House of Earth. Woody Guthrie
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sweatproof. It does not take skilled labor. It is windproof. It can’t be eaten up by termites.”
“Wahooo!”
“It is warm in cold weather. It is cool in hot weather. It is easy to keep fresh and clean. Several of the oldest houses in the country are built out of earth.” She looked at the picture of the nice little house and flowers on the front of the book. “All very well. Very, very well. But.”
“But?” he said in a tough way. “But?”
“But. Just one or two buts.” She pooched her lips as her eyes dropped down along the ground. “You see that stuff there, that soil there under your feet?”
“Sure.” Tike looked down. “I see it. ’Bout it?”
“That is the but.”
“The but? Which but? Ain’t no buts to what that book there says. That’s a U.S. Gover’ment book, an’ it’s got th’ seal right there, there in that lower left-hand corner! What’s wrong with this soil here under my foot? It’s as hard as ’dobey already!”
“But. But. But. It just don’t happen to be your land.” She tried hard and took a good bit of time to get her words out. Her voice sounded dry and raspy, nervous. “See, mister?”
Tike’s hand rubbed his eye, then his forehead, then his hair, then the back of his neck, and his fingers pulled at the tip of his ear as he said, “’At’s th’ holdup.”
“A house”—her voice rose—“of earth.”
Tike only listened. His throat was so tight that no words could get out.
“A house of earth. And not an inch of earth to build it on.” There was a quiver, a tremble, and a shake in her body as she scraped her shoe sole against the ground. “Oooo, yes,” she said in a way that made fun of them both, of the whole farm, mocked the old cowshed, shamed the iron water tank, made fun of all the houses that lay within her sight. “Yesssss. We could build us up a mighty nice house of earth, if we could only get our hands on a piece of land. But. Well. That’s where the mule throwed Tony.”
“That’s where th’ mule”—he looked toward the sky, then down at the toe of his shoe—“throwed Tony.”
She turned herself into a preacher, pacing up and down, back and forth, in front of Tike. She held her hands against her breasts, then waved them about, beat her fists in the wind, and spoke in a loud scream. “Why has there got to be always something to knock you down? Why is this country full of things that you can’t see, things that beat you down, kick you down, throw you around, and kill out your hope? Why is it that just as fast as I hope for some little something or other, that some kind of crazy thievery always, always, always cuts me down? I’ll not be treated any such way as this any longer, not one inch longer. Not one ounce longer, not one second longer. I never did in my whole life ask for one whit more than I needed. I never did ask to own, nor to rule, nor to control the lands nor the lives of other people. I never did crave anything except a decent chance to work, and a decent place to live, and a decent, honest life. Why can’t we, Tike? Tell me. Why? Why can’t we own enough land to keep us busy on? Why can’t we own enough land to exist on, to work on, and to live on like human beings? Why can’t we?”
Tike sat down in the sun and crossed his feet under him. He dug into the soapy dishwater dirt and said, “I don’t know, Lady. People are just dog-eat-dog. They lie on one another, cheat one another, run and sneak and hide and count and cheat, and cheat, and then cheat some more. I always did wonder. I don’t know. It’s just dog-eat-dog. That’s all I know.”
She sat down in front of him and put her face down into his lap. And he felt the wet tears again on her cheeks. And she sniffed and asked him, “Why has it just got to be dog-eat-dog? Why can’t we live so as to let other people live? Why can’t we work so as to let other folks work? Dog-eat-dog! Dog-eat-dog! I’m sick and I’m tired, and I’m sick at my belly, and sick in my soul with this dog-eat-dog!”
“No sicker’n me, Lady. But don’t jump on me. I didn’t start it. I cain’t put no stop to it. Not just me by myself.” He held the back of her head in his hands.
“Oh. I know. I don’t really mean that.” She breathed her warm breath against his overalls as she sat facing him.
“Mean what?”
“Mean that you caused everybody to be so thieving and so low-down in their ways. I don’t think that you caused it by yourself. I don’t think that I caused it by myself, either. But I just think that both of us are really to blame for it.”
“Us? Me? You?”
“Yes.” She shook her head as he played with her hair. “I do. I really do.”
“Hmmm.”
“We’re to blame because we let them steal,” she told him.
“Let them? We caused ’em to steal?”
“Yes. We caused them to steal. Penny at a time. Nickel at a time. Dime. A quarter. A dollar. We were easygoing. We were good-natured. We didn’t want money just for the sake of having money. We didn’t want other folks’ money if it meant that they had to do without. We smiled across their counters a penny at a time. We smiled in through their cages a nickel at a time. We handed a quarter out our front door. We handed them money along the street. We signed our names on their old papers. We didn’t want money, so we didn’t steal money, and we spoiled them, we petted them, and we humored them. We let them steal from us. We knew that they were hooking us. We knew it. We knew when they cheated us out of every single little red cent. We knew. We knew when they jacked up their prices. We knew when they cut down on the price of our work. We knew that. We knew they were stealing. We taught them to steal. We let them. We let them think that they could cheat us because we are just plain old common everyday people. They got the habit.”
“They really got the habit,” Tike said.
“Like dope. Like whiskey. Like tobacco. Like snuff. Like morphine or opium or old smoke of some kind. They got the regular habit of taking us for damned old silly fools,” she said.
“You said a cuss word, Elly.”
“I’ll say worse than that before this thing is over with!”
“Naaa. Naaa. No more of that there cussin’ outta you, now. I ain’t goin’ to set here an’ listen to a woman of mine carry on in no such a way when she never did a cuss word in her whole life before.”
“You’ll hear plenty.”
“I don’t know why, Lady, never would know why, I don’t s’pose. But them there cuss words just don’t fit so good into your mouth. Me, it’s all right for me to cuss. My old mouth has a little bit of ever’thing in it, anyhow. But no siree, not you. You’re not goin’ to lose your head an’ start out to fightin’ folks by cuss words. I’ll not let you. I’ll slap your jaws.”
Ella May only shook her curls in his lap.
“You always could fight better by sayin’ nice words, anyhow, Lady. I don’t know how to tell you, but when I lose my nut an’ go to cussin’ out an’ blowin’ my top, seems like my words just get all out somewhere in th’ wind, an’ then they get lost, somehow. But you always did talk with more sense, somehow. Seems like that when you say somethin’, somehow or another, it always makes sense, an’ it always stays said. Cuts ’em deeper th’n my old loose flyin’ cuss words.”
“Cuts who?” She lifted her head and shook her hair back out of her face, and bit her lip as she tried to smile. “Who?”
“I don’t know. All of them cheaters an’ stealers you’re talkin’ about.”
“I’m not talking about just any one certain man or woman, Tike. I’m just talking about greed. Just plain old greed.”
“Yeah. I know. Them greedy ones,” he said.
And