They moved to the Merrimack Mill Village in
Huntsville. Clip would be free to marry Beatrice (she was acquitted of the
murder charge) and raise a new family with her. Raymond would help Mittie to
establish a new home and life for their family far away from the ruins of their
former life in Athens.
2 Raymond and Luke went to work in the mill, and
Mittie sold dresses and quilts which she made for her neighbors and folks in
the larger community who could afford them. She, along with the younger
children, also went into the cotton fields which surrounded the city and worked
for extra money to help put food on the table.
3 The work was hard, and the pay was meager, but it
did help them to survive. They were chopping cotton earlier in the season and
picking cotton at the end of the summer.
4 Mittie and the older children were paid about
seventy-five cents for picking one hundred pounds of cotton. If they worked
hard, they could pick about two hundred pounds a day. The younger children made
about thirty-five cents a day, but every little bit helped to supplement their
income and ensure their survival.
5 One day, as the family was gathered together working
in one of the many cotton fields surrounding Huntsville, Mittie stopped and
wiped the sweat from her forehead. Buck and Leslie (Herman’s oldest son) looked
up from the row they were working on and noticed her lift her dress just a
little and urinate onto the ground where she was standing.
6 When she had finished, she noticed the two boys
sniggering. “You shouldn’t laugh at nature,” she scolded. Then they all resumed
working.
7 As they gathered their tools to turn in to the
foreman at the end of the day and prepared to go home, Buck and Leslie ran up
to Mittie. “Mama,” Buck began. “Can Leslie spend the night with us?” “I think
that’d be alright,” she said.
8 That evening, as they were getting ready for bed,
Buck turned to his mother. “Mama, why do girls have flat tallywackers?” he
asked. Mittie turned red and reached out and smacked Buck across the face.
9 “You boys shouldn’t be talking or even thinking
about such things!” she declared. “Now get in that bed and go to sleep before I
tan your hides.”
10 Buck, however, couldn’t stop thinking about those
things. “Why does Leslie have a mama and a daddy?” he thought. “Where’s my
daddy?” “Why do I only have a mama?”
11 “I wish I had a daddy to ask these kinds of
questions,” he thought and let out a long sigh. “You OK?” Leslie whispered.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Buck lied.
12 School, of course, was secondary to putting food on
the table. The children’s attendance was sporadic and often interrupted by
work, privation or both.
13 The Miller’s plight, however, had not escaped the
notice of everyone in the community. In fact, the principal of the school which
the children sometimes attended was aware of their circumstances.
14 It bothered Mr. Crim for bright young children to
have to miss school to help feed their families. Times were hard for everyone,
but he would do what he could to help.
15 Although Mittie was a talented seamstress and made
many beautiful dresses for her daughters to wear to school, there simply wasn’t
enough money to buy shoes for them. Many times, they had to go to school
barefooted.
16 One year, when the weather had turned cold, Mr.
Crim purchased a pair of shoes for Doodle and brought them to the house. They
were too small, but she wore them anyway without complaint. If he cared enough
to do that, she could put up with a little discomfort each day.
17 Doodle also had to share books with her friend,
Margaret Gibson. Neither family had the money to purchase all of the books
necessary for school that year. Margaret had a literature book, but Doodle
didn’t. Likewise, Doodle had a geography book which she shared with Margaret.
18 One day, Doodle whispered across the room that she
needed to borrow Margaret’s literature book. “Well, if I couldn’t afford to buy
my own books, I wouldn’t come to school!” Margaret declared in front of the
entire class. Doodle was shocked and hurt, but her embarrassment overcame them
both.
19 She got up out of her seat and dashed across the
room to Margaret’s desk and proceeded to knock her out of her seat with her own
literature book. “Stop that!” screamed the teacher, but it was too late. The
girls were tied up in a fight and rolling around the floor.
20 By the time Mr. Crim reached them, both girls had
bloody noses. The principal listened patiently to their stories, and then gave
them both a sound paddling and sent them back to class.
21 Even so, as Christmas approached that year, Mr.
Crim knew that the Miller family was in desperate straits. In fact, Mittie had
already told the children that there wouldn’t be any Christmas that year. The
conscientious principal, however, had other ideas.
22 He and his wife went to the store and purchased
something for each member of the family. For Mittie, they bought a beautiful
blue and white dress. There was a dress shirt a piece for Raymond, Luke and
Dick. For Pearl and Doodle, they purchased a toy washing machine, a baby doll,
a cradle and a small tea set. For Bowser and Buck, they purchased toy trucks
with flashing lights and the batteries to power them. For Sis, they bought a
pretty little baby doll that cried when it was laid down.
23 Then, late on Christmas Eve, the couple wrapped and
labeled each present and piled everything into a large cardboard box and placed
a big red bow on top of it. They didn’t identify themselves. The attached card
simply read: “MERRY CHRISTMAS TO THE MILLER FAMILY.”
24 On Christmas morning, there were tears of happiness
in that little household in Merrimack. The younger children were all sure that
Santa Claus had visited them in the night, but the older boys suspected that
Mr. and Mrs. Crim had had a hand in the matter. Even so, that Christmas proved
to be one of best celebrations that anyone ever had during the period that
would come to be called by later generations The Great Depression.
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