AT THE STRIPPING-HOUSE
"It is easy to tell the toiler
How best he can carry his pack:
But no one can rate a burden's weight
Until it has been on his back."
It was the last of January and every snow-laden twig in the little
thicket that fringed the brook back of the Castle barn that stood across
the road in front of the James dwelling, shimmered like an oriental
woman's tiara in the brilliant sunshine that suggested a not far distant
thaw. The thaw was not today however; the icy air nipped the fingers and
sent a trail of vapor after little Dock Doggett, carrying sticks of
tobacco from the south end of the barn to the stripping-house twenty
yards away.
But the stripping-house stove was a dull red, and the atmosphere of the
room was eminently satisfactory to the strippers standing by the high
platform that ran the length of the house under the eight window sashes
ranged in a long single row. Four of Mr. Doggett's sons,--Jim, the
second married son, Jappy, Joe and Dock, who lived at home, and Bunch
Trisler, a short, trim, and amiable little man of thirty worked at the
stripping, while Gran'dad Doggett sat, an interested spectator, on a box
beside the stove.
"I declare," Trisler remarked wearily, about two o'clock in the
afternoon, "my feet is plumb blistered a standin' so long!"
"He wants a stool,--a cushion' stool like one them store counter stools,
Pap," grinned Dock facetiously.
"We are sorry not to be able to accommodate you, Bunch," averred Mr.
Doggett, smiling, and his long hand dexterously lifted some leaves
Trisler had wrongly graded to their proper places on the platform along
the opposite side of the room where the stripped and tied "hands" were
placed: "but we jest possible couldn't. Thar hain't no room ner place
fer seats in a strippin'-house. Though ef you'd pay a leetle more
'tention to your fengers, so's not to git a green leaf in ever hand,
maybe hit'd draw your 'tention offen your feet. A man can't hardly study
about two thengs at the same time right handy, and we don't want people
a sayin' 'Bunch, he don't _strip_, he jest takes the terbaccer offen the
stalks!'"
"How you thenk terbaccer prices'll be this time, Mr. Doggett?" queried
he of the sore feet after the laugh that went around had ended in a
titter from Dock.
"Better'n they're been, I am in hopes," answered Mr. Doggett: "Mr.
Castle, he says sometimes, 'Less hold our terbaccer a while, Doggett,'
but hit looks like I'm jest bound to sell ever'time as soon as I git
done strippin', bein' in debt. A feller has to buy his flour and
groceries, and clothes, and most his meat on the credit, and ef I don't
pay up my store debt onct a year, the store-keeper, he can't credit me.
He has to live, too. And then, after ever'theng's counted in, I don't
have nary dollar left ahead. Hit's 'howdy money,--good-bye money,' with
me, when I sell my terbaccer, Bunch. The old lady blames me fer stickin'
to hit, but I don't know nothin' else but terbaccer. Been at hit so
long, I wouldn't know how to quit croppin'."
"Prices don't come in a hundred miles o' the hard work that hit takes to
raise terbaccer," observed Bunch: "them buyers--"
"Them buyin' companies does mighty curis and onreasonable," interrupted
Mr. Doggett. "Fer a long time now, they've been a sendin' out a agent er
two to each County, er givin' one man all the ground, say on one side
the pike, fer his territory, and orders not to go on t'other man's
ground. Ef your barn happens to be on the t'other side from him, hit's
the hardest matter in the world to git him to come anigh hit. A many a
time, Mr. Castle, he's had to go out on the pike, and bag, and persuade
a buyer to come and jest _look_ at the terbaccer. Sometimes he wouldn't
come neither, and a body'd jest have to buy hogsheads, and prize and
ship hit, and then maybe, after he'd went to the extry expense o' paying
fer prizin' and shippin' and ware-house charges after he got hit
shipped, he would git less'n somebody else got right here at home.
"And some them buyers don't keer what they say to a body neither. Last
spreng wuz a year, when that thar man, Garred, wuz goin' 'round, he
acted as independent as a couple o' hounds settin' by a dead hoss, yes,
sir!
"He called Mr. Castle and Mr. Evans a pair o' softheads because they
wuzn't willin' to sell at _his_ price at first askin', and when he come
through the barn thar, he 'lowed the crop looked mighty pore to him. I
says, 'Hain't thar somethin' the matter with your eyes, Mr. Garred? My
terbaccer looks mighty _good_ to men that raises hit: they say I
ginerally always beat 'em all in growin'!'
"He never sampled none hardly, neither,--jest pertended to know what I
had without hardly lookin' at hit, and when he put his hand on my
_bright_ terbaccer, my _ceegar_ terbaccer, and I had some o' the
purtiest a body ever seed, he 'lowed hit wuz house-burnt! Said he smelt
the smoke whar we'd had fires in the barn a dryin' out the damp (and, ef
you remember, Bunch, we never had no rain the fall before). And he jest
offered me six cents fer my bright, and five cents fer the rest, tips,
flyin's, trash, and all, him to do the gradin'. You know, Bunch, that a
way I wouldn't 'a' had no bright to speak of!
"I says 'I've got some mighty fine terbaccer, Mr. Garred, and five cents
is a mighty pore price, considerin'. Can't you do a leetle better fer
me?' Then he ast me ef I thought he wuz born yistiddy, er the day afore,
er wuz out a buyin' terbaccer fer his health, and jest ripped out the
cuss words. 'Anytheng over six cents fer your terbaccer'd be an
adstortionate price to pay,' he says: 'hit hain't worth no more, and I'd
see hell froze over before I'd pay you another cent!'
"Then he 'lowed ef I didn't let him have hit, what wuz I goin' to do
with hit? Wuz I goin' to feed hit to my hogs, er make hit into pies fer
myse'f to eat?
"Yes, sir, that's jest the way he talked, and t'other buyer, Bishop, a
buyin' the year before, wuz might' night' as insultin'.
"When he wuz over at Archie Evans' terbaccer barn, he tuck out his gold
watch with jewels a stickin' up like rats' eyes in the back of hit, and
told the old Dutchman a croppin' with Mr. Evans, he'd give him jest
three minutes to come to his price. The old Dutchman says: 'Me and your
price can't agree dat queeck!' Bishop got mad and told him to go to
hell, but old Christenson, he don't git mad at nobody--he jest spoke up
and says: 'Dat is de first time I have efer been invited to your fader's
house, sir, but eef you vill come along vid me, ve vill go dere
togedder!'
"Yes, sir, them buyers acts mighty quair. At them ware-houses they mix
the good crops they buy all through them that hain't as good. One year I
hauled the best crop I ever raised to a ware-house whar the old lady's
brother wuz a workin'. He said ever' time one the men'd come to a
pertic'lar extry good, bright hand, he'd say, 'Here's a hand o' Eph
Doggett's terbaccer!'
"Yes, sir, and what you reckon I got fer that crop?"
"I have no idy!" averred Bunch.
"They jest give me seven cents fer hit, leavin' out two thousand pounds
they didn't give but five fer--and one pound wuz jest as good as
t'other. My brother-in-law said the reason the buyer done that, wuz he
wuz a _evenin'_ up, a makin' up offen me, fer bigger prices he give on
some other crops!"
"Thenk you'll sell your terbaccer loose, and haul hit to a ware-house,
this time, er prize hit, and ship?" asked Bunch presently.
"I dunno, Bunch." Mr. Doggett pulled his beard reflectively: "I dunno
hardly what to do. A feller's bound to go with his terbaccer whenever
the buyer sends word fer him to haul hit, and, no matter what sort o'
weather hit is, he's got to load his waggins--his and them he's
hired--and go. Ef he's got _fur_ to go, say thirty-five miles to a
ware-house, like me, two o'clock in the mornin'll ketch him a startin',
and I tell you, Bunch, ef the weather's dry, the terbaccer loses weight
ever' mile! Ef hit's windy, the wind jest whoops and tears the leaves,
and sucks the weight out scandalous: and ef a snow comes on, a body's
mules balls up, and they legs twists around 'tel thar's plumb danger o'
hockin' 'em.
"And when you git to the ware-house long about night, the buyer jest as
apt as not, he won't weigh hit sometimes 'tel the next mornin', and by
then, hit won't be no heavier layin' loose on the waggins dryin' out.
Then a feller's got to pay fer stablin' and feed o' the teams, and hotel
bills fer him and his men, yes, sir!
"And shippin' a body's terbaccer is about as onsatisfactory as sellin'
hit at the barn and haulin' hit to a ware-house: yes, sir, Bunch, a body
has to sell the best way they can, and has to take what they can git,
fer all their hard work! Although hit's plain to be seed, somethin's
wrong when a body has to sell to one man and then bag him to buy,--as I
wuz a sayin'--I'm a livin' in hopes us terbaccer fellers'll sometime git
prices that'll give us somethin' more'n a bare livin'."
"What about the Equity Society that feller was a speakin' on here last
summer, a helpin' prices?" observed Bunch.
"The Equity?" repeated Mr. Doggett. "Mr. Archie Evans--he's one o' them
Equity men. He kept that Equity speaker a week when he wuz in the
neighborhood a speakin'. Bedded him in one them gold-papered rooms, and
fed his hoss oats three times a day. He said, ef a cause wuz good and
jest, he wuz the man to holp in the h'istin' uv hit! I asked Mr. Evans
what the Equity wuz, and he said hit wuz a society with the objict to
git profitable prices fer thengs raised on the farm, garden and orchid.
He says he j'ined hit mainly because he saw hit had got so sober fellers
that put in ever' lick o' time they possible could a workin', couldn't
make enough to keep their famblys in anything that wuz any kin to
comfort. Yes, sir!
"Mr. Evans, he says hit's the theng fer us terbaccer man to jine
hit,--ever' livin' soul of us, tenants and landowners, and jest hold our
terbaccer as hit says, ontel we git feefteen cents: quit a raisin' hit
one year, and we'd come out on top.
"Them manufacturers used to give us somethin' like a livin' price, afore
they all j'ined together in one buyin' comp'ny and put the price down
jest as low as they wanted to, and they'd have to give us a livin' price
agin, yes, sir, to git us to raise hit.
"Mr. Evans, he says, hit hain't no use to try to git the Gover'ment to
holp us out, by a takin' the rev'nue offen the terbaccer so we could
stem hit and twist hit and sell hit that away to anybody, jest as we
pleased. He says ever' time the terbaccer raisers has tried to git a law
takin' the tax off, them beeg manufacterer fellers has sot down on hit
so hard, hit jest died ez quick ez me er you would, ef a elephant wuz to
mistake us fer a cheer and set down on us! Yes, sir!
"He says we've jest got to lay to them manufacterers by a holdin' our
terbaccer, and cuttin' out the raisin' o' hit: says them fellers of us
that's not a j'inin' the Equity, is jest a stavin' off the good day fer
all of us. Mr. Sam Nolan and Mr. Dick Leslie over here, they say thar
hain't no good in the Equity, but Mr. Evans, he says the reason they
talk that a way is: the buyin' Comp'ny, thenkin' 'em beeg fellers, and
influency, give 'em prices away up yonder on their terbaccer, so's
they'd talk agin the Equity! Yes, sir!
"The comp'ny could easy do that, Bunch, and not feel hit. Jest thenk o'
a gittin' a dollar and a half a pound fer terbaccer! Hain't that what
_Black Jack_ sells at, Joey?
"And all them fellers does to the terbaccer is jest to sweeten hit a
leetle, and put a leetle liquish in hit, and maybe a leetle opium, so as
to set the cravin' fer more on a feller that uses hit!
"And talkin' about hard work, us fellers up here in the Blue Grass
ortn't to complain nigh as much as we do about havin' to be in the
terbaccer from one year's end to t'other, and jest gittin' a gnat's
livin' outen hit! Now down yonder in the Green River country, the Dark
Terbaccer country, whar they don't raise _nothin'_ but terbaccer (no
leetle corn patches to fall back on fer stock feed and bread, like we've
got) hit's wuss off with them fellers than with us. Hit's work all the
time reg'lar, and in the cuttin' and housin' time, hit's work day and
night too, come Sunday, come Monday! Fer they're jest bound to save hit,
hit bein' their whole livin'!
"I've worked in the terbaccer from daylight to dark and hit rainin' hard
all day, wormin' and a suckerin', and expect to ag'in: I've worked on
Sunday considerable--planted on Sunday in a settin' season, and cut in a
press,--skeer o' frost er somethin', on Sundays, and _some nights_, but
my cousin, Columbus Skeens, down thar, he says Sunday is week day to
him, and the moon is the sun, all August and September nigh about.
"And Columbus' women folks, they have to git out in the fields
considerable, too.
"And yit Bunch, on account o' the dark terbaccer not brengin' as much as
our'n, they're wuss off than we are. One feller can't raise more'n four
acres o' terbaccer, ginerally, and he has to halve hit with the
land-owner, so ef he raises a thousand pounds to the acre, and gits
seven cents, he don't git but a hunderd and forty dollers fer his year's
work in terbaccer. Yes, sir!
"And 'tain't been so long sence the buyers, when they all j'ined
together in one buyin' Comp'ny, pinched them fellers down thar in the
Black Patch down to _three_ cents, when their sellin' time come.
Somethin's wrong, Bunch.
"Hit's jest as bad, I've heerd in some the Counties up naixt the Ohio
River, too. Columbus, he keeps a sayin' ef thengs don't git no better,
somethin's a goin' to happen down thar!"
"Thar's already been thengs a happenin'," remarked Gran'dad, taking a
sudden interest in the conversation, "that is, in some parts o' the
State. I wuz a readin' yisterday about people a bein' turned back home
with waggin loads o' terbaccer the buyin' Comp'ny'd sneaked around and
bought,--terbaccer that was pooled in the Equity, and they had no right
to sell. And more than that, some barns o' pooled terbaccer, the buyin'
Company has persuaded some pore fellers with more emptiness in their
stomicks than brains in their heads, to sell to hit, has been burned
down, by what the papers calls 'night riders.'"
"A heap a body sees in the papers hain't so, though," put in Mr.
Doggett. "That's the failin' o' human critters--they believe most
anything they see in print!"
For an instant the silence in the stripping house was unbroken, except
for the soft swish of the tobacco leaves.
Then Gran'dad, who was evidently not pleased with his son's comment on
the failings of a newspaper reader, spoke again.
"How does hit happen, Ephriam, that Castle and Brock always git the
highest market price on the Louisville breaks, when they ship theirn and
yourn? Brock and Castle both says Brock's terbaccer sold yourn last
spreng."
The red in Mr. Doggett's face deepened as Gran'dad flung out this taunt.
Mr. Brock, at one time, before a spirit of moving, and losing, took
possession of him, had been a land-owner: he furnished his own teams
altogether in making his crop, and, contrary to usual custom, required
no advancement of money before the sale. In addition, he was not
troubled with humility.
For these reasons, probably, he was held in greater respect than Mr.
Doggett, by their landlord. Then, too, Mr. Doggett was a good servant,
and perhaps Mr. Castle felt that it was not the part of wisdom to allow
an idea of his worth to get into his head, lest with this idea, an
aspiration to seek another master might also come. At any rate, his
long-continued and undue praise of Brock's tobacco, and unjust
disparagement of Doggett's, had set a thorn of dislike in the heart of
the latter gentleman toward his former son-in-law.
"I've seed a heap worse terbaccer," Mr. Doggett informed his hearers,
when, after a moment of silence, his cheeks had paled to their normal
color; "but Mr. Brock's terbaccer wuz mighty sorry last year,--the
meanest crop he ever raised. We had a beeg frost in the spreng before he
raised that crop and hit ketched Brock. Reub, he went away that Sunday
mornin' to stay 'tel next day, and he told his pap afore he started, ef
hit got any colder afore night, to be _shore_ to kiver the beds over
with hempherds er straw er somethin'. Mr. Brock, he's mighty se'f
deceited, nobody can't tell him nothin'; he 'lowed the frost wuzn't
comin', but old Jack showed him, yes, sir. And he had to put in his crop
with mixed-up late plants, all the kind them that didn't know hit all,
wuz able to spare him.
"And then he put too much Paris green on his terbaccer, which some men
will do, ef they hain't no more in love with work than Mr. Brock;
besides he hauled some o' his'n in, in sech a rush, and drug and beat
hit about ontel hit looked like hit had been lapped around a tree, and
part of his wuz shore house-burnt. Them September rains done fer him,
yes, sir. But mine wuz ever' stalk Stand-up Burley, and nigh about as
good as ever I raised, ef I do say hit myse'f.
"The reason he got sech a price wuz the way he packed his hogsheads. You
know the inspector, he takes a jobber, and fishes out one hand down
about the middle o' the hogshead, and thar's whar Brock packs his
brightest terbaccer; although he denies hit, yes, sir.
"Mr. Lindsay, he holped Brock strip last year, and pack, too. Mr.
Lindsay, he's got a good sleight at strippin' terbaccer: I've never seed
him put a leaf out o' place, even when I've been a carryin' fourteen
grades. He jest can't be beat in a strippin'-house. I'd back him ag'in
anybody you might breng, I don't keer who: but, as I wuz a sayin', Mr.
Lindsay, he told me, that's the way Brock packed his hogsheads.
"And Mr. Brock, he nestes his too, when he sells hit loose. He nested
hit one year,--put all the bad in the middle o' his seven piles o'
bulked down--and Mr. Castle sold hit to a buyer, and agreed to let the
buyer prize hit in hogsheads at the barn, yes, sir. And afore the man
come, Brock had to rebulk the whole theng to keep from bein' ketcht up
with, yes, sir. I don't never nest none."
"Tain't no penitentiary refence, Pap, to sorter put your best wher'
hit'll be saw first," remarked Jim Doggett, a tall man of twenty-eight.
"Ephriam bein' possessed frum experience of information o' what hit
takes to constitute a penitentiary offence," gibed Gran'dad.
"Sorter throwin' off on you, ain't he, Mr. Doggett?" Bunch palliated.
"Yes, sir, Bunch," admitted Mr. Doggett pleasantly: "yes, sir, 'taint no
use denyin' hit, I've shore been to the pen."
"Somethin' that happened a right smart while back when you'd had a dram
too much?" suggested Trisler, who was eager for the tale, in a tone of
apology.
"Yes, sir, Bunch, you've hit the nail on the head. Hit wuz when I lived
in Bourbon, sixteen years ago, come two weeks afore Christmas."
"I'd love to hear you tell hit," Bunch invited.
"Hit's too late this evenin'": Mr. Doggett was mindful of the afternoon
slowness of Bunch's hands, when his ears were actively employed: "less
git done the terbaccer we got out, and come extry early in the mornin',
and I'll tell you how 'twuz."