03709_0079: Bony Winchester

AL-75

R. V. Waldrep.

Bony Winchester RFD Red Bay, Alabama

BONY WINCHESTER

Bony Winchester was sleeping when he received a call. His brother and brother-in-law, Mason, were sitting out on the front porch, talking the hours away. Old Lady Winchester rolled out on the porch from the kitchen, and rolled back into the kitchen every little while---she was so fat she had to roll.

"Bony! Bony!" the old lady said loudly into the bed room through the door of the hall. The hall ran from the middle of the porch and made the leg of a T down the middle of the house; there were two rooms on each side of the hall, and an attic. Steps led from the hall to the attic.

A couple of dogs fetched themselves down to the gate to bark and leap in the air, and the visitors came throught the gate, and walked up the weedy path for about ten feet, since the yard wasn't bigger than ten-by-twenty. They went up the steps, and the old lady scurried around, getting chairs from inside the house.

Bony came out of the house scratching his head, and carrying his shoes.

"Bony was resting," said the fat, barrel of a woman. She stood about five feet high and about three feet across. Her head was enormous with a

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peculiar dignity and matronliness to it. The hair was a sort of browngray, and combed toward the top of her head. She was bare-footed. When Bony had taken his seat, and was slipping his shoes on his bare, dirty feet, she went hack into the kitchen. Once or twice the visitors caught a glimpse of her making a few swipes with the hroom, standing in the bed-room door. Once she told Bony what somehody had said; for Bony is hard of hearing.

Bony could have heen a handsome man, and may have heen. His hair once was black and curly. Now his hair is in ringlets the size of twobit coins. It grows thickly on his head, this hair does. It comes down to his ear, and his sideburns, almost white, curl. His profile is good, straight, and shows the traces of handsomeness. With good clothes, a clean shave, a good hair cut, and clean clothes he'd look younger than his 69 years.

When Bony shook hands, it was like taking a cloven hoof. He was so sleepy, it was hard to get him to talk, and everybody knows he is a hard talker.

But Bony's brother didn't have any trouble in talking. He was a year younger, but looked older. He was minus teeth, and the Winchester profile was destroyed by a severe dip just below the nose.

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Bony's brother was a religious fanatic, as it could easily be seen, from the first word he said. He began to talk about religious things, making statements about heaven. He was a smiling chap, anyway; and everybody was polite enough to stop and let him talk; for everybody believed in religion even if they didn't obey and sometimes said damn.

The dogs took a couch on the floor, leaning their backs to a couple of short-logs of fire wood. The flies settled down everybody's arms, legs, and face, and tried their best to get on everybody's lips.

"Heaven must be a fine place. The Bible says that everyday will be a new and better day," said the fanatic. "The Bible says there will be harpmusic in heaven," he said mysteriously and fervently: "music on golden harps. Now, I never heard any music on golden harps, but I bet it is a mighty sweet sound."

"Might be like the clinking of golden coins," said a visitor, but no one paid any attention to that.

"I know heaven will be a wonderful place."

"He seems to be a religious person?" asked a visitor over by Bony. "Is he a preacher?"

"No, but he is a might good man. He's my brother. I never knowed

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him to do a mean thing in my life, and I never heard him speak a slighting word of anybody. He don't know nothing, but the Bible and hard work. He don't go to town. Swearing ain't in him a-tall, I knowed him tuh say one swear word about twenty years ago. He was getting off of a wagon, and fell off on his face, and he got up and said 'I'll be damned!'"

"He's never been away from here?"

"Nah, he don't go no where."

"How long have you been on this home place?" The house, the visitor noticed was fairly new. He estimated the house was about 20 years old. There was moss on the roof.

"I've been here 6o years. I was up there on the hill." Across the road, where Bony pointed, was a hill, a bare hill, which looked as if it once had a house on it. "I was burned out there. Me and Mason there, we built this house."

"You've never left here?"

"I went out to Texas and stayed four years when I was pretty young, but the rest of the time I've been here." He wouldn't talk about his western trip. And he turned the talk to politics, and told how he thought the farmers needed some sort of help. "Shore I believe they ought to have

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some kind of help, hut not the kind they're getting. It costs 75¢ to give them 25¢."

He said: "We've got to change this renter-system of farming. When the tenant gets three-fourths and the land ovmer gets one-fourth it don't work. A land owner can't get along. I used to have five tenants hut I don't have but one now, and I'm figuring on stopping that. A land-owner can't keep a house fixed up, and buy everything a tenant wants him to, pay the taxes, and all on no one-fourth of the cotton."

He sighed: "I'm plumb ruined. This is the worst year I've had since 1900. That was a wet-un, just like this, maybe not near as bad. 'Way back yonder I got 38 bales of cotton. Last year I got sixteen bales, and I'll do good to get four bales next year. That ain't nothing."

"Do you think people are meaner now than they used to be?"

"There ain't no douht about it. I guess it is because there are more people now. And when you educate a person he feels like he oughter have something, and he just takes it."

"Then you helieve that education makes people worse than what they naturally are?"

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