House of Earth by Woody Guthrie

hard side, and lived on the dirty side, and the rotten sideof things; but you’ve not. You’ve not ever been any lower down than to be the daughter of a big man that owns lots of land and lots of farms, and you’ve always lived in a big stone twelve-room house, and had at least a few of the good things in this old world. You’re used to them. Your mind and your plans and your thoughts and your hopes, everything about you has always been, well, sort of, sort of way up the ladder above me. I remember how I wanted to be a big man like your dad all my life, and how I itched and craved and burned inside me to be a big owner, or a big man, a big manager, a foreman, a boss of some kind, some kind or another over a big stretch of land just as far in every direction as my eyes could see. But I never was anything, nothing more than just the old hardworking son of, well, a family of folks that lost their land to your very father, that was several years ago.”
    â€œAnd? What about right now? Listen! Mister Tike Hamlin!” She turned around and stamped her feet down against the floor and yelled out in a fit of temper, “If you’re going to start throwing my old rich daddy at me anymore, I’m just going to walk right out that door and I’ll stay gone! I’m not going to stand here every day of my life and hear no man of mine whimper and moan and pull all of his hair out and weep both of his eyes out just because I happen to have a father that owns a lot of farms! Yes! He used every trick of money to get your folks’ farm away from them! Just like he used those same tricks to get a dozen other peopleoff their farms! Or to make renters out of them! I already know all of this side of my life ten thousand times better than you, Tike Hamlin, ever will or ever could, even if you beat your brains smack out against that windmill yonder, or this bedpost here every day of your life! For the next thousand years! I kept his books and his dollars and his pennies and his debts and his interests and his mortgages, every nickel, every rotten cent of it, in and out, in and out, for six of the best years of my life! Don’t you lay there like a baby and cry to me about my old rich daddy! Don’t try to tell me where I ought to live! Nor how! Nor anything more about it! For God’s sake! For Christ’s sake! For my sake and for your sake! Tike. You say one more word about me and my family busting up, and I swear to you that I’ll walk right out that door there! And you’ll never see hide nor hair of me in your whole life again!” Her voice broke into a hot, broken scream as she swung her hands in the room, and she breathed hard to try to keep from crying. “God!” She held both of her hands flat against the wallpaper and held her wet cheek against her knuckles as she felt her eyebrow shadow run worse than ever.
    Tike had quieted down a bit. He spoke a bit softer, and his words had the sound of coming through a pile of cotton. “It’s bad to be a dirt renter. Low as we could ever fall.”
    â€œWell, then, if that’s all that you have ever been, how is it that you fume and fuss and fret all over the place now, trying to tell me how far you fell?” She kept on holding herface against her hands, and her eyes looked out the north window. There was the light of a sad reflection in her eyes.
    â€œI fell.”
    â€œHow on earth could you? You’re a renter now. You have always been one. All of your born days. Where did you fall to? Why all of this falling business all of a sudden?” Her crying tears left the dark stains of her cheeks on the backs of her hands.
    â€œOld Banker Woodridge wouldn’t rent us this farm for another year.”
    Ella let her body slide down the wall and onto the floor. She sat with her feet crossed under her dress and blinked her eyes. “No? When did you see old man Woodridge? You didn’t let me know. I didn’t