway
cause I never went to school much cause I didn't like to go and would
rather do farm work. What good is schoolin for a woman anyway? They get on
just well.
"I want my younguns to learn readin and writin bettern I did. They might
need it sometime but I don't see no use much in more than that. These
younguns always tryin to tell me about some fancy learnin they get at the
school-house, but I don't see no use in it. John, he could read and write
real well and figger some too and there he is now away out yonder by
hisself. What good did it do him?
"When John run us off we didn't have no money, but we never had hardly
none anyway. When Jim got work at the chicken farm he got fifty cents a
day an he give it all to me. Now he makes a dollar an a quarter a day but
he [?] to keep some of it. He's growin up now, you know, and got girls on
his mind. He had to stay right at the farm all the time at first to tend
the biddies at night an start lights so the hens could get up early and
eat before sunup. Now he don't have to work that hard but he don't get
home much. Sometimes he comes on Saturday an stays over Sunday, but most
likely he just comes a little while on Sunday afternoon. He gits his board
an we git some cracked eggs an sometimes a chicken an it helps a lot.
"I do farm work too an so do my oldest
girls. They don't like to go to school anymore an I guess they got enough
schoolin anyway. When we came to this place I used to carry the baby--that
little one there--in my arms with that nex one a-taggin along, holding
mostly to my skirt or hand, an walk sometimes five mile to neighbors to
work. Sometimes before we got there I had to carry both these younguns.
Then I did farm work, whatever they told me to do, sometimes I hoed corn,
or picked squash an beans, or shelled beans for market. I got my dinner
and somethin to carry home to the other younguns who be at school then, an
some vegetables. We never was much to eat vegetables except cabbage or
collards cooked with side meat, but sometimes we got so hungry an we
didn't have nothin but vegetables so that learned us to eat most all
kinds, like beans an such."
She paused as if recalling something and then said: "One time when John
was on the Relief a woman came out from the big town to tell us all what
to eat and how to cook it. I didn't go to the meetin, but I heard about
it. What's the use of that? Life is just life, an vegetables just grow an
we all can cook them. Seems like that woman didn't want us to boil our
greens with lots of side meat for a long time! Why they ain't fitten to
eat if en you don't cook them thataway! And she said the flour dough fried
bread wasn't fitten to eat. I guess she never tasted none of it. When it's
fried in hog fat they just ain't nothin any better."
"Another time they wanted to give us clothes for the younguns an us too
and lunches for the younguns goin to school. That made John awful mad and
he wouldn't take none of it. He said he knowed it were a trap of some kind
an he would sure have to pay for it all sometime, or else go to jail an he
always was fraid of jail." Maria paused, shook her head sadly, and a
far-a-way look came into her large expressive eyes: "They was others took
all them things an they did have such purty clothes an they never had to
pay for them or go to jail neither."
She then looked lovingly at her family clustered about her. "Never seems
to me that I got a lot of younguns. Only eight. I know some folks got a
dozen or more. Guess I'd a had three-four more come this time if John
hadn't run us off like he did. I have heard tell of some folks not havin
younguns when they oughter. That's real sinful, I think an it's agin
nature too, just like takin all that medicine that time the nurse made us
do. The Lord He don't want us to do all them things; it ain't right. Tis
kinder hard some times gittin enough food an clothes for all my younguns.
The church, it wanted to help us once but I'm kinder like John thataway, I
just don't like for people to give me things less I know em real well an
then I want to work for em. Jim's money don't go so far. Things do cost a
awful lot these here days, but people don' have more younguns than they
should and they just get to take their share."
Mention of politics and voting brought a blank stare, and then: "Jim, he
wants to vote, whatever that means. I don't understand nothin about that
and don't want to. It ain't for women anyway an the lesser we knows about
it the better off we is. I got enough to do tendin my younguns an my
garden an workin for other farmers thout messin up in votin." Maria's eyes
fairly snapped in the first real emotion she had evinced.
We talked of town and city life and she stated; "Jim, he talks some of
movin to the city but I won't go. I like this life now we got used to it.
I guess it's better here than livin way out yonder in the swamp, though I
ain't never thought much about it. But livin in the city, folks pester you
too much. More comes here to see me than what they did when we lived out
yonder but I don't go to see them less I have work to do there. I don't
want folks a-comin in and a-tellin me what to do, how to run my house, an
tend my younguns. This way suits me an it's my life. Out here we don't
have much sickness neither like I hear tell they have in town. Seems like
someone is always sick there. Sometimes one of my younguns has the colic
an I give him plenty of castor oil and he soon gits well. If he has a
tooth hurtin I let him pack snuff round it an it will stop hurtin real
soon. Snuff's good for ear ache too. If you blow it down in the ear, it
don't feel so good at first but soon helps. I don't want no change. Movin
in from out yonder was enough an I be satisfied with my way of livin. I
don't see why folks always go to trompin round from place to place. Why
don't they git a place and stay there?"
Several of the smaller children had gone out to the yard and were playing
ball. Maria gazed at them pensively and said: "John, he never did let the
children play not even in the clearin at the swamp. He said when they had
time they should set an think and figger if they was saved or not. But
they don't take much to that. I guess maybe it'll come later with them.
Seems like they just got to have a little fun an I let em play lots and
don't pester em all the time. They is good younguns as any you will find
an I let the two girls go to little parties sometimes. I always make em
promise not to dance for that sure is the devil's work. Of course I ain't
got much say over Jim now, but I always pester him about not dancin too.
Maria paused and seemed in deep thought for some seconds, then sighed and
said: "John, he came here once a long time ago and tried to git us to go
back out yonder to the swamp with him but I wouldn't go. I was scared of
the look in his eyes, kinder red, like when he was awful mad about
something. The town folks they told him if he pestered me again they would
put him in jail an I guess that scared him pretty bad for he ain't
pestered me no more and I ain't seen him for a long while now but
sometimes he talks to the younguns in town."
2700 words
Mrs. Texas Morgan
Venus, Florida
12/7/38
Barbara Berry Darsey
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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