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children would file out to the work place.
There they stayed, plowing and hoeing until midday, when they
were treated to a modest dinner of soup beans, buttermilk, and
perhaps a helping of rhubarb or cobbler pie. Afternoons, the children
returned to the fields, working until an entire patch was weeded.
Once a week, they added clothes washing to their chores, which
meant that work was seldom finished before nightfall.
The final meal of the day consisted of the remainder of the beans, a
few fresh vegetables, milk, bread, and butter. After supper, the young
Waldrops entertained themselves until bedtime: "We played just as
long as we could play. Lotta times just get out there and turn
tumblesets in the grass—just tumble over and over."
A mixed crop of oats, wheat, and rye planted the previous fall
matured in June and, in short order, was ready for the cutting,
thrashing, and separating operations. This was usually accomplished
with help from the surrounding farmers: "We'd get the neighbors to
come in and help cut the wheat and help tie it, you know, cradle it
wim one of them old wheat cradles. The thing about that wheat was to
get it shocked up before it rained on it. And we'd get help there, and
Mama'd always cook for mem a mid-evening meal, you know, and
take it out for them."
At thrashing, the farmers would once again work in rotating
fashion: "That was a big gathering time. And whichever one was
going to have his wheat thrashed next, he was sure to be there. And
men the next neighbor, he was gonna be there to see when they was
gonna thrash his wheat. They helped one another out, you know, and
Papa'd go and help them. It was all work."
Finally, as winter approached, the family busied itself with the corn
harvest and fodder pulling: "We pulled fodder back then. We didn't
have much hay to cut; we had a few patches that was pretty good
grass, and, best I know, my daddy cut it widi a mowing blade. He
would cut the tops off of his corn from the ear up and shock that, and
then we'd come along and pull what blades was left from mere down.
And then we'd let the corn dry out until long about the last of
October, first of November. And then we'd gather the corn and put it
under the shed."
Not every year, but occasionally, the Waldrops sponsored a corn
shucking. Family members piled the corn ears under a shed next to
the crib and awaited their guests who were expected to stay through
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