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P^L-3¥ December 22, 1938 David Smith (white) 226 Osceola Street Jacksonville Florida (Share-cropper, elevator operator in pulp mill)
Lillian Steadman, writer Stetson Kennedy, revise
ROBERT SMITH
The Smiths live in a small four-room cottage that is typical of the houses inhabited by industrial workers in the area surrounding the Jacksonville railway shop yards. I wade through the loose ankle-deep grey sand, and wait at the front door for an invitation to enter. A straggly, mange-eaten little dog is tied to the banister, and wags his tail vigorously.
Bobbie, about nine years old, answers my rap on the door. He is ragged, dirty, cheerful. "Come in and have a seat," he says. "I'll call mama."' —Mama! Somebody to see you. A lady."
I sit in the only seat available, a broken and soiled davenport. The floor is rough and bare, but shows evidence of frequent and recent scrubbing. A sewing machine, old bureau, and a tin hot-blast heater comprise the furnishings of the room.
His mother, apparently quite shy, enters slowly. She is neatly dressed in a blue uniform. I tall her that I understand she and her family have recently come from the strawberry—growing section of the State, and that I would like to have her tell me something of her life, as I believe it would be interesting.
"Yes," she said. "We lived in Warchuller (Wauchula) Florida sharecroppin a farm about 12 years. We couldn't make a livin cause the strawberries ony lasts a short time and we didn't have enough land to make anything a-tall. We ony had a three-acre farm. My old man woulda liked a bigger farm, about 14 acres--maybe we coulda made sumpum
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then. Smitty--Smitty's my old man-- he thought maybe if we come to Jacksonville we could make a livin. We thought maybe he could git him a steady job here.
"You know we got five children to feed and it's kinda hard to git along on so little. My two oldest helps us out a lot; my boy Jim is 19 and he come up here to try and git a job too but couldn't so he's went back to Warchuller. He said he knowed he could pick strawberries in noth— in else. My oldest girl Amelia--she's in there in the kitchen, she helps me a lot--is 17 and in the ninth grade at school. She's the ony one of my children that likes school. The others don't care a thing a-tall about gittin a education it looks like, but Amelia she will go even if she don't have nothin to wear.
"Smitty has gone out to the pulp paper mill to see if he can git on out there. The city councilman of this ward has been a-speakin for him; he seams to think a right smart of Smitty. I sure do hope he gits on out there so we won't have to go back to strawberry pickin. It sure is a shame strawberries grow so low to the ground. It's mighty hard on me cause I can't stoop over so low like the others do—I have to crawl along on my hands and knees.
"We didn't live continuous on the strawberry farm. Two or three times durin the season we went to Hamilton County, Georgia, and worked a tobacco farm. There's good money in that, but it don't last very long and it's awful hard work. Me, Smitty, Jim, and Amelia all worked. They paid us by the day; we each made a dollar and a half a day.
"I like the tobacco farmin better than the berry I believe, but I sure don't like suckrin the plants. --Suckerin is pullin off the little vines that grow up on the tobacco plants. You have to reach down and pull
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up the vines by the roots. Suckerin is terrible--reglar nigger-man work."
A beautifully blonde, but tousled and dirty little girl entered the room. She placed her head in her mother's lap and began coughing and sniffling. Her cheeks were flushed with fever.
"Betty's got the croup," her mother said. "Bill used to have it too-all the time worse than this--but I just kept on givin him kerosene till I finally cured him. He is well and hearty now, and can play out. You know kids don't never keep their coats on, but it don't hurt Bill no more a bit in the world. --Betty, you run tell Bill to come in here. You talk about a youngun hatin to go to school, well, Bill hates to go worsen all the rest of em."
She arose and went to the kitchen, after asking to be excused to supervise the meal which Amelia was preparing. She continued to talk to me from the kitchen.
"We don't never eat till Smitty comes in. We try to keep it hot for him. Looks like he orta be comin in purty soon now. The dinner is about ready, too. Amelia always helps me keep house and cook--I guess she's kinda bashful to meet strangers, she won't come out to set with you. I guess you can smell this bacon and sweet-potatoes. We cook biscuits too all the time; Smitty won't eat that store-boughten bread. He says it's not good for you."
She re-enters the room. holding her twelve year old son Bill by the hand. Bill does seem to be in robust health. "Bill, you're the dirtiest boy I ever seen. Looks like you would wash your face and hands sometime without me a-havin to always tell you to. I wanted the lady to see what
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a big fine boy you are and you are so dirty and nasty that I'm ashamed of you. --He's been a-helpin me put out the wash today. I always git him to keep the fire to the pot when I wash so maybe that's why he's so black and dirty now."
Bill doesn't seem to share his mother's embarassment. "Would you like to see my dog?" he asks. "I found him this mornin and I've tied him up so he can't git away. I don't know who he belongs to but I'm gonna keep him myself."
He goes to the porch to bring in the dog.
"Mama! Here comes daddy!" he shouts.
She and the children gather about him.
"Did you git the job daddy? Did you git the job daddy?"
"Yes," he smiles, "daddy got a job and he has to go right back to work." He is shorter than his wife, and wears horn-rimmed glasses.
His wife explains that I wants "some information about our life so as I could write a story about it."
"I always did want to write a story of my life just for my own satisfaction," he says. "But you can git most all of it from my wife this time as I am a-goin to have to go purty soon to my new job out at the pulp paper mill. I thought I wasn't goin to make it--I had to stand the doctor's examination and he was fixin to not pass me on account of my eyes. He wouldn't have passed me ifen my friend the city councilman, Mr. Sweet hadn't phoned him and that made everything all right. It sure is mighty good to have a friend like that to stick up for you!
"When I got out to the mill I met a man who was a-fussin about quittin and drawin his pay and sich like. He said, 'Come with me and
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I'll ask em to let you have my job if you want it. They always say they are goin to raise you but they never do. I been here a month and I started on 30 cents a hour and I'm still gittin 30 cents a hour." I went inside the office and a man said, 'Say Buddy, is your name Smith?'
"I told him sure, and he told me 'You go on in the other office and I'll make arrangements for the doctor to examine you. Councilman Sweet called up about you.'
"I went on in the other office. Never did see the feller what wanted to give me his job anymore--seems like some people don't know when to be satisfied. I was afraid the doctor was not a-goin to pass me, my eyes is so bad. But I told him I could do anything so long as the work is not too close. He passed me and I got a ratin too--the ratin gives me 35 cents instead of 30 cents a hour. I'm goin to run the elevator. I guess Sweet callin em up got me the job and ratin all right.
"I'm mighty glad to git this job. I sure don't want to go back to croppin berries. That's what I'd a had to do ifen I hadn't got this job-- unless I got on the WPA. I never yet got nothin from the WPA and I hope it won't never be so as I have to. You can't never tell when them WPA jobs is goin to give out, neither.
"I'm a good farmer and do right well with the land I crop, but it's mighty hard to make even a livin to git along on when you're workin for the other feller. He just won't give you enough to live on and you have to do all the work, too, and then not have enough to get along on. It's mighty hard on a feller with a family to look out for. If it was just a man and his wife it would be different, but with kids it's pretty bad and the older kids gits the harder they are on you.
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