serial

Two Roads Part 8

img_1681They anticipated a bumper crop that August.  Eddie’s forty acres were white with the swelling cotton bolls.  An experienced farmer, he’d been at it long enough to know what his crop would bring.  Even though he’d only be paid for two-thirds of the yield, this should be one of his better years.  After settling up with Mr. Hathaway and the grocer, he ought to be able to put away enough to start renting the next fall.  He had his eye on a farm close to Neely’s mama.  The house wasn’t much better than this one, but at least he wouldn’t be sharecropping.

The whole family picked from daylight to dark for days, only breaking to eat buttered sugar biscuits and rest a few minutes at noon.  Their hands bled from the sharp points on the dried bolls.  Neeley had the oldest two girls trade out watching the baby while she picked. The weather held till they got the drop in.  Mr. Hathaway was there to weigh every bag they emptied before having it hauled to the gin.

After the last wagon load of cotton rolled out, they waited anxiously for Mr. Hathaway to get back to pay them their share.  They knew he was coming early that Saturday,  so they already had the wagon hitched up and the kids ready to go so they could settle their grocery bill and get the kids some shoes.  The little guys had gone barefoot all summer, but with school ready to start and winter coming, they’d need shoes.

Mr. Hathaway and his foreman got out of his truck and walked over to where they waited.  “I got bad news for you folks.  The price of cotton fell and seed cost way more than I thought it would.  Y’all didn’t clear but about fifty dollars on this crop.”

Eddie was stunned, taking long to speak.  “That don’t hardly seem right.  Cotton’s been selling for fourteen cents a pound.  We had a fine crop.  The way I figure it, we got just over three-hundred dollars clear.  You was s’posed to pay for the seed, not me.  We got to talk about this.”

“That’s all they is to it.  You just got a tough break on the seed.” Mr. Hathaway dismissed him and turned to go, encountering Neeley standing between him and his truck.  She had a bull whip in her hand. At six feet and near two-hundred pounds, the enraged woman was an imposing figure, especially to a small, wiry older man.  He and his foreman were trapped between the house and the wagon.

“No, that ain’t how it’s gonna go.”  She looked him in the eye.  “You owe us at least three-hundred twenty-seven dollars and that’s what you gonna pay us.  I’ll whip you if I have to, but you ain’t starvin’ my younguns.”

Mr. Hathaway dropped his eyes in the face of the furious woman with the whip.  Reaching in his pocket, he dug out a thick roll of bills.  He counted out three-hundred fifty-three dollars and handed it to Eddie.  “I forgot you have your own mule and equipment. This will make us square.”  He and the foreman edged their way around Neeley and scurried to the truck.  He called back to Eddie once he was in the truck, “I want you and that woman off the place.  I got somebody else in mind.”

Eddie was still shocked at what his wife had done, so Neeley answered for him.  “Don’t you worry none about that.  We already got somethin’ lined up.”

 

 

 

 

Two Roads Part 7

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Image from photos of The Great Depression

Sharecropping was a big come-down after losing the farm.  Neeley felt it every time she saw family or bumped into a neighbor in the store.  They’d been extended credit again since the boss-man vouched for them, but it was humiliating when the owner’s wife, Mrs. Hathaway saw Neeley admiring fabric and snidely remarked, “Now don’t you go runnin’ up the bill with fancy stuff like that. You gonna have to be savin’ since we vouchin’ fer you.”

“I ain’t gonna cost you nothin’,”  Neeley assured her.  “I got enough sense to know what I owe, but it don’t cost nothin’ for me to look.”  With that, she asked the storekeeper for two yards of unbleached muslin, the cheap stuff women used for their monthly needs.  She turned to the storekeeper.  “Please take this out of my egg and butter money, an’ got each of the young’uns gits a peppermint stick.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” the storekeeper said.  He was amused at Neeley’s spunk, having seen plenty of Mrs. Hathaway’s hateful attitude toward her husband’s workers.  He cut Neeley an extra yard and grinned.

“I didn’t mean no harm.  I just didn’t want you running up no big bill for us to got stuck with. ” Mrs. Hathaway tried to turn the awkward situation around.

“You don’t never have to worry about me.”  Neeley looked her dead in the eye.  “Save your worry for somebody else.”

Eddie was loading feed as she came out of the store.  “Now don’t you go crossing Miz Hathaway.  We don’t need them throwin’ us out.”

“Huh, they need us worse than we need them.  You ain’t seen nobody lined up at their door looking for a place, have you?”   she queried.

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All spring Neeley worked alongside Eddie, helping him get the cotton crop in.  A few weeks later, she helped him chop the weeds out.  Because Eddie furnished his own mule and plow, Mr. Hathaway allowed him an acre for a vegetable garden and let Neeley’s cow graze in with his cows.  Eddie built Neeley a chicken house out of scrap lumber to shut her chickens up at night.  They ran free all day.  Once the cash crop was in, they got their own patch planted.  Many landowners didn’t allow their croppers room for a garden, so this was a boon.  The landowner was to get one-third of the cotton crop, Eddie two-thirds.

The crop was thriving.  They were hopeful they’d clear enough to get far enough ahead to rent a farm with their share.  Eddie still had his mule, equipment, and wagon.  By now, Cassie was back in Neeley’s life.  She and her third husband had settled a few miles away with their twin boys and little girl.  The two older boys were    out of the house and working.  It was a comfort to have Cassie nearby.  She had settled down some as she aged, though she and her husband still managed some pretty good fights.  It probably helped that men didn’t pay much attention to her as she “lost her looks.”  Neeley had even started calling her “Mama” after Ma died.

Things were going a lot better than Neeley expected until her milk dried up and she realized she was pregnant again.  Damn, Eddie!  Why couldn’t he leave her in peace. The baby was only eight months old!  She wouldn’t need that unbleached muslin for a while, anyway.  Counting Clara Bea, this would be her sixth child and she wasn’t even twenty-five.  She didn’t think she could stand it.

 

 

 

 

Two Roads Part 5

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Image pulled from internet

Though Neeley’s marriage to Eddie did not start with love, they were good people who needed each other.  Both considered themselves damaged goods.  Neeley got a home and a father for her child, Eddie, a wife and mother for his young daughter.  They both had healthy appetites for life and love which made for a solid marriage.  Neeley loved little Clara Bea from the start, knowing how abandonment felt.  Both got a better deal than they expected.  During those days, divorce was almost unheard of.  Eddie had despaired of finding a decent woman to marry after his wife abandoned him.  He’d never even thought of approaching a young woman since she’d left.  It was remarkable that Neeley was the child of a divorcee who married a divorced man at a time when most people had never even met a divorced person, much less have a close link to two.

Since there was no whisper of Neeley’s liason with Joey, it was assumed Neeley was a foolish young girl who’d fallen for an older fellow.  Though it made for interesting gossip, it was not a real scandal since he’d made an honest woman of her.  Then, as so often through life, society felt the woman fell short, not the man.

In the Deep South of that time, a great majority of people still made their living as farmers.  Large landowners with sharecroppers or tenants were on the top of the heap. Small farm owners came next. About the least a man could support his family on was forty acres.  He had to have a mule and equipment. The rental farm included a house.  He most likely had to borrow money for planting and had debt at the grocery store most of the time and just scraped by.  Should they fall on hard times and not be able to maintain their credit, their only option might be to become a sharecropper.  Sharecroppers were set up by landowners and split the crop with owner.  It was often unfair and kept farmers in debt.  Many had to sneak off in the night when debt got too high.  Sharecropping kept farmers bound to place.

Eddie owned a small farm and had very little money long before The Great Depression.  They raised most of what they needed.  Along with their garden, they had a cow, hogs, and a flock of chickens and cultivated a few acres of cotton for cash.  The occasional sale of a hog and Neeley’s butter and egg money helped out.  All they really had to buy was coal oil for their lamps, coffee, sugar, flour, baking soda, a few clothes for Eddie, and shoes.  Women’s and girl’s clothes came from feed sacks.  Flour sacks were reincarnated as underwear.  Their’s was a subsistence life, not by choice.  It was the life Neeley was raised to expect.

 

 

 

Two Roads Part 4

img_1662Image pulled from Internet
In her loneliness, Neeley was an easy mark.  Aunt Lottie kept her close to home.  Awkward about her imposing height and girth, she wasn’t surprised no one had come courting. In her feed-sack dresses and straight, chopped off hair, she’d never expected to be admired. Boys liked dainty little girls with curly hair and nice clothes.  She felt like a work horse in a field of thoroughbreds.  Saturday night, when she was allowed to attend a Holness Tent Revival with her cousins Louise and Bertha, she was embarrassed when a fellow kept staring at her.  Her cheeks burned, and she looked away whenever they made eye contact, fearing he ‘d ridicule her, given the chance.  Though she did nothing to encourage him, he found his way to her after meeting.

“Howdy, pretty girl.  Can I walk you home?”  He asked.

She answered without thinking.  “No, sir.  Aunt Lottie don’t allow me no callers.  She’d tan my hide if I asked.”

“Now, how’s she gonna know?  It’s a long, dark walk home.  Ain’t you an’ these gals together?  My buddies wants company, too.  Who’s gonna know if we walk all of you gals home together?  You shore ain’t gonna tell off on each other, are you?”  Her cousins Bertha and Louise stood giggling at her side.  Obviously, they were delighted by the offer.  “How ’bout it, girls?”

The three girls held a giggling conference, deciding to give the boys a chance.

Neeley fell hard for Joey, agreeing to meet him the next night, and the next, and the next.  He’d come to help with the harvest at his Uncle George’s farm.  To hear him tell it, Uncle George was doing poorly, not likely to make it for long.  He thought so much of Joe, he was gonna leave the place to him.  Joe was gonna be well-set up.  Him and Neeley could have a good life, if he was sure she loved him.  He couldn’t marry no girl without her loving him.  Neeley sure loved him.

Three months later, the curse had passed her by and Neeley needed a husband.  Joe was long gone.  There was no Uncle George, nor farm.  When she told her cousins, they begged Neeley not to tell of their part in her story.  They’d both escaped her fate.    Lottie would have beaten them half to death if she found out what they’d been up to.

When her condition was obvious, Aunt Lottie took after her with a broom, maybe hoping she’d beat the baby out of her.  When Uncle Jep got home and found Neeley brutalized, he threatened Lottie if he laid another hand on her and set off to see his friend and neighbor, Eddie.  Eddie had a small daughter and needed a wife.

Two Roads Part 3

It is questionable whether Aunt Lottie was really mean or just a harried woman with a houseful near to bursting when she had to take responsibility for Neeley.  It couldn’t have been an easy time for her, Uncle Jep or the grieving child.  Having Uncle Jep take Neeley’s side against her, hardened Aunt Lottie further.  She often hissed at her, “I’ll tend to you later!”

Neeley’s attempts to avoid Aunt Lottie were hopeless since she had to work along side her while enduring jabs about “yore sorry mama.”  While living with Ma,she never gave Cassie a lot of thought, but now the oppressive shadow of Aunt Lottie’s contempt for her mother was a heavy burden for a young child.  It was very confusing to mourn Ma knowing she had a mother “out there somewhere.”  Why didn’t she live with her mother?  Uncle Jep changed the subject when she asked him.

Cassie took Neeley for a few weeks or months when she had a stable home.  She’d remarried and had two boys, so Neeley did get to spend some time with her mother and two young brothers.  These times meant the world to Neeley since her attention-hungry little brothers adored her.  On her arrival, her mother showered her with love and affection before eventually succumbing to a mood swing and becoming neglectful of herself and the children.  Eventually, there would be a violent fight with her husband and the children would be dispatched to various relatives with a domestic split.  Neeley always landed back at Uncle Jep’s, the odd child out once again.

Neeley was becoming a young Amazon, over six feet tall and powerfully built.  With the hard life she faced, she’d need her strength to be able to hold her own.  Neeley never spent enough time in school to be a good student. At the age of sixteen, she realized she was pregnant.  No knight in shining armor showed up to marry her.  Soon after her baby was born, she married Eddie Malone, a twenty-six-year-old divorced man who was a friend of Uncle Jep.  Love was never mentioned, but there was the promise of a home.  She hadn’t had a home since she was nine.

 

 

Two Roads Part 2

On the last day of her old life, Ma sent nine-year-old Neeley to the store with some butter and eggs to trade for baking soda and needles. As she left the store with her penny candy and Ma’s things, she saw smoke hanging over the trees.  To her horror, when she topped the ridge, flames were leaping in the field between their house and Uncle Jep’s.  She fairly flew the last few hundred yards, calling for Ma at the top of her lungs.  Tearing into the front room, she found Ma slumped in the rocker, her arm hanging limp at her side with spittle running out the corner of her mouth.  She shook Ma, then pulled her arm with no response.  Desperate to rouse Ma for escape, she dashed her with a dipper full of water.   Ma didn’t wake up!

Threatened by the approaching fire, she realized she had to get Uncle Jep.  Racing barefoot toward his house, she skirted the actively burning areas, arriving to find him and Aunt Lottie gone.  Desperately, she headed toward the nearest neighbor’s place, only to meet neighbors rushing to help put out the fire.  Crying, she told them of Ma’s troubles.  Most went on to fight the fire, but Mr. Jones and Mr. Bilieu went to check on Ma.  Mr. Bilieu took Neeley to his house for his wife to tend her burned feet.  They got Dr Crisp out to see Ma.  He came later to check on Neeley bringing sad news.  Ma was dead.

Uncle Jep came for her. She had to deal with the agony of her burned feet along with the greater pain of losing Ma and her home.  Uncle Jep loved and welcomed her, but Aunt Lottie had the burden of her care.  The overworked mother of four was quick with the switch and criticism.  It was not an easy transition for the grieving girl going from darling grandchild to “another mouth to feed.”  The farm wife already had more work and worry than she could handle before Neeley was foisted on her.  It was not a good situation for any of them.

 

Hard Time Marrying Finale

img_1641The stocky little woman leaned on her cane as she picked her way gingerly toward the graves under the mesquites. She lay a few wildflowers on three rock-covered graves, one unmarked, one marked for Joe, and a third for their boy, Johnny.  “I’ll be here sleeping beside you soon’s I can, Joe.  I’m tired and the folks can get by easy without me now.”  She thought back on the last eight years since Joe collapsed one morning at his milking.  They’d had more than forty years and six children together.  It wasn’t enough.

Little Joe had married and stayed on to farm with Joe.  The cabin had become a seven room house over the years, filled first with their children, then Little Joe’s.  Sally had married a a farmer and lived on the next section. She was so sweet, Anya couldn’t help being partial to her.   Rose Anya had taught school till she married a storekeeper in Talphus.  Her boy Jules was a preacher.  Rose Anya had wanted her mother to come live with her in town after her pa died, but Anya couldn’t bear to leave the farm.  Betsy come along just a year after Sally and married Emma’s grandson, making them truly family.  The twins didn’t come along for five years.  One of them farmed the hundred sixty acres Joe bought a few years after they married and the other was a lawyer in Dallas.  He didn’t get home but a couple of times a year. Johnny, the one they lost came when she thought she was past child-bearing had struggled to breathe for three long days. Losing him nearly killed Joe.

Anya’s mind was fuzzy and she lived more in the past than present.  It pained her knowing all she was good for was rocking babies, stringing beans, and peeling potatoes, though Joe’s wife, Mary, tried to fool her into thinking she was useful. Whenever she could, she slipped out to talk to her Joe.

As she stood talking to Joe, Mary caught up with her.  “Mama, you had me worried to death.  I didn’t know where you’d got off to.  It’s blazing hot out here. Come out of the sun and let me git you a drink.”

“Joe’s gonna be in for supper at four.  I better git in and make him some biscuits.  He always did love my biscuits.” Anya told Mary.

“You don’t have to get started just yet.  Let’s get you a cool drink.” Mary said, leading Anya to a rocker in the shade of the porch.  “Just sit here and cool off and I’ll be right back with your drink.”

” I git so tired of her fussing.” Anya said to Mary’s big backside, watching her head for the kitchen. In no time at all she was nodding.

“Anya girl, ain’t you gonna cook me no supper?” Joe laughed as he touched her shoulder.  He looked as he did when she first knew him, well-muscled and lean with a full head of hair.

“Oh no! I ain’t even started!  You are early.” Anya told him.

“I’d say I’m right on time.  Come on along with me. You need to see what me and Johnny’s been doin’ over here.” The years fell away as Anya took his hand and stepped lively as a girl, her fine blonde hair feathered by the gentle breeze.

 

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 30

 

Mary Elizabeth Perkins and Roscoe Gordon Holdaway Wedding Pictu

My grandparent’s wedding picture, though this is not their story.  I am posting an extra story today as an early Christmas gift.

 

The situation Joe had most dreaded had come to a head at Anya’s most vulnerable time.  Making a run for it with two little ones and a newborn would be futile.  He’d just have to face this situation straight on.  No one was going to hurt Anya and rip his family apart after they’d struggled so hard to be together. 

Seeing Anya’s joy in Rose Anya was bittersweet, knowing what he’d have to tell her, but he could let her have this day unmarred.  Emma had left a pot of soup bubbling on the hearth.  Joe decided to do nothing but necessary chores and store up the joy of this day.  When Anya wasn’t holding Rose Anya, he was.  The little ones played happily in the warmth of family.

Joe didn’t allow himself to think of the preacher and sheriff’s impending visit.  The sheriff didn’t wait a few days, just showed up with the preacher the next morning, probably to avoid the problem of having to pursue them.  Joe greeted them gruffly.  The sheriff was a definite threat, and Joe had never known kindness, only judgment from church folk.

“I know why you are here.  I ain’t gonna let you make trouble for us.  My wife just gave birth to an early baby and she ain’t strong

“We need to talk to her.  I just need the preacher to say if she’s the same woman you married.  We won’t take much of your time.” The sheriff stood his ground.

 The preacher rocked back and forth with his hands clasped behind him.  “Lord knows we hate to bother you, but the sheriff says this has got to be done.  I’d be obliged if we could get it over with so I can get back to town.  I got a couple that wants marrying.”

Grudgingly, Joe showed them in.  “Anya, this here is the sheriff and the preacher what married us.  I know you remember him, even though you was so sick.”

Anya’s eyes widened in fear, taking the situation in.  “Why shore I do.  A woman don’t fergit her weddin’.  Welcome preacher.  I cain’t git up cause I’m nursing my baby.  She’s a mite early an’ I don’t want to jostle her.  She ain’t strong an’ needs to nurse.”

“Why shore, Ma’am.  Good to see you again.  That baby is a tiny little thing.  I wouldn’t want to unsettle her. It’s good to see things working out so good for you.”  Anya took heart from his kind words.

The sheriff took his cue.  “Ma’am, I’m sorry I had to bother you, but I needed to git the preacher to identify you.  I am glad ever’thing worked out so good.  Joe, you take care of this fine woman an’ that purty, little baby.  I got to be going.”

“Sheriff, if you can wait a few minutes, this little one needs christening.  It’s a long trip to town an’ I can git the job done as long as I’m here,” the preacher addressed the sheriff.

“Why shore.  I’ll just wait outside.” He left them alone. 

The preacher faced Joe and Anya.  “I don’t know how I done it, but I realized after y’all left that night I never gave you a certificate.   I’d like to marry you again an’ make sure ever’thing’s right before I christen that baby if that’s alright with you. I disremember the date, but you can help with that. Then we can git that little feller taken care of.  The Lord wouldn’t want me to leave a job half-done.”

A giant load was lifted off Joe’s heart.

Hard Time Marrying Part 29

Early the next morning, Rufus rattled up in the wagon with the children just as Emma’s biscuits in the Dutch Oven browned.  Sally was ecstatic about her new sister, but Little Joe wanted a puppy.  “Well, if you are a good boy, maybe we can git you one of Fred Mason’s brown and white puppies, unless you decide you want another sister.” Joe teased.

” No, no.  I want a puppy.” Little Joe insisted.

Joe brought Anya a plate of gravy and biscuits and a glass of milk.  “Now you eat all of this. You got to feed that baby.”

“I ain’t never et this much.  You must think Rose Anya is a baby pig.”  Emma and Rufus chuckled at the happy couple.

They lingered long over coffee while the children played and Anya nursed the baby. While Emma tidied up, Rufus asked if Joe had a part he needed for his windmill.  Once they were out of earshot, Rufus passed some news on to Joe.  “You remember my boy, Melvin, come up on that peddler somebody knocked in the head.  The sheriff come by late yesterday asking some questions.  A feller come to Talco saying his brother was supposed to meet him in Amarillo and never showed up.  A couple of fellers told him they’d seen had seen him with a blonde woman west of Talco.  The sheriff was asking me if I knowed of a blonde woman that showed up around here lately.  I told him I didn’t know of none that was unaccounted for.  He asked about Anya an’ I told him you wrote off for her and picked her and the kids at the train station and married her before you left town that night.  The preacher told him that was the way it happened.  He said he might want to come talk to y’all, anyhow.  I told him Emma was over helpin’ Anya birth her baby right then and he said he’d wait a few days before stopping by.  I just thought you ought to know.”

Joe felt a chill.  “I ‘preciate you letting me know.  It happened just like you said.  I don’t want him bothering Anya, none.  That there preacher can vouch I picked her and the kids up at the train and married her before I brung her home.  I still got the letter I wrote asking her to come.  It ought not to be no problem.”