farm work

Andrew and Molly Part 21

Molly was exhausted. The work of her farm, family, responsibility for her indentured servants was unrelenting. Ailing since he was injured in the Indian attack, Bartles had never enjoyed a full return to health. Lately, his left leg dragged a bit and his mouth drew to the left. In the short time since his return, Andrew had picked up most of Bartles’ work. Molly could see the relief on Bartles’s face.

Aggie was grateful to have Bartles about the house with her and kept the little girls at her side when Rosemarie was too busy to care for them leaving Molly free for other duties. Jamie kept busy following everyone at their farm tasks.

Though she appreciated Aggie’s help, Molly regretted not being able to tend her own house and children. She was worried about being able to care for four little ones should she not be able to keep Rosemarie once the baby was weaned. Orphaned herself, she felt for the wee mite but wasn’t anxious to take on another child. It seemed like everytime her life was looking better there was another bump in the road.

Even the baby did not lie abed. Though it was early, he was on his way into town wrapped in a sling on Rosemarie’s back. The storeowner’s wife stopped her to talk after Rosemarie gave her the list. “I heard you’d lost your baby but here you are with one strapped to your back! How’d you get another so fast?” she asked snidely.

Knowing her place, Rosemarie avoided the discussion as much as possible. “This is not my babe. Mistress Wharton has me minding the baby her man Andrew brought when he escaped from the Indians. I’d best go. Mistress Wharton won’t like me gossiping.”

Hard Times and Tough People

Cousin Kathleen had a hard time coming up. She was the oldest of seven children ranging from three to fourteen when her father died in 1934. He farmed a few acres he’d gotten from his father in the Virginia hills. Aunt Winnie had no idea how they’d manage. She and the kids struggled to get the crops in that year with the help of the neighbors, knowing that was the last help she could count on in the hard times of The Great Depression. The thought of the work facing her was overwhelming. A friend gifted her with the crop from one of his bean patches, other neighbors contributed a ham, a few hens, some produce, and what little bit they could spare. Others offered to hire the kids when they needed help from time to time.
After the crops were in, the beans picked and canned, Aunt Winnie made inventory. She owned the farm with its tiny three-room house with beds in every room, including a couple in the attic. She had a good well, a tight barn, a smokehouse, a toilet and a chicken house. Her livestock included a sow and a few fattening shoats, a few chickens, a mule, a cow, a few goats, a dog and a couple of barn cats. Her farm equipment included a wagon, a plow, hand-tools, harness, and the various other things Ed had managed to acquire. She sold the mule to a neighbor with the promise that he’d loan it back to her to plow garden every spring, giving her a bit of cash. Darryl, the oldest boy was twelve and big as a man. Between the kids, and herself, they’d have to get the work done. Aunt Winnie took a days’ work when she was lucky enough to get it, though it was sporadic since there were no real jobs. The neighbors called her to help harvest, can, or help with the sick, but she had to be home at night to care for her own young children.
Cousins Kat and Darryl never lived at home or went to school after that, taking whatever work they could, their board part of their pay. Darryl was home only for heavy work plowing, planting, and getting crops in, though Kat only got to come home on weekends. He did farm work, cleared land, cut wood, helped butcher or did whatever he could get, moving from farm to farm as the job was finished, though he had to be home long enough to plow, plant, and get in the crops on his mother’s place.
Cousin Kat took whatever jobs helping out mothers with new babies, staying with the sick or elderly, helping with farm, housework, or sewing, anything she could get. The word got around the kids were hard-working and reliable, and cheap. Kat said she never got more than two dollars a week, when she was lucky. Sometimes she worked for produce and old clothes for herself and the family. Darryl often had to take his pay in produce to take home. There were many mouths to feed back at Mama’s place.
In this way, the family scraped by. Ed’s parents had moved to Texas where they moved in on Lizzie and Roscoe, my grandparents, in the meantime. Roscoe split his farm equipment, and gave them a wagon and mule to help them get started. Upon learning of her brother, Ed’s death, my grandmother, Lizzie, wrote her sister-in-law Winnie, to sell the farm and come to Texas, where they could be of some help to them. Nobody had much, but they could all manage together. Lizzie and Winnie had been life-long friends, even before Winnie married Ed. They had stayed in touch by letter at least weekly ever since Lizzie left Virginia. She looked forward to being with her again.
Winnie, who had no other family, was looking for a buyer for the farm and planning to move her family to Texas, when she got a nasty letter from her mother-in-law telling her she had no business moving to Texas, burdening herself and her husband with that “bunch of kids.” These were her own grandkids, by the way. Winnie had “made her bed and now she had to sleep in it.” This was really cold, considering this same woman had moved her own family in on her daughter and son-in-law. Maybe she was afraid more family would put an end to their generosity. My grandmother, Lizzie, never found out the reason till she and Winnie reunited on Lizzie’s first visit to Virginia fifty years later.
Insulted, Winnie and her family stayed in Virginia where they struggled by. Things got better when Darryl was able to join the Civilian Conversation Corp and send money home. The third daughter went out to work, bringing in a little money. When World War II started, Darryl enlisted, then the other boys in turn. They lived through some hard times. The younger children got to go to school.
Cousin Kat said it was a great sorrow that she never got to live at home after her father died, missing her family’s’ twilight suppers, never getting to finish school, and getting to sleep with her sisters under her mama’s quilts in the attic. The rest of her life, she never spent a penny she could save, fearing she’d need it soon.
Darryl made the Navy his career and was very proud to have served as boson the Hornet in World War II. All Aunt Winnie’s children did well, contributing till their mother got her “old age pension.” As her health failed, the children cared for her, hiring help to get them through times they couldn’t be there, quite an expense. Despite this, when she died, she left ten-thousand dollars to be divided among her children. She must have been so frugal!
cabin

Them That Don’t Work……..

Five kidsThere was always more work than Mother could possibly get done by the time there were five kids.  In addition to the house and cooking, Daddy kept Mother running errands for the farm.  “Run up to Manolia and get me a magneto for the tractor.  On the way back, pick my saw up from the shop and a couple of cans of gasoline.”

Magnolia was forty miles away.  Unless Daddy got his request in early, by the time Mother got back, we were in from school.  If I saw a chicken thawing in the sink, I knew to get supper started.  No instructions were needed.  Chicken meant fried chicken. Ground meat meant meatloaf.  I’d change clothes, peel and boil mountains of potatoes, cut the chicken up and get it started frying, or get the meatloaf on and get some vegetables started, if Mother hadn’t left a pot of beans simmering on low.  God forbid, I should let the beans cook dry and scorch.  That was a catastrophe.  While the chicken fried, cornbread or biscuits went in the oven, no “light bread” ever defiled the table at our house.  Daddy frequently bragged about that.  It reflected well his authority and manhood.  Supper was on the table at the expected time.  As soon as dinner was over, we got the kitchen cleaned up.  After the first time or two I got a meal on the table, never Mother worried again if she was held up, knowing dinner would be ready on time.  Only once did I foolishly decide I had better things to do than cook supper after I had started that routine.  Turns out, I didn’t have anything better to do.  We also had dogs, cows, and chickens who didn’t take care of themselves.  They ate before we did.

At about the age of seven or eight, when I initially got the devastating news that I was going to start having “jobs” to do, I was appalled and disgusted.  I was a kid. I was supposed to play.  It was my parent’s job to take care of me.  Life wouldn’t be worth living!  Sometimes Mother would send me back three or four times till I did a job right.  Daddy had a much more time efficient method.  He’d just kick my butt and make it worth my time to get it right.  After three or four years of involuntary servitude, I realized it was easier to do what needed to be done than deal with the alternative and still have to do get busy.  Eventually, somehow I started needed doing without being told.

Woman’s Work is Never Done

 

“Them that don’t work, don’t eat.” We must have looked like a hungry bunch because Daddy made sure we worked.  Farm work was a regular thing, but when Daddy had invited folks in for a holiday, he kicked it into high gear.  The place had to be groomed; brush cut, fence rows cleaned out, fields bush hogged.  It was always good to have something new lined up to show progress; another few acres cleared, some pecan trees planted, a new field fenced.  It wouldn’t do to have folks thinking we’d been just lying about.

Work was divided into “Man’s Work” and “Woman’s Work.”  Women were lucky.  As far as “Man’s Work,” Daddy believed in equal opportunity.  Womenfolk were expected to work right alongside the men, just as hard and long.  Due to our lesser strength and inferior expertise, however, we couldn’t be expected to handle complex tasks involving tractor driving, bush hogging, and equipment use, when there was lesser manual work to be relegated to peons. We were, however, excellent candidates for piling brush, chopping bushes, and wielding simple tools such as hoes, post-hole diggers, shovels, and wheelbarrows.  Fetching and carrying were our forte!

Fortunately for the girls, once we had labored long and hard with Daddy, we were free to pursue “Woman’s Work”; that would be cooking dinner after a long day’s work.  As often as not, Mother worked alongside us, so “Woman’s Work” started after “Man’s Work” was complete.  “Man’s Work” was over at the end of daylight.  Men couldn’t cook, clean, do laundry, or milk cows.  Fortunately for men, according to Daddy, there was some obscure Bible verse I never heard quoted or referenced anywhere else, that said, “Thou canst not take what thou cannot give.”  He also hinted at possible hormone issues.  How’s that for rustication?  I often felt sorry for Daddy and Billy as they collapsed at the end of a long day while we were cooking and cleaning.  They must have felt just awful.

Anyway, back to the holiday.  Once we’d worked like fiends preparing, the long-awaited guests arrived, amid compliments on the resort-like beauty of the farm.  “I wish I lived here.  It looked so restful.” (You should have been here the last week!)  Daddy’s mood was effusive.  He was a wonderful host.  “Get Aunt Lou some more coffee and cake!”  “We’re running low on iced tea out here.”  He’d charm my cousins.  They’d be riding horses, riding the zip-line running from a tall elm to way past the pond, and swimming in the pond.  It must have looked like a theme park to poor, deprived children who had to lie about watching cartoons, riding bicycles, playing with friends, and drinking Kool Aid all the time.  I felt so badly for them when they’d say, “I wish he was my daddy!”  So did I!