House of Earth by Woody Guthrie Read Free Book Online

rotten, Lady. Goldern whizzers an’ little jackrabbits! Look how many families of kids that little ole shack has suckled up from pups. I’d be all rickety an’ bowlegged, an’ bent over, an’ sagged down, an’ petered out, an’ swayed in my middle, too, if I’d stood in one little spot like this little ole shack has, an’ stood there for fifty-two years. Let it rot. Rot! Rot down! Fall down! Sway in! Keel over! You little ole rotten piss soaked bastard, you! Fall!” His voice changed from one of good fun into words of raging terror. “Die! Fall! Rot!”
    â€œI just hate it.” She stepped backward and stood close up against him. “I work my hands and fingers down to the bones, Tike, but I can’t make it any cleaner. It gets dirtier every day.”
    Tike’s hand felt the nipples of her breast as he kissed her on the neck from behind and chewed her gold earrings between his teeth. His fingers rubbed her breasts, then rubbed her stomach as he pulled the letter out of her apron pocket. “Read th’ little letter?”
    â€œHmh? Just look at those poor old rotted-out boards. You can actually see them rot and fall day after day.” She leaned back against his belt buckle.
    He put his arms around her and squeezed her breasts soft and easy in his hands. He held his chin on her right shoulder and smelled the skin of her neck and her hair as they both stood there and looked.
    â€œDepartment of Agriculture.” She read on the outside.
    â€œUh-hmm.”
    â€œWhy. A little book. Let’s see. Farmer’s Bulletin Number Seventeen Hundred. And Twenty. Mm-hmm.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œThe Use of Adobe or Sun Dried Brick for Farm Building.” A smile shone through her tears.
    â€œYes, Lady.” He felt her breasts warmer under his hands.
    â€œA picture of a house built out of adobe. All covered over with nice colored stucco. Pretty. Well, here’s all kinds of drawings, charts, diagrams, showing just about everything in the world about it.”
    â€œHow to build it from th’ cellar up. Free material. Just take a lot of labor an’ backbendin’,” he said. Then a smile was in his soul. “Cost me a whole big nickel, that book did.”
    â€œAdobe. Or Sun-Dried Brick. For Farm Building.” She flipped into the pages and spoke a few slow words. “It is fireproof. It is sweatproof. It does not take skilled labor. It is windproof. It can’t be eaten up by termites.”
    â€œWahooo!”
    â€œIt 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.”
    â€œBut?” he said in a tough way. “But?”
    â€œBut. 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?”
    â€œSure.” Tike looked down. “I see it. ’Bout it?”
    â€œThat is the but.”
    â€œThe 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!”
    â€œBut. 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.”
    â€œA house”—her voice rose—“of earth.”
    Tike