We'uns Will Pay You'uns

Southern Appalachian Archives/Berea College We'uns Will Pay You'uns by Verna Mae Slone I knew it was going to be another hot day, even before I left the shady coolness of my cabin to climb the steep hill to the small gas station. After seeing my husband off to work at sunup, I gave the dishes a lick and a promise, made the bed, and swept the floor. I wanted to be in the store before eight to catch the miners as they were on their way to work. A few would need gas and some would buy pork and beans, small cans of peaches, and Viennas and crackers for their lunch. When the road had been built through Poplar Gap joining Reynolds Fork to Bunyun, it had cut through our farm. I saw the need for a gas station, so, after a few calls to Eugene Perkins at Hazard, I contracted to Hoover Slone to put up a small building where once had been a very large barn. I had needed something to do, even more than the extra income. After raising five boys, now all gone from home, I did not want to sit around and twiddle my thumbs. So I started on my gas station and small grocery store. After the miners had stopped and gone on, I knew there was very little reason for my staying there at the store. By then the sun was coming down boiling hot and no housewife would venture out until evening. Still I knew from past 17 experience if I went back to the house I would no more than get there until someone would blow for me. So I sat there too lifeless to even work at my quilt pieces. Then I saw the two kids coming. They walked, one behind the other, along the edge of the blacktop. An old hound dog followed behind at the end of a long string-a "pot licker" if I ever saw one. When they got close enough I saw they looked old-fashioned with their bare feet, rolled-up patched overalls, and homemade gingham shirts. Had I not known better, I would have sworn they each had a toothache. "Howdy, Mam," the oldest said as he aimed a stream of tobacco juice at but expertly missing my old cat. Tom, who had been shading under an upturned Pepsi case, now sought refuge under the porch. "Come and sit a spell," I invited. "Don't care if we do," he answered. The youngest tied the dog to a porch post where he would be in the shade. I did not see any use tying him; he looked to me to be so lazy that he would not have moved had you stuck fire to his tail. "You all strangers around here. Mind telling me who you are?" "Well, this here is Tag, my brother, short for Tag-a-long, and my handle is Sam, and that's Old Bugger. We're the gents that live back on Welbers Ridge. 0,>eck you know my grandpaw, old man ent-Preacher some folks call him." "Yeah, shore know him like a book. Who might your maw be? Preacher had a whole swarm of boys." "Maw, she's a cook from over on Breadins Creek; speck you don't know her. My paw's Jonn Gent. There's six of us children, four boys, two girls." "Well, I went to school with your paw but can't say as ever heard who he married-till now that is. I know most everyone around here close. What you boys doing so far from home on a hot day like this?" I am not a nosey person; it's just not good manners if you don't make a stranger feel at home by showing enough interest in him to learn his name and business. "Well," Sam explained, "Paw and some more men was out possum huntin' the other night and old Bugger got lost. We heard how he had come in down at Big Joe's, and Paw sent us to fetch him." Gknew no one possum hunted in the summertime, but I wasn...