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12 The Migration We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung: and the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth. God help us, for we knew the worst too young. —rudyard Kipling in late spring of 1943, Willie Crittenden moved to detroit to find work. his plan was to save enough money to send for alta ruth and the twins. Before he left, he moved his family from Pilot oak into the house his oldest daughter emily and her husband had just vacated in their own move to detroit. alta and the twins would live there until school was out, and then they would leave for the city. This house was near the Kentucky-Tennessee border on Ky 166. one side of the road was in Kentucky, the other in Tennessee. The house was situated in an isolated area, a little over a mile from dukedom, a town well known for its criminal activities. it was not the ideal place for a woman with two small children and no transportation to live. now that Willie was not sharecropping, they had neither mule nor wagon, items the landowner had provided. The Migration 89 To the twins’ delight, emily had left her pet, an old bulldog named Jiggs, for their protection. Jiggs had a fierce bark and plenty of experience chasing away the stragglers and drunks who occasionally wandered into the yard at night. he was also a boon companion for the twins and their beloved Collie. The other good thing about living in that house, aside from its being better built than their last one and rent free, was that their nearest neighbors were the Floyds, whose farm was a mile across the field. it was here that howie and doodle became friends, spending much of their time together in school and out. after school each day, they would go to one or the other’s home, help with chores, and then play. They sometimes chased each other for hours, running barefoot all over the fields. other times they played basketball. emily’s husband had nailed an old basket to the side of the barn and had left his basketball for howie. The boys played with that ball until it fell apart. This was the year they got to see their high school varsity team play. once or twice a week, their teacher would take all the boys in the class upstairs to the gymnasium to watch the varsity practice. on a couple of occasions they watched the team play an afternoon game. on some days the teacher turned the boys loose in the gym, giving them a rubber ball to play with. The ball had no air in it, so they could not dribble it. all they could do was run up and down the court, trying to get the ball away from whoever had it and then throwing it at the basket. howie and doodle usually managed to keep the ball to themselves while the other boys chased after them. Willie got a job as janitor at Michigan Tool Company, and by late april had sent alta ruth an envelope stuffed with three bus tickets, two $20 bills, and a note saying he had rented an apartment and wanted her and the twins to come to detroit. not one to express emotions, he simply wrote that he missed them and wanted them to come soon. [3.15.229.113] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 04:28 GMT) 90 The Graves County Boys Just as they were preparing to go, howie came down with scarlet fever. in those days, scarlet fever, like polio and spanish flu, was a dreaded disease. once it was determined that a person had it, a quarantine sign had to be posted on the house where the infected person lived. no one inside the house was supposed to come out, and no one from the outside could go in. a loyal friend, lexie Floyd brought alta ruth sacks of groceries from the commodity truck and set them on the steps of the house. she would wave to alta and the twins as they smiled to her from the window. Fortunately, neither helen nor her mother came down with the disease. after howie recovered, alta made arrangements for them to leave for detroit. Before daybreak one morning in May 1943, lexie, James, and doodle arrived in their horse-drawn wagon at the Crittenden ’s house to take the twins and their mother to...

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