House of Earth by Woody Guthrie Read Free Book Online Page B

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.”
    â€œThey really got the habit,” Tike said.
    â€œLike 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.
    â€œYou said a cuss word, Elly.”
    â€œI’ll say worse than that before this thing is over with!”
    â€œNaaa. 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.”
    â€œYou’ll hear plenty.”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œYou 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.”
    â€œCuts who?” She lifted her head and shook her hair back out of her face, and bit her lip as she tried to smile. “Who?”
    â€œI don’t know. All of them cheaters an’ stealers you’re talkin’ about.”
    â€œI’m not talking about just any one certain man orwoman, Tike. I’m just talking about greed. Just plain old greed.”
    â€œYeah. I know. Them greedy ones,” he said.
    And she said, “No. No. You know, Tike—ah, it may sound funny. But I think that the people that are greedy, well, they believe that it’s right to be greedy. They’ve got a hope, a dream, a vision, inside of them just like I’ve, ah, we’ve got in us. And in a way it’s pitiful, but it’s not really their fault.”
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œNo more than, say, a bad disease was to break out, like some kind of a fever, or some kind of a plague, and all of us would take it, all of us would get it. Some would have it very light, some would have it sort of, well, sort of medium. Others would have it harder and worse, and some would naturally have it bad. Some of us would lose our heads, and some would lose our hands, and some would lose our senses with the fever.”
    â€œYeah. But who would be to blame for a plague? Cain’t nobody start no fever nor a thing like a plague. Could they, Lady?”
    â€œFilth causes diseases to eat people up.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAnd ignorance is the cause of people’s filth.”
    â€œYeah—but—”
    â€œDon’t but me. And ignorance is caused by your greed.”
    â€œMy greed? You mean, ah,