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worth of 'clacker' money for every dollar's worth of time he put in. 'Clacker'
is made out of copper, and it came in five, ten, twenty-five and fifty cent,
and dollar sizes. The worker could use it just like real money at the company
commissary, but it was no good anywhere else.
"Well, when a fellow wants cash money to spend in town, he'll do about any-
thing to get it. That's why the miners would get 'clacker' from the company,
giving up twenty cents on every dollar, and sell it to me in exchange for cash.
I would always pay my grocery bills with the 'clacker', and together with my dis-
count, this made my food come pretty cheap.
"What do I think about campany stores? Well, they've got better during the
years, just like the system of paying workers has got better. But they were
mighty bad up to a few years ago. A man that didn't trade at the commissary was
fired just as soon as the boss found out about it. If he bought anything away
from the company store, he'd better not tell it. If he sent a mail order away
for something the commissary handled --- and they handled about everything ---
he had to slip around to get his package when it came; he never could tell when
a tattler was watching him. You see, the companies always managed to have a few
men around who got a big kick out of reporting anything to cause trouble.
"But it ain't for me to be knocking the commissaries. I'm telling about
my own self. When I started at the Gamble Mine it was owned by the Tennessee
Company, but later it was taken over by the Pratt Mines. When that happened I
was raised to $85 a month, and I began right then to save a little money.
"I never did give up my idea that when a man does the very best he can, he
will be treated all right. I think that was proved to me, because when the mine
was abandoned in 1930, I was making $125 a month. You can see that I had lots
to be happy about, but I don't guess we can be happy all the time. My luck had

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