The Path Was Steep (8 page)

The girls slept with me nights when David worked. With our many visitors, they had to sleep on pallets on the floor, made by shoving chair cushions together.

To amuse myself, I had begun to write the daily news in rhyme and read it to the girls. Junior and Henry often came up to listen. Mr. Peraldo once listened at the top of the stairs. “Could I talk to you?” He appeared suddenly at the door. “How long does it take you to write those?”

“Oh, ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Could you do them every day?”

“Easily.”

“Mind if I keep those you have?”

The next afternoon Mrs. Peraldo called me. “Zhorze,” she said, then smiled. “I mean—George tell me you should see his friend, Mr. Kaiser, the newspaper man, tomorrow.”

“I showed him your rhymes,” Mr. Peraldo stood behind her. “He thinks he can use them as a special feature in the paper.”

Brash and ignorant, I went to the office of the Welch
Daily News
the next morning, too ignorant to realize that no unknown, especially with no experience as a writer, who has taken no courses and has only a high school education, lands a job as front page, feature writer for a daily newspaper.

I didn’t even know what to say. I think I muttered once, “It has been said that I have a brain; if so, I want to use it.”

Mr. Kaiser was very kind. I learned that he also had daily papers in North and South Carolina. “I like the rhymes very much,” he said. “I’d love to have them, but I am ashamed to offer you what I can pay. I’m the only man in Welch who has not laid off any employees, but if you’d like to do the feature—”

As easy as that. A newspaper job, and featured on the front page beside Will Rogers. Pay? One dollar and fifty cents a week. And the heady excitement of recognition. A girl at the ten-cent store was as excited as if I were a personage when she cashed my pay check. “I keep a scrapbook of your poems,” she said breathlessly.

The superintendent of education owned a shoe store. When I presented my weekly check, he looked, shook hands with me, and called his wife from the back to introduce us. “We are so proud to have someone like you in Welch,” he said.

The local high school, when studying poets, included my rhymes in their study.

Talent there must have been, a small amount, but it was wasted on such a stupid person as I. With such beginner’s luck, I might have been a successful, widely-known writer in a few years. But my big talent was supposed to be painting and drawing, next music, then singing, and even acting, so writing was just an accidental hobby. It was years before the urge to write became so strong that I was compelled to try my hand once more.

Then I had heady fame in Welch. We lived in a nice apartment and had good clothes when millions were jobless across America. I knew how fortunate we were, yet I was practically dying of homesickness. The big problem was getting back home to Piper.

In the meantime, I did the best that I could with my rhymes and tried to be a good wife and mother. David—bless him!—never complained because I didn’t have any talent for housekeeping.

The girls loved story hour, and nightly I read to them, or told stories of Washington, Lee, St. Valentine, etc. Sharon and Davene were deeply interested in hearing about the one who was “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” I showed them Washington’s birthday, February 22, on the calendar, and both girls marked the date.

On February 23, a visitor arrived from Piper: McClaine Jones, David’s former wall boss*.

“Do you know who this is?” I asked Sharon, thinking she might remember Mac.

“I know,” Davene said.

“Who is it, darling?”

“George Washington,” she said triumphantly.

Mac—an experienced fire boss, wall boss, and machine man—landed a job, and the sofa was occupied again on weekends. David and Mac both worked night shift. David caught every extra shift he could, and he and his buddy worked long hours, cutting coal. Each place they cut added to their income.

Times grew steadily worse. Men were laid off. Work dropped to two and three days weekly. My check helped with the grocery bill and bought a few toys for the girls. We didn’t charge Mac for board; his family at home was in desperate need of far too many things.

8

We Never Knew Our Cruelty

One morning David and Mac panted up the hill and came in exhausted, as usual. An extra ring of white was around David’s lips. “Well,” he announced grimly, “we are moving.” He put his lunch bucket on the table and went to brush his teeth.

“That Dave.” Mac sat in one of the leather chairs. “Made of steel. Just sails up that hill.” His face was tired, his fingers clumsy as he rolled a cigarette.

Davene climbed the chair and perched on his knee. Sharon lay on her stomach behind the sofa and looked at shoes in a Sears Roebuck catalogue.

“He’s too tired to hold you,” I reached for Davene. My knees felt weak. Fear tied a knot in my chest. Papa would take us in again, but what about David? There was no work anywhere, especially at home. Mentally, I counted the money in my purse. With David’s pay—thank goodness they held back two weeks—there might be enough for current bills and bus fare home.

“Were you laid off, too?” I spared a moment to pity Mac.

“Laid off?” He licked his cigarette, struck a match, then let the flame burn as he stared at me.

“What gave you that idea?” David came in and kissed me, his breath smelling of toothpaste. “Nobody’s laid off,” he said. “We’re just moving to Hemphill.”

Relief fought with anger as I began to argue. We didn’t have any furniture; I’d have to quit my job . . .

David frowned as he rolled a cigarette. “The company has a new rule. All employees have to live at Hemphill.”

I went to the bedroom and began to comb my hair in anger. This was the living end! Desolate, black Hemphill. Small houses perched on stilts that leaned precariously against a rocky hillside. “No baths,” I said as David followed me. “No hot water. Those houses don’t have anything!”

“Piper houses don’t, either.”

“But that is home!”

“I’d do better if I could.” For a minute his jauntiness was gone, and he wore the typical lost, Depression look.

“Oh, David!” I resented the Depression bitterly. Resented Mac in the next room. We didn’t have any privacy, yet I didn’t want him to leave; someone else would show up, and you couldn’t turn hopeless men out to starve. “Maybe, soon—” I kissed him and smiled. The Roosevelt rumble was growing stronger. This was March 1932. In November—we hoped.

“What about your work?” Mrs. Peraldo asked, helping me pack. “Mr. Kaiser likes your verses.”

Oh, I would miss the work! Printer’s ink had smudged my fingers. Hard to recover from that disease. When I reached the office each morning, some of the news had been typed for me. Other news I’d gather, listening in on the leased wire in Mr. Kaiser’s office. Most of the important people dropped by sooner or later. Mr. Kaiser would introduce them to me. One of the most famous men in Welch was Lawyer Cartwright, a black man. He was extremely brilliant and quite wealthy.

I’d heard of him. Heard the tale of when he was traveling with a friend, by train into Virginia. At the state line, Mr. Cartwright was separated from his white friend and told to go to the cars at the back of the train.

The friend protested, “But you don’t know who this man is!”

“Whoever he is,” the conductor is reported to have said, “he is just a damn black nigger in Virginia.” Oh, we have paid for such as this! We have paid in full. I write this with a sort of horror. Were we ever really like that in the South? Oh, yes, we were, and never knew how cruel this was.

It has been many years since I heard that story, but I think I bled a little. At least, I hope that I bled.

Though born and reared in Alabama, I knew far less prejudice than the average person. Papa and Mama were almost totally without it. They loved everyone too much to hate because of color.

But living when and where we did, a certain way of life was absorbed by all. There was an old but true saying, “The North loves the black race and hates the individual. The South hates the race but loves the individual.”

We had always lived near blacks. I played with the small children of Mary, who came to wash for us, and I loved them. There was always laughter and friendliness, but there was a definite, accepted line between black and white over which no one crossed.

I had never heard a white person address a black as “Mr.,” “Miss,” or “Mrs.” It was always “Sam” or “Mary.” But a black must always use a title when addressing a white person, even the children. It would have been a dangerous thing to leave this off.

We were not intentionally cruel. Some, the lower class who could not earn respect from their own color, were belligerent and cruelly demanding of respect from blacks. But the better class of whites had only contempt for such people, and the blacks had a saying, “I’d rather be a nigger than poor white trash.”

Most of us just lived in and perpetuated the way of life to which we had been born. Our fathers or grandfathers had fought in the war, had been slave owners, and we had a warm, paternal feeling for blacks.

We loved them with our guilt. We loved them achingly, tenderly, pityingly. A black man could always come to his “white folks” for food, clothes, or any other need, and he knew he would get it. “My white folks will take care of me,” many boasted.

And this was true. For in our hearts, we had not really freed them. We were possessive and lovingly paternal. (I hurt now as I tell this, but it was true then.) They were children, we thought, unable to govern themselves. We accepted their failings, what we judged their lower moral standards. We accepted them (as children), loved them, cared for them when needed, but—they had a certain, definite “place,” and we were determined that they keep that place. How could we have been so blind? So cruel, yet unconscious of this cruelty?

Not once in my life had I met a “Negro” as a social equal.

One day in his office, Mr. Kaiser rose when a well-dressed black man entered, and shook his hand. As was his custom, he turned to me. “Mrs. Pickett,” he began; then his face changed. The realization that I was from Alabama must have struck him. He faltered; then he turned, offered a chair to his visitor, and they began to talk.

All of my background held me silent, cold. Today I would smile, offer my hand, and say, “How do you do? I am so glad to meet you.” But then I sat miserably at my desk, aware of what had almost happened, aware perhaps that both Mr. Kaiser and his friend were uncomfortable, and all I could do was scribble away at my rhymes as news came in over the leased wire. I am sorry and ashamed now. But that was all I could do then. I knew that the visitor was the renowned Lawyer Cartwright.

Other than this episode, all of my work had been pure joy. I loved to watch the Linotype as it set hot lead. I loved being part of the paper and being treated as a very special part.

“I hate to lose the feature,” Mr. Kaiser said when I told him that I must quit. “Perhaps you could do a review of the news and mail it to me.”

But I couldn’t do it. The spontaneity was gone.

Yet in Hemphill things were not so bad as expected, at least on first appearance. David had rented a large house on a level swatch of ground, with flowers and shrubbery. The house had a wide front porch (although I was never able to use it) and six big rooms. No bath, of course, but at least it wasn’t perched on a hillside, shuddering in the wind that came down from the mountains.

Our neighbors, Bill and Cynthia Sperry, were made to order for us. Young, friendly, they lived next door in a big brick house. Bill’s people owned the land at Hemphill, including mineral rights, and the brick home. He had a monthly income from coal which the Pocahontas company mined. Not enough for trips to Europe—other relatives shared in this income—but there was sufficient for food and clothes.

I could always sort of hypnotize babies, and their baby Gwendolyn, age six months, fell asleep the first time I rocked her. In no time, the Sperrys were our best friends.

Our friendship suffered precariously one night about midnight. We sat in our bedroom playing set-back. The babies were asleep long ago. All was silence. No cars passed; no dogs barked. There was one of those heavy silences which sometimes creep into a place. We played silently, raking in the cards we had won.

“Won’t I kill you, Cynthy?” David asked all at once.

“Yeth, you will,” I answered promptly.

Cynthia turned white. Bill jumped to his feet, ready to do battle. David and I glanced at them in surprise; then I whooped with laughter. “Cynthia thinks we are going to murder her,” I gasped. David was laughing, too. Seeing it was some kind of joke, though it must have seemed a strange one to them, they gave us time to explain. David had a relative, quite a character. Now that man bossed his wife, who happened to be named Cynthia. She was literally afraid of him, with just cause. She was also slightly tongue-tied.

He’d come home roaring drunk and shout, “Won’t I kill you, Cynthy!” And she’d scuttle out of harm’s way as she answered, “Yeth, you will.”

This was a standing joke with us. David shouted the words at me, and automatically I gave the answer.

The next afternoon Cynthia came in laughing. “I am so mad at David I could kill him!”

“Why?”

“Every time Bill comes in, he shouts, ‘Won’t I kill you, Cynthy?’ And like a fool I say, ‘Yeth, you will’ before I think.”

Cynthia used the kitchen door, for as large as the house was, there was one slight handicap. The former tenants refused to move although they were far behind with their rent. They had crowded into the nicest, largest rooms at the front and barred the door to us. Our only access was through our kitchen.

“They told me the house would be empty,” David apologized. “The sheriff will put them out if I ask.”

“We couldn’t do that. Where would they go?”

So we accepted the small back rooms and shared the one windswept toilet with the strangers, our guests. Grimly, they squatted in the front rooms of the house on which we paid the $17.50 a month rent. “Furriners come in here,” I heard the man say through thin walls, and was sure that I heard the chambering of a shell in a shotgun, “take our jobs and take our homes.”