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{handwritten} AL-64
Ila B. Frine Mobile County, Ala.
{handwritten} Subject matter to mixed - Might be worked (over)
Raymond Barbour, Fisherman (White) Faith Road, Bayou La Barte, Ala.
IT RUINS OYSTERS TO WASH THEM
The wind was blowing, {handwritten} and {handwritten} the day was damp and dreary as Raymond Barbour sat crouched on his knees against a post that supported the roof of his oyster and crab-meat shop.
Seated in front of him on narrow, low, home-made benches, his wife Cora, and two younger women were opening oysters with sharp pointed knives. One of the women was the daughter of Cora and Raymond Barbour, and the other was the wife of their son, who stood in the door of the shop watching them as they worked.
As my companion stopped her car in front of the shop, they called {crossed out } joyously {crossed out} {handwritten} cheerily {handwritten}
"Look who's here! Now, what do you want?" and "I know something's up." When my companion told them that she had come to see them and to get some of their fine oysters and crabs, Uncle Ramey laughed and said: "Hurry, Cora. If you don't, there won't be a single oyster left when she's gone. I knowed this squally weather warn't blowin' up nothin' good."
"Never mind, you can't make me feel bad. I'm coming in anyhow, and I've brought this lady with me. She wants you to tell her how you and your family gather and sell your oysters and crabs."
Uncle Ramey said: "Well, I'll be dae{handwritten e crossed out and m handwritten}ened! Now what's next?" "Well," she said, "I brought her to you because I thought you knew more about fishing and the oyster business than anybody around here, and you ought to consider that a compliment."
At this, the entire group seemed pleased, and Uncle Ramey said: "Well, I guess you're right. I sure know all there is to it, for I've been at it all my life. My Pa ahead of me was a fisherman. He
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lived at Dauphine Island, and that was where I was born, January seventeenth, seventy years ago. Now, you can figger when that was.
When I remarked that it was in 1869, he said: "That's right and by gum! Today's my birthday, it's the seventeenth and you're come to celebrate it. Guess it's a good thing, fer I ain't done much celebratin' so fer. I got up at three o'clock this mornin' and went out and caught these two barrels of oysters."
As we walked under the shed porch of the shop, he said gaily, "Well, it looks like you mean to come in, so here, take this bench and give the lady that thar one," pointing to the one nearest the wall.
There were several crude benches, and all bore scars at one end, where oysters had been opened.
"Aunt" Cora was opening oysters without gloves, but the two younger women each wore a cloth glove on her left hand, in which she held the oyster, while using the right hand to open it. All inserted sharp-pointed knives in the end of the oyster shell, lifting the upper part.
None of the women stopped work, but all talked at once. They were dressed alike in none too clean wash dresses, and dark sweaters. "Aunt" Cora's hair and that of her daughter was straight and untidy, but the daughter-in-law looked as though she had recently had a "permanent" and a finger wave. She was a smaller woman than the others, and had a more sophisticated air.
The two-room shop is built of tin. In one room is a small laundry stove and a gasoline drum is connected for heating water. The other room is enclosed with screen wire, and in it is a large home-made ice box, in which the oysters and crab meat are kept.
As my companion and I were seated, a fourth woman came from this room, and stood in the door where the son had been when we first
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stopped. The conversation grew more lively, and he walked out from under the shed porch and stood.
In a few moments three boys, ranging from four to sixteen years of age, came from the side of the shop, stood and stared at us. Then the oldest boy began to yell:
"I want my football, I told you."
The mother turned and said:
"Shet your mouth, Joe. Don't you know your ball ain't here? It's at home."
With that he yelled louder and started to run, as his mother called, "If you don't shet your mouth, I'll knock your head off! I told you it ain't here." Then turning to her husband, calling him Jules, she said:
"Won't you git his football so he'll go on back to school?"
With that Jules left for his house nearby and things qui(e)ted (margin: "/e") down for a few minutes, but not for long; suddenly the daughter-in-law standing in the door of the shop screamed:
"Look out, Sylvester, you'll cut Dump's toes off with that ax."
Then the mother of Sylvester arose and started towards him loudly threatening a whipping if he didn't let the ax alone. The boy dropped it and ran into the house, where he stayed until Jules came back with the football.
All this time "Aunt" Cora was opening oysters and offering them to my companion and me.
Uncle Remey jokingly said: "Now, Cora, didn't I tell you she'd eat all them oysters?" My companion replied:
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"Don't think you're going to make me stop. I'm not only going to eat your oysters, but I'm coming back some day and ask Aunt Cora to make some of that good gumbo for us."
This delighted Aunt Cora, who said:
"You jest let me know what day you can come, and I'll surely make it for you."
"Seriously, Uncle Ramey, do tell us something about your life and work."
"Well, Cora and I was childhood sweethearts down on Dauphin Island, where we were born.
Aunt Cora said: "Yes, we were childhood sweethearts, but I had to keep my eye on him just like I do today. He's like all the other men; likes to look at the pretty girls."
Bat beneath their banter a devotion to each other was plain to see, and then Cora said:
"Yes, we've seen some pretty hard times together, as well as we've seen some pretty good times. Ramey and I have had to work hard all our lives, and even now we are still working together. When he gets up at three o'clock in the morning, I get up too, and go along with him. It's not very often he goes without me.
"Now last summer, for instance, it looked like we got caught in every squall that come up, fer it rained every day, pretty near it. Sometimes we'd have to pull the boat ashore when the wind would git so bad. Just a lots of times we'd git soaking wet, and when we'd come in, the children would say, 'My God! Ain't you all in a mess!'
"But you know we have to live and we've got to do something. 'Course you think it's terrible because I'm sixty-four and Ramey is seventy,
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but pshaw! that ain't nothing. People can make themselves old worrying. Plenty of people what ain't half as old as we are can't do nothin' and looks heap older than we do."
At this, Uncle Ramey said, "Yes, that's true. You take me, I ain't had but one spell of sickness and have never been drunk but twice in my life. I wouldn't got drunk then if it hadn't been for Cora's brothers. I've taken care of myself when I wasn't working, and stayed at home with Cora and the children. 'Course, I used to smoke, hut I only chew now. Been chewing tobacco all of my life.
"The first thing that my Grandma did after I was born, was shove a pipe in my mouth. You take little Joe here, he chews and smokes. Cora, his grandma, shoved a pipe in his mouth when he was a baby.
When I asked how old little Joe was, Uncle Ramey replied, "Sixteen years old." Then he continued, "Tobacco, it won't hurt him. I expect to live to be a hundred years old; chewing tobacco might've helped me some, I dunno. Let me tell you I could a-drunk a heap of whiskey in my time for when I was a young boy, about nine years old, whiskey sold fer two bits a quart. To tell you the truth, I seen so many drunk people, it kept me from drinking. "Then, winking at me he said: "Look out there, Cora! Quit givin' her them oysters, for she'll sure be sick eat in' so many." Then turning from my friend to me he said: "Don't pay no attention to my foolishness with Miss Elizabeth, I've knowed her fer a long time. There's another thing before I fergit it. I ain't never been arrested or even summoned to court, nor been on the jury in my life. I've just worked hard. I've done every kind of work there is on the calendar; rafted logs and hauled them, split rails, burned charcoal and hauled it, fished and shrimped as well as ketch oysters. Lordy! I can't tell you
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