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MARY WINDSOR
(Florida)
Mary's small, unpainted shack stood in
an isolated clearing almost a quarter of a mile from the grades. I found
it by following a dim woods trail which led from the grade through the
heart of a hammock. The few scattered pines surrounding her home made a
pleasant contrast against the deeper green of the bayhead in the
background.
To reach the house I had to leave the trail and pick my way through vines
and thick grasses and around large clumps of palmettos where thoughts of
lurking rattlesnakes sent me scurrying toward my destination. There was no
other dwelling within miles and a peculiar stillness brooded over the
place, broken only by the soughing of the wind in the pines.
A weak feminine voice called from the house as I approached. Come right in
mam. There aint no gate but you kin raise up the wire and get through the
fence that way. Willie has been a-fixin to make us a gate ever since we
come here but he don't seem to find no time for it. Sure enough there was
no gate in the rusty two-strand barbed wire fence which zigzagged around
the house but the strands were hung loosely upon the crooked posts, and it
was an easy matter to crawl under the lowest strand.
Please mam, just chase them little biddies outten the room, for that old
hen, she won't be quiet till the gets them all out with her. They will
come in this way when I'm sick in bed and can't chase them out. They's
always a-lookin for scraps and crumbs. I declare, I believe one or two is
in the kitchen yet, they shore do pester me this way. Would you mind a-shooin
them out please. I feels sorry, to pester you like this, mam, but there
ain't no body else to call.
The tiny chicks were urged out the front door to be taken under the
protecting wing of the irate hen. The other chickens were then chased from
the kitchen table. They made their protesting way into the back yard where
they lingered about the steps.
With order restored for the time being, the comely young woman with dark
curly red hair, spoke again. She lay in the soiled bed covered with
several dingy blankets and a ragged quilt: "This here house don't look
very clean mam. But I been sick now with chills and fever for most a week,
and I aint been able to clean and scrub and wash like I belong to. Teeny,
there, she don't feel so good neither, she's had the fever, too, and
Willie, he went to town this mornin' to get us some fever medicine; he
ain't got back yet."
Teeny, proved to be a tiny tow-headed girl of two or three years of age.
She was cuddled down in the blankets next to her mother.
"No mam, we don't never have a doctor, living so far out this way and
without no money much neither. I feel better soon as I take a few doses of
that fever medicine. I try to always keep it in the house for there aint
no tellin' just when them chills will strike me like. But the medicine, it
give out the last time I was so sick and I kept a waitin' thinkin' maybe I
wouldn't have no more chills. Soon's Willie gits back and I start the
medicine agin, I'll feel better. No mam, I don't know jest what kind he'll
get this time. He says it's better to change the medicine a lot and he
sure knows too, for Willie, he knows a heap about most every thing like."
She looked dreamily out across the clearing as if the wish for Willie's
return would make him materialize at once. When Willie is home and these
chills starts, he always wraps me up warm and puts a stove lid to my feet.
Then he fixes the medicine for me, too. He always knowed jest what to do
bout everthing like, he's get such a fine education. Teeny here, she has
the chills too and she takes the medicine, but sometimes it makes her sick
to her stomick. Some times I wisht we could have a doctor but I expect
Willie knows bout as much.
"Teeny is most four years old now. Willie and me has been married bout
five year, I think it is. But I don't pay no mind to dates like, and time
do pass so quick. I been havin' these here chills and fever off and on all
the time like. I spect I mighta had other babies by now If I hadn't been
so puny. I heard that sometimes it keeps more babies from a-comin. I
wouldn't mind two or three more if they didn't come along too quick. Seems
like it would be real nice for Teeny to have a little brother to play
with. Willie don't never say much but he likes babies, too. I guess he
would be glad, specially if it was a boy. He says it's always better to
have boys; they is easier to raise and can help better with the farmin'.
I sure do wish we had a big farm. Wille, he's always a plannin' to buy one
like. Willie, he were raised on a farm too and he sure knows a lot bout
farmin. He worked on a lot of places, too, croppin for other folk. And if
them folks had-a all just done like he told them to, they woulda made
better crops," she said sincerely.
"Yes mam, we was both borned in Florida. We lived here all the time; we
ain't never been away out the States. I am most 23 years old now and
Willie, I reckon he's about 35. I won't rightly know where he was borned,
but it were in Florida. I was borned over in Hardee County, away out in
the country almost like this here. My daddy, he were a farmer, but he
never had no very big farm. I don't know where my family come from to
start with, I never thought of nothin but just a-livin here like.
After drinking a glass of water which I secured for her from a bucket on a
bench outside the kitchen door, she continued:
"After we was married Willie, he worked on farms and in the strawberries
in Hardee County, a lot. He lost a fortune in them strawberry fields and
through no fault of his'n. You see he had most a hundred dollars he made
at a sawmill just fore we get married, so he went in with a nother man to
raise berries. But the man, he wouldn't do like Willie said and they both
lost all their money. It shore made us feel awful bad and we aint never
had that much money any more like."
In reply to a question about the mill work. Mary stated with pride:
"Willie, he is a sawyer, and he kin run one of them circle saws better'n
most anybody else. I guess there just ain't much that he can't do, he got
so much schoolin and known so much."
"I reckon Willie could get lota work most anywhere, but he can't do much
in the mill or at farmin for it hurts his back like. Sometimes though he
works in the mill and then we have more money, but it ain't ever enough
and it don't last long for things is so high. Willie, he has worked round
on lotsa farms, but seems like he knows so much better how to do the work
and it most always makes the folks mad at him. I guess they's jest
jealous. Seems like Willie, he just don't hold no job for long, even when
it don't hurt his back. He always knows a better way to do most any kind
of work, and sometimes he gets mad and says the work just ain't worth
afoolin with.
"I'll be mighty glad when we can buy us a great big farm, mam, like Willie
is a plannin to do. I want a big car, too, and a fine big house, but I
don't see no chance of it now. I hope we won't be a livin' so far out in
the woods then. Willie likes it out here and I do too, only I get real
lonesome-like sometimes. And it's worser when I'm so sick, cause then I
wish I had some neighbors to come in. I sure am glad you come today, so
you could talk to me awhile.
"This here place is all right for us now cause we don't pay no rent. And
we aint pestered by nobody. But I'd like to be near a town and see folks
and things, and go to picture shows. We might get there sometimes if we
lived in town. I useter like to go dancin fore Willie and me was married.
I aint been to a dance for so long now I spect I forgot how. We don't have
no way to get no place livin way out here, it's a mighty long walk to
town. It aint often there is anybody comes along the grade with a car
either, and it's a long walk to the grade from here.
"Now I wouldn't want folks always a-runnin in and tellin me how to do
things and manage like, but I would like to visit some. It's so far to
walk any place the way it is now, by the time I gets where I'm a-goin I'm
too tired to visit. Sometimes somebody comes along with a car and carries
us where we want to go, but that ain't often.
Sometimes I think I would like to try livin in a city, but I spect I would
get mighty tired of the dust, and noise, and smoke, and all them pesterin
things I hear about. Out here it is quiet and the air is pure and sweet,
and don't them pines look pritty a wavin in the sunshine? I been to some
of the big towns around here, and they look mighty nice at night with all
them lights. But I don't see how people sleep, and when they is sick it
must be just awful. But people what lives there gets to see a heap of
things we don't never git the chance to and there is lots of places to go
to. If we lived in town we might be able to go to the movin pictures
sometimes and there to a lot of free things to go to, like band playing
and parades.
"It might be better for Teeny, if she was to be raised in town, but I
don't know. Some folks say city childrens is smarter than others, but
there is Willie, he was raised in the country and there just aint nobody
no smarter than what he is. When Teeny gets ready to go to school I spect
we'll have to move if we is still a livin out here, for she never could
walk to the grade and to the school bus through all these here woods all
by herself."
Mary spoke again of work: "Sometimes
when I feel well and we need money or food real bad I takes Teeny and
walks over to one of the farms around here and he'p with the work. I do
anything they want me to, but mostly it's workin in the field. Sometimes
they pay me money, mostly a dollar a day. If I gets there real early they
always feed me and Teeny and gives me some food to bring home. But,
sometimes they want me to take all vegetables for pay and that don't suit
so well, but I don't say nothin.
"We don't none of us like vegetables much you know, but we eat them some
when we have to. I heard they is awful healthy to eat but I don't see why,
they seems mostly like cow feed to me. Willie is always a planin to raise
a big garden, but he don't never seem to get to it. He does raise a few
cabbages and some turnip greens. We like them some if they's cooked with
plenty of side meat. Willie says what's the use of plantin so much, we
wouldn't eat it and he couldn't sell it. Though there is folks that sells
their vegetables and makes a lots of money too!
"I would like to get fresh milk for Teeny, but we can't away out here, and
she not bein' use to it mightn't like it anyway. When we has the money to
spare I gets her canned milk. She drinks it sometimes then agin she won't
have it. She sure does like side meat though, and the fatter the better.
When she was a real little youngun I uster tie a piece of side meat skin
to her hand so she could suck it and it would keep her from cryin lots of
times.
Willie claims cryin is good for younguns, but it worries me. I always gits
the idea there is something awful the matter with them. Teeny, she always
had cried a lot, and she still do it too. Mary paused to gaze lovingly on
the tousled little head and grimy face that peeped timidly from the tumble
of bed clothes.
Speaking of finances Mary said: "Money don't seem to go nowhere these days
and we never have much to spend neither. A little side meat, shortnin and
flour, is about all we can get. We don't always have that neither. I guess
maybe we both could get more work on some of the farms round here, but it
hurts Willie's back so to do that work. Then I'm so sick so much of the
time. And lotsa times we has to take pay in vegetables, and we don't like
that. We might get a little meat and syrup too sometimes, but not very
often. Willie says they just don't farm right round here anyway, and he
don't like to try it their way, and they won't let him work his own way.
"I don't rightly know how much it would take for us to have the feed we
wants and some clothes and everthing. I ain't no hand fer figgers. I sure
wish Willie was here to talk to you about that, man. But, I do wish we had
all the food we want, and some good clothes to wear, and a house, and a
car, too.
"I aint had as much schoolin as Willie, I guess he went most through high
school. He knows so much, and he can read and write real well, and figger
as good as anybody. I guess there just ain't no rithmetic he can't work
and you can't hardly ask him a question but what he can answer it. I never
went to school real regular, but I was in the sixth grade when I quit.
This was jest a little time before Willie and me got married. I learnt to
read and write real well and a little about our country, and geografy, but
I never could figger none.
What does a woman need with so much schoolin anyway? Figgerin wouldn't do
me no good, I ain't never had no use fer it. I guess schoolin is all right
fer them what wants a lot of it, but it takes a heap of time and money to
keep at it like some folks do. My ma, she never had much schoolin and she
got on all right. She never would make us girls go regular neither, what I
mean is, if we begged to stay home, she let us.
"Now there's Willie with all his schoolin and the fine hand he can write
and the figgers he can do and all he knows about so many things. But he
aint never got on much, and I believe he'd been jest as well without so
much learnin. Willie claims they spend too much money on the schools
nowdays with all them new things they teach. They even teach the boys how
to fix cars and run engines and the like. But Willie, he could do all that
without no learnin bout it in school."
I do like to read some, I like love stories and them movie magazines with
all the pictures of the actresses in them. We don't never get no magazines
less somebody gives us some, fer it seems like all the money we get goes
fer food and a few clothes. Even when Willie works steady for a little
while we don't seem to have nothin.
Mary stated that she had no interest in politics and knew very little
about such matters: "I have voted some," she said with pride, "and jest
like Willie told me to do. He knows all about it and just what to do. I
never could see why women want to vote, my ma never did. But Willie says
it's the law and we all gotta do it. I don't know what it's all about. I
never pay it much mind. Besides it don't make no difference to me bout all
them strange folks I ain't never know or seen, a-runnin this here country.
Willie, he says things is better than what they was, and the Govmint, it
has give work to lots of people and kept them form a-starvin, like it
ain't never done before. He says lots of people say we all got to pay it
back some time acomin, but that there don't make no sense to me, for we
alls spends the money soon as we gots it. Anyways how we a-goin to pay it
back?"
Mary then spoke of the church and religions: "No, mam, we don't never go
to church much. Though I spose we ought too Willie, he don't like to go
atall, and won't hardly ever go even if folks comes to carry us. He claims
it makes him fidgety a-sitting there listenin to the preacher talk so
much. Livin way out here thisaway like we do anyway, there don't nobody
hardly ever come to carry us to town. So we'd just hafter walk and that's
too fer. I don't think we is very sinful not goin to church much, and I
believe we live all right. If folks can they oughter go, and give money to
the church, too, when they can. My daddy always did.
"Sometimes the church helps folks when they is out of work and needy, but
us a-livin way out here, they never seem to get to us like. Willie, he
wouldn't want them to give us nothin no way, I guess. Willie likes to talk
to folks so much you might think he would like to go to church, but he
don't. He says the preacher don't always say things to suit him, and
sometimes he don't hardly seem to know how to preach. Willie, he ain't
tried a preachin job yet, but I reckon as how he could do it as well as
any of them can.
"I heard that there is places where they have ball games and shows on
Sunday. You know that jest aint right, no mam! I uster like the ball game
when I went to school but I aint never seen one played on a Sunday. I aint
never been to no movie picture on Sunday neither. Seems like there is
plenty of time in the week days fer them things. Folks oughter take care
to be more quiet like on a Sunday. We always did at home. My daddy, he
wouldn't low no foolishness at all on that day.
"No mam, there shore aint nothin for me to do, I sure am glad you come by
and talked to me a spell. I feels better now. Why if we had a doctor come
way out here, I spect he'd charge a awful lot of money, bout two or three
dollars maybe. I had these here fever spells so often now I sorter got ust
to them like. Jest as soon as Willie gets back with the fever medicine
I'll start a takin it, and Willie he always knows just what to do for me
like."
February 18, 1939
Mrs. Sonie Williams (real name)
Venus, Florida
Life of sharecropper
Barbara Berry Darsey, writer
Veronica E. Huss, reviser
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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