Full Text of the Excerpt

You learned not to throw nothing away much, because it was hard times always. Mill families coming along then, if they wasn't a good manager they wouldn't ever have nothing. It'd take good managing, because you didn't make anything.

DOUGLAS DENATALE:

The company helped out a lot, didn't they, with the housing and all of that?

FRANK DURHAM:

Yes, there wasn't nothing to do to the houses or the rent, as far as that. Papa didn't stay over there. After they married, I don't think he stayed over there but about three years, and he built this house up here. And the company let him have the money to build it on.

DOUGLAS DENATALE:

How's that?

FRANK DURHAM:

Mr. London and Mr.let him have money to build the house, lent him money.

DOUGLAS DENATALE:

Oh, really.

FRANK DURHAM:

Yes, and he paid them back, and they didn't charge him no interest. Captain London. He was a captain in the Civil War. Captain London. And they always called him Captain London. He died in 1916. I remember seeing him a time or two and speaking to him, but that's about all.

DOUGLAS DENATALE:

Was your father a foreman by that time, when he built that house?

FRANK DURHAM:

Yes, he was. Yes, he was foreman, but they didn't make much. When he built that house, he was making $1.25 a day. That's all. And I mean he had to work eleven hours a dayAnd then they got paid by the day, and you got paid a quarter, a half, three-quarters of a day, whichever. There weren't no hours. Ha! And you didn't make a quarter of a day, you didn't even get nothing. Man. Papa told me about that.