The Path Was Steep

by Suzanne Pickett

  “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.”

  When I met him in the back yard, he stalked past me. Sometimes he aimed and spat tobacco juice near my feet. His wife, a tall, thin woman, peered suspiciously at me, but sniffed and turned her head if I spoke. I felt like a criminal and tiptoed about my work fearfully. We were uncomfortable, distressingly uncomfortable.

  Mrs. Peraldo and Mrs. Hunt, another darling friend, walked from Welch and surprised me one day. I was never the best housekeeper, and this was one of my worst days. The men off to work, the girls had to be fed and dressed, and there was the inconvenience of our one entrance at the back. No chance to keep even one front room in decent order and ready for company. Besides, we had bought only the necessary furniture: beds, a few tables and chairs, a dresser, a coal stove for cooking. Exhausted after handling water and scrubbing black clothes for the men, I’d lain down to take a nap with the girls before taking time to clean up. I really loved these friends. They were cultured and interesting, and I specially loved Mrs. Peraldo. She had been so very good to me. But my embarrassment over the condition of the house may have made my welcome seem a little strained.

  Cynthia didn’t seem to notice my housekeeping (or lack of it). And she spent much time with me. She and Bill, David and I had long talks. They had read my rhymes in the paper, and hearing that I didn’t have a typewriter, they gave me my first one: a deluxe, portable Underwood that Bill had used for only three weeks in school. It was, incidentally, the best typewriter I ever owned. I used it for nineteen years, then gave it to our little grandson. They really made typewriters in those days.

  Mac went to an occasional movie and wrote letters home. In lieu of board, he’d sometimes buy something special to eat. On the afternoon of March 31, he came in with steaks, canned tomatoes, and a box of cayenne pepper.

  I buttered the steaks, broiled them, and poured the tomatoes over them. Taking some out for the children, I dusted the rest heavily with hot pepper. Twenty minutes of baking, and we had a gourmet dish. But there were some tomatoes and plenty of hot pepper left over, and I did not wish to let them go to waste.

  I have, unfortunately, always had a rather warped sense of humor. My Irish blood from Granny Mosley and Great-Granny Canada, who was a Garrett before her marriage, left me this heritage, no doubt. Papa’s sober English ancestry from Grandpa Mosley usually restrains me, but at times . . . perhaps the wind is damp and smells of peat, or perhaps my own personal leprechaun demands special attention; whatever it is, I sometimes do very silly things which are quite funny to me at the time. Possibly they are not so humorous to the recipients.

  David would not have brought home cayenne pepper the day before April Fool’s Day. But Mac was happily ignorant.

  A favorite food for the girls was tomato gravy. When this was served, they wouldn’t eat anything else. I made a big bowl full of gravy for breakfast, flavored most of it with tomatoes, but the other part I doctored with pepper until it was tomato red. Filling the girls’ plates with the genuine article, I put that bowl in the warmer and set the pepper gravy on the table.

  David and Mac helped themselves to bacon and eggs. “Good gravy,” Davene said, red dripping from her chin.

  “Tomato gravy, my favorite!” Mac said and ladled gravy over three biscuits. Then he took a bite, chewed, and swallowed.

  When I dared to look, his face was as red as his gravy, but courageously, he swallowed another mouthful. “Have some, Dave,” he shoved the bowl at David. “Best gravy I ever tasted.” Then his courage faltered; he turned aside and blew like a whale.

  “Don’t like it,” David said.

  “You never tasted gravy like this!” Mac ate hastily, swallowed coffee, and blew again.

  “I want some more,” Davene handed her plate.

  “No, no. This is cold,” I dissuaded her.

  “Cold!” Mac bellowed, swiped another bite, swallowed, and blew again. “W-e-e-e-w!” he said in agony.

  David, used to the children’s chatter, didn’t notice.

  As the last of the gravy burned its way down his gullet, Mac ran to the sink and tried to drown himself.

  “You should have known not to bring in hot pepper the day before April Fool’s,” I choked.

  “Sue!” David looked at last. “What have you done?”

  Fearfully, I explained. “But I didn’t think he’d eat it.”

  “I’d have eaten every bite if it burned my tongue out by the roots,” Mac said, beginning to laugh. “And it really was good gravy. If it hadn’t been so hot, that would have been the best gravy I ever tasted.”

  I took the bowl from the warmer and ladled second helpings for Sharon and Davene. Mac helped himself to real tomato gravy and seasoned it quite heavily with the other.

  I’m sure the pepper gravy wasn’t responsible, but a few days later he came in happily reading a letter.

  “The wife wants me to come home,” he said.

  “Work better now?” David’s face brightened.

  “Three or four days a month.”

  “You can’t live on that,” David warned.

  “Neena has paid our debts with the money I’ve sent. I’ll have a few dollars left when I get home, and it’s gardening time” (as if we didn’t know). “Plenty of poke salat, wild onions, and a river full of fish.” His eyes moistened, “Dave, I’ll never forget what you and Sue have done for me.”

  I was smiling as I waved goodbye, but my eyes were wet.

  “Want to go back?” David asked.

  I put my head on his shoulder. “You know that I do. But we can’t. We’ve no furniture, no job, no anything.”

  “I shouldn’t have left,” David said.

  Silently, I agreed with him. We’d have managed somehow; with chickens and a garden, I’d have canned every extra vegetable, picked blackberries—I could just see springtime at home. The dogwoods would have finished their blooming, but thousands of wild flowers would color the hillsides. David handed me his handkerchief.

  9

  Thunderbolt

  How our roomers lived, we never knew. Bootlegging, we guessed. They ate regularly. We could hear her washing dishes. Certainly the man had plenty of lung power. He thundered his remarks about “furriners.”

  We grew very tired of the situation. I really longed to go home. There seemed no hope in the world. Yet there was one who promised hope. The Roosevelt thunder began to fill every corner of the land. But November was long, hungry months ahead. March actually: if Roosevelt was elected, he could not take office until March 4th.

  Our house situation grew steadily worse. One day the tobacco juice hit my foot. My temper flared, and I spoke a few biting words.
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br />   “Tell your man to settle fer you,” our guest said and, insolently, spat at me again.

  I knew exactly what David would do if I told him. Knew also that his fists, no matter how expert, were not sufficient weapons against a shotgun held by a wild mountaineer. But how much longer I could put up with the man’s churlishness, I didn’t know. I seemed to have reached bottom, but no tobacco juice on my foot could make me bring David into this.

  He came in a few minutes later, wearing his reckless smile, “Well,” he said, gleefully. “We are moving again.”

  “Where?”

  “To Marytown.”

  “You mean the company will let us move? Why not go back to Welch?” Hopefully.

  “We can’t. Marytown is eight miles away. Pocahontas Company owns the houses. They must be occupied, or they will lose their insurance. The company is offering them rent-free to employees.”

  Our roomer took this minute to stalk towards us, his shotgun at the ready. I smiled my biggest smile.

  He stood a moment, as if disappointed, then stalked to the front.

  I touched David’s cheek. His face now seemed a little tired. He worked such long hours, and Marytown was eight miles away from the Hemphill mine. This was too much! Too much! I’d tell him to stay here. Then I saw our roomer once more, coming around the corner of the house. He chewed savagely at a new (no doubt) chew of tobacco.

  I grasped David’s arm and hurried him into the house before speaking. “Eight miles is a long way to walk,” I said to David.

  “I’ll buy a car,” he grinned.

  “What will you use for a down payment?” I asked. But I knew David. If he’d made up his mind to buy a car, a little thing like no money for a down payment wouldn’t bother him.