>> The Census Taker's Home! (from the Sunday Afternoon Rocking series) > > Well, I'm surely glad to be home, that I am. I tell you another day like > this one and I am good mind just to fill them papers out on memory and be > done with it. Here, put these socks over there next to the fire to dry out, > will you? Got down yonder this mornin and everyone in Household 451 through > 486 was gone. Some big shindig going on down there. Good thing the folks in > 441 could tell me who they all was. > > Here, reckon you could go over some of the writin on this here page? Got > smeared a bit in the rain. I think you can cipher most of it out. Then them > folks down in the holler got suspicious over a census. Said, and derned if > they had a point, what difference did it make who they was? Was them guvment > folks up in Warshington going to come down here to say howdy do? So they > finally let me write down they last name and first initial, but I think they > wuz havin a bit of fun with me when they listed who lived in the house. Saw > some winkin goin on and I believe I got the same > house a youngins in two or three places. It been a day, woman. Honey, git > that paper out of Johnny's mouth, will ya? I worked all day on that thing, > and > no call to let him go chewin it up. >> Went up the river a piece and tried to get that done fore it come a > downpour, > but run into trouble there too. Ole Man Jenkins curr dog run me off and I > tell you, ain't no call to get eat up over such a thing as this. They ort to > be a limit what a man does for his country. Was lucky man down the road > mostly knew Jenkins was nigh on sixty years old and was living there with > his > woman and five youngins from his first marriage plus a passel from the > second. We give em good Christian names. Best be doin something bout this > pen. It give out on me halfway through. See you havin > trouble too. Johnny! Hand that here, boy! > > And I tell you I would ruther fight grandpap's British than mess with that > feller out on the ridge. He got out his shotgun soon as he seen me comin and > I went t'other direction. Had Jones tell me about him instead, and he didn't > rightly know the feller's first name, said they called him "Squirrel", and > it was ok just to put that cause wasn't nobody around here claimin him no > how, and they for sure didn't want the guvment knowin there was any > relationship. That coffee done? > > Then got over to Smiths, and ole Hoss was in a nervous fit so wasn't no > getting information there. His woman havin another youngin and he looked > like he could run right through me when I went to askin how many youngins he > had now. Hightailed it out of there, and Miz Hart helped me straighten that > household out. Think we got most of the names straight, and as he has had a > youngin a year for the last ten, ages purty close too. Now look what Johnny > went and done! > > I tell you, next time this come around I ain't gonna be no where in sight. > Farmin a heap easier, and I figger there folks round here what can read and > write and cipher and ain't no good fer nothing else we can spare for this > foolishness. Pass me another tater, will you? > > >