the brick stores till I was clear of them, but when I saw the i: 10 leave the depot, headed towards us on its way to Lula, I whistled to T.R. and got off the tracks on the South Main side. Seeing me, the engineer put an arm big as a leg of mutton out the window and waved.
Since the store was across the tracks on North Main, we were hidden behind the moving boxcars, and I decided to keep on walking. The train was so long that before all of it passed us we were beyond the stores, the Confederate monument, the livery stable, the tanyard, the cotton gin, and Sleep's Ice and Coal, and nearly to Mill Town.
The factory soon came in view and, just beyond it, the river that powered the machines. On a railroad siding off the main tracks, men in linty overalls were loading big pasteboard boxes full of cotton thread onto a freight car. At a huge square opening in the factory wall, other men were taking bales of cotton off of a wagon. I recognized old Charlie Rowley up there on the driver's bench of the wagon. Old Charlie and his mule were both string-halted, each having a tight ligament in the leg that made him limp. But that didn't keep them from hauling for Grandpa's big warehouse—delivering to the mill or depot when farmers who stored their cotton with us finally sold it.
Charlie saw me and waved, and I waved back. Too late, I realized if he saw Papa later he might chance to mention seeing me on the train tracks going through Mill Town.
Hurrying by the factory, I came to where the mill hands lived in close-together little shotgun houses—three rooms in a row, like long boxes, with public wells and privies that served two or three houses each.
Cold Sassy was proud of its cotton mill, just as it was proud of the trains coming through. "Get you a railroad" and "Get you a cotton mill" was what big businessmen in Atlanta advised any town that wanted to grow. Having both, we were bound to grow, but Grandpa said he didn't see how the population could change any. "Ever time a baby's born, some boy joins the Navy." Still, Cold Sassy was considered up-and-coming. And like I said, already folks were talking about changing its name to something less countrified, the way Jugtown had been renamed Winder, and Garden Valley was now Pendergrass, and just four years ago Harmony Grove became Commerce—all of which, to my mind and Grandpa's, were awful improvements.
Our mill houses were a long sight better than in lots of places, but they looked more like repeating blobs of white than homes. There weren't any trees. No shrubbery. Families sat crowded on the hot little porches, cotton lint from twelve hours in the mill still clinging to their hair and overalls and dresses. I guessed they were night workers who hadn't gone to bed yet. Who could go to bed in those little houses on a hot day in July?
I kept glancing at the blank, stony, pinched faces of the men and women staring at me from steps and doorways, and at the children, all white-headed just like you see them in the Appalachians. They stared at me with sullen, mean eyes, like I was a strange animal. But whenever I looked right at them, their gaze dropped to the ground.
Mill Town was watching the Town Boy pass.
Nervous, I hurried my steps on the crossties. And T.R., who'd been running ahead like a brown and white flash, now walked stiff-legged close beside me, growling at any bony mangy dog that slunk too near. I went from hoping I'd see Lightfoot to hoping I wouldn't. It was one thing to like her at school and nobody know it. Here in Mill Town on my crosstie stage, folks would suspicion her if they saw me acting friendly. Also, I knew I'd be embarrassed if she was sweaty and lintheaded from the factory or if, Lord forbid, I saw her coming out of a privy.
I decided it was a lot harder to walk through Mill Town than to have our school cluttered up with snot-nosed children who had cooties and the itch, and who at dinnertime stayed at school to eat biscuits and syrup, making us town
Since the store was across the tracks on North Main, we were hidden behind the moving boxcars, and I decided to keep on walking. The train was so long that before all of it passed us we were beyond the stores, the Confederate monument, the livery stable, the tanyard, the cotton gin, and Sleep's Ice and Coal, and nearly to Mill Town.
The factory soon came in view and, just beyond it, the river that powered the machines. On a railroad siding off the main tracks, men in linty overalls were loading big pasteboard boxes full of cotton thread onto a freight car. At a huge square opening in the factory wall, other men were taking bales of cotton off of a wagon. I recognized old Charlie Rowley up there on the driver's bench of the wagon. Old Charlie and his mule were both string-halted, each having a tight ligament in the leg that made him limp. But that didn't keep them from hauling for Grandpa's big warehouse—delivering to the mill or depot when farmers who stored their cotton with us finally sold it.
Charlie saw me and waved, and I waved back. Too late, I realized if he saw Papa later he might chance to mention seeing me on the train tracks going through Mill Town.
Hurrying by the factory, I came to where the mill hands lived in close-together little shotgun houses—three rooms in a row, like long boxes, with public wells and privies that served two or three houses each.
Cold Sassy was proud of its cotton mill, just as it was proud of the trains coming through. "Get you a railroad" and "Get you a cotton mill" was what big businessmen in Atlanta advised any town that wanted to grow. Having both, we were bound to grow, but Grandpa said he didn't see how the population could change any. "Ever time a baby's born, some boy joins the Navy." Still, Cold Sassy was considered up-and-coming. And like I said, already folks were talking about changing its name to something less countrified, the way Jugtown had been renamed Winder, and Garden Valley was now Pendergrass, and just four years ago Harmony Grove became Commerce—all of which, to my mind and Grandpa's, were awful improvements.
Our mill houses were a long sight better than in lots of places, but they looked more like repeating blobs of white than homes. There weren't any trees. No shrubbery. Families sat crowded on the hot little porches, cotton lint from twelve hours in the mill still clinging to their hair and overalls and dresses. I guessed they were night workers who hadn't gone to bed yet. Who could go to bed in those little houses on a hot day in July?
I kept glancing at the blank, stony, pinched faces of the men and women staring at me from steps and doorways, and at the children, all white-headed just like you see them in the Appalachians. They stared at me with sullen, mean eyes, like I was a strange animal. But whenever I looked right at them, their gaze dropped to the ground.
Mill Town was watching the Town Boy pass.
Nervous, I hurried my steps on the crossties. And T.R., who'd been running ahead like a brown and white flash, now walked stiff-legged close beside me, growling at any bony mangy dog that slunk too near. I went from hoping I'd see Lightfoot to hoping I wouldn't. It was one thing to like her at school and nobody know it. Here in Mill Town on my crosstie stage, folks would suspicion her if they saw me acting friendly. Also, I knew I'd be embarrassed if she was sweaty and lintheaded from the factory or if, Lord forbid, I saw her coming out of a privy.
I decided it was a lot harder to walk through Mill Town than to have our school cluttered up with snot-nosed children who had cooties and the itch, and who at dinnertime stayed at school to eat biscuits and syrup, making us town
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