| Summary: | (6:36) Ms. Sharp tells about gathering corn in Waterloo, Alabama when she was a child.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Artie Sharp
September 20, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Rhonda Haygood and Patti Hannah
(Also present are: Lee Freeman and Mrs. Sharp’s son, Jack Sharp)
Clip 5
Artie Sharp: Anyway, we lived on the Thompson Hill and like I said, Daddy’s working at the sawmill. Well, I’m thirteen, let’s see, fourteen, Polly, my little sister five years younger than me Daddy’d say, “Now, I’m going to work today and you girls go down in the river bottom,” down in to where the lake is now, you familiar with Waterloo, where the lake is now that was big, rich river bottom land before the TVA, you know, put in that reservoir. And so, whenever they’d gather corn, Big Jim Haynes at Waterloo owned that river bottom land and there was people lived in that and farmed it too, and he’d leave—when you gathering corn back in them days, there was no tractors just mules and wagons and this man that owned that, Big Jim Haynes he’s sorry for poor people and he knew us. What you do when you’re gathering corn back then, it’s of course different now, you’d ride a row. You’d run over one row, straddle it, in other words and the wagon would break that down and it would fall on the ground. Okay, and there’s two rows on each side and there’d be one man behind gathering the corn off the down row they called it and then on each side, there’d be a man on each side picking off of both rows and throwing in the wagon, big ol’ high sideboards. And Big Jim would tell them, “Don’t get all that corn on the down row. You leave some of that for the poor people.” Well, whenever they would gather the corn and Daddy knew all this and he’d tell me, “You go down that river bottom, you and Polly today and you pick up that corn on that down row.” They, they’d get some of it. They wouldn’t get it all, but it’d be ears that long. And said, “You gather that corn and you shell it. Don’t bring the cob and the shuck out. You can’t get none out worth it. You can’t carry out enough.” Well, in the winter time and cold, and it’d, it’d come in the winter, now we’re talking about, we picked it up right after they’d gather it in October. And Daddy’d say, “Go one day and you get enough of corn and shell it and bring out enough to make our bread.” I’d have to take it to the gristmill. All day I’d pick up corn. Polly’d cry; she was a whiner. And she’d cry and she’d set there and I’d pick up the corn and bring it up and want her to help me shell it, but she’d shell a little bit and she’d get to crying and she was hungry. And there was no food; we didn’t have no food to take with us. And so I’d shell as much as I could bring out. Mama’d get me a big ol’ meal sack; that’s like a fertilize sack—you girls probably don’t know nothing about that—but, anyway, it’s a big ol’ thick white sack and I’d shell what I could get in there and I’d twist put half of it in one end of the sack, I’d tie it up good and half in the other one. And I’d twist that sack and throw it across my shoulder. And she didn’t carry nothing. And I’d say, “Let’s go. It’s almost sundown. It’s gonna take us to almost sundown.” I’ve got to go up to McMichael’s gristmill on up another way, not going towards home, and get that corn ground and he took a toll out of it. I don’t know how much and then he give us what was left and me to carry home and we had to walk three miles to get home after that. And we’d be so tired. And I’d take through the woods. I knew routes through the woods. Go up to Ella Bevis’ cabin. I was shunning the highway. I was ashamed to walk up the road. I was getting to the point I was ashamed for people to know I had to work so hard. And would take that meal home and then Daddy’d say, “Now the next day get up early and you got to go back down in the river bottom and you got to gather some now ‘cause I talked to a black man, Ike Rivers he’s gonna kill hogs and you take what you can get, all you can carry to Ike Rivers and he’s gonna trade you meat for the corn.” Well, and we needed meat. We needed anything we could get to eat. Okay, then I went one day and went and got so much all day till I knew what time, when the sun was shining I could tell what time to quit. Daddy taught me how to tell time when we lived in the woods he’d say, “You stand and face,” whatever East or West, “and put your foot out and when you set your foot on your head it’s twelve o’clock. But, now if it’s so far to the right that’s in the afternoon and if it’s so far to the left that’s in the morning and that way you can tell what time to come home.” We didn’t have no clock. We didn’t even have one at home. And we’d want to know the time, we was in the field working we’d get out there and stick our foot out, stand with your back to the sun and stick your foot out and if your foot set on your head it was twelve o’clock. Well anyway, we went and picked up corn, shelled it and took it to Ike Rivers. That was downtown Waterloo. I got up there and I just tickled to death to get some meat. Oh, we just needed meat so bad. And Mama’s gonna make soup. She’s all carried away over the bones, you know. And she said, “We’ll—if you don’t have meat, that’s fine, just let us have some meat bones. We’ll make soup with it.” Okay, went up there and he give me a bag with some bones in it. Well, I went home and I was just tickled to death all the way home, you know, Mama’d be glad and I’d be glad and Mama’d make us a kettle of soup. Got up there and Mama poured them out in a big pan. White bones, he had trimmed off every bit of the meat. It was them shoulder bones. What do you call them, Jack? Sits on the shoulder.
Jack Sharp: Yeah, I know what you’re—.
AS: Flat bones.
JS: Yeah.
AS: He’d cleaned them off; it wasn’t nothing but bones. They’re nothing but white bones. And Mama got to crying; Mama started crying. And she took them out there and dumped them out to the dogs. Well, I didn’t get no more corn for him. I didn’t want even to hear his name. And Mama cried about that and it hurt me to see Mama cry, you know, because we worked hard all day and didn’t get nothing.
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