Maddie Rainwater, Maurine Rainwater, and Mildred Rainwater Interview

 GEORGE STONEY: It's not till 56-

MADDIE RAINWATER: Kinda cool weather.

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah. Yes. Uh, Maddie told us this morning that, uh, she took her sisters coat, 'cause it was chilly. Her sister's got her coat back for a week. (laughs) She said she didn't mind it. You ready?

MADDIE RAINWATER: Uh-huh.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. You were gonna tell us about the [Beedo man?].

MADDIE RAINWATER: Well, Robert Howard was the Beedo man that I worked under, and he'd have a book - he'd go along with you while he's working. He'd have a - he'd write down everything you did. Then, they'd know they got a full day's work out of you.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Made production, I guess.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Had to have production.

GEORGE STONEY: How did the other - how did the other people regard him?

MADDIE RAINWATER: Well, I can't remember. Can't remember that.

GEORGE STONEY: Did they like him?

MADDIE RAINWATER: Yeah, they like Robert. He still living, even now.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you know where he's living?

MADDIE RAINWATER: He lives in LaGrange, but I don't know just where. I seen him down at the mall the other day. He's walking for his exercise, and he talks like a woman. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: We'd like to get - we wanna get a Beedo man to talk to us.

MADDIE RAINWATER: We call him a beetle man.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you remember any of these girls? Maybe - just think LaGrange.

(pause)

GEORGE STONEY: These for all man again. Now what did you hear about what happened at Fort Mac when this was all happening?

MADDIE RAINWATER: I thought there'd be war, but there wasn't.

MILDRED RAINWATER: He thought he's kinda like...

GEORGE STONEY: Would lots of people talk about it when this happened?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yes.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell me what they said.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, they knew there'd be violence, you know. And we didn't wanna get into it, so we s-stayed away from it. But I can't tell you too much of what was said except the ones that was afraid of violence would, uh, 00:03:00stay away from the striking people.

MADDIE RAINWATER: But we was happy when it was passed.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We was proud to have, uh, better working conditions.

(pause)

GEORGE STONEY: Tell me about the working conditions in the mill, at the time. Now I know later you saw much improvement in your mills.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, yes.

GEORGE STONEY: But show - tell me what it was like when you first went in the mills, and how it changed.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, I don't - when we fir- It was not as clean as they were later on, because they didn't use any cuspidors or anything like that. It was just the floor, you know? And, uh, it was not as clean as back then. Of 00:04:00course, the restrooms were not as nice, and, uh, the working conditions were hard, you know, and we just had to work if we wanted to work, and if we didn't, we could just go home. (laughs) That's the way they felt about it - you had to work hard to hold your job, but it was not as clean as it was later years.

GEORGE STONEY: Were there any women foreman?

MILDRED RAINWATER: No. I never did know of one. They were all men.

GEORGE STONEY: How'd you feel about that?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, I just thought they're supposed to be. (laughs) I didn't, you know - never heard of a woman foreman befo- you know, and I just thought the men were supposed to do that. That's all I thought.

(pause)

GEORGE STONEY: Did all the women feel the same way?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yes. I think they did.

GEORGE STONEY: When did that start changing?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, I guess it started changing when, uh, little - some and Roosevelt became, uh, President. Well, things began to change all over.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Well, he believed in the change, didn't he?

MILDRED RAINWATER: He believed in the right thing, and he wanted everything-

MADDIE RAINWATER: To help us out all he could, I believe.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I know he wanted us to have more money for our work.

GEORGE STONEY: What about Talmadge?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Talmadge? I can't remember too much about what Talmadge, you know - I didn't think Talmadge made a good President.

GEORGE STONEY: You mean Governor.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I mean Governor.

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah. You wanna say that again.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yeah. Governor. I - I didn't, uh - I really didn't, uh, care for Talmadge, but now, I just went along with everybody else, I guess.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you vote?

MILDRED RAINWATER: I didn't then.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you say, well, uh - when did you start voting?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, I can't remember that. When I started voting. Not how old I was, or anything.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you remember paying poll tax?

MILDRED RAINWATER: I didn't.

GEORGE STONEY: You know, back then, if you wanted to vote, you had to pay poll tax, and so even though a lot of the women could vote - if - unless they cared about it, they didn't pay poll tax.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I don't remember anything about poll tax, you know, having to pay any. And I didn't vote real early in life. I waited until I was much older before I started voting.

GEORGE STONEY: What about—

MILDRED RAINWATER: I guess I was married when I started voting.

GEORGE STONEY: Did either of you start voting early?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Hm?

GEORGE STONEY: Did you start voting early?

MADDIE RAINWATER: I didn't vote too much. My husband voted, but I didn't.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you recognize this scene?

(pause)

GEORGE STONEY: We think it's Macon, but, uh, we don't know. You don't know about the mills of Macon, do ya?

MAURINE RAINWATER: No.

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah. So, that's about all the Newman - Newnan stuff we have. This is all somewhere else, I think.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yes, we didn't know those people.

(pause)

JUDITH HELFAND: I think Maddie - I think Maddie? I think it was Maddie, or maybe it was Mildred? Who the other day, you told me that you were there in the morning when that group of pickets came in on that truck.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, we were there.

HELFAND: Could you tell-

MILDRED RAINWATER: [Maurine?] I think told you.

HELFAND: Was it Maurine?

MILDRED RAINWATER: When you told them that you was over there when the strike came.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Yes. We were at the-

HELFAND: Could you - could you-

MAURINE RAINWATER: -at the plant gate whenever-

HELFAND: Could you describe that to me?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, we were just standing 'round the gate.

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, wait a minute. Just, uh, talk to Judy about that.

HELFAND: Yeah. I mean - I guess. It was right before you were gonna go to work?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Yeah, we had to-

HELFAND: Could you start from there?

MAURINE RAINWATER: We had to meet at the gate. We got - everybody had got in at 00:09:00five minute till eight, and so, we was all standing at the gate, you know, waiting to go in, and those - the truck came in with the people - you know - had sticks and everything just, you know, up in the air, and, um, it - you know - it frightened all of us because we didn't know whether we were gonna get to work or not. Well, we didn't that day. Finally the National Guards came in and let us come in the next day. But, that's when the truck came in, you know, and we were - we were afraid to go into work.

HELFAND: Did the people on the truck talk to you?

MAURINE RAINWATER: No. They's just making a noise, you know? And we were afraid to go in.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Saying a lot of things we didn't remember now.

MAURINE RAINWATER: They didn't talk with anything. They just - they didn't get off the truck. They just stayed on the truck, but they would come in just like they were wanting to fight and - you know - cause trouble.

HELFAND: Now, what did your foremans or your bosses do?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, they just, um - you know - said for us to go back home and not try to come in that day, but we went the next day. The National Guards came in and - so, we got to go into work. So...

HELFAND: Did - Can - How did you get to go in with the National Guard there? Could you describe that to me?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, they just - we just all went over there and the National Guard stood on the side and - well, they - the people that, you know, they had already gone and left, you know?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Strikers left.

MAURINE RAINWATER: They had already left and gone somewhere or - so, the National Guards were there for us to go into work, so...We didn't have any bad trouble there. They's just there for protection for us.

HELFAND: Do you recall seeing any of the National Guard coming in and taking any of the strikers away?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Uh, well, no. They just were there to see that we went into work.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I didn't see 'em take anybody away.

MAURINE RAINWATER: No, we didn't see 'em take anybody away.

MILDRED RAINWATER: They might have at the largest towns, and all, but they didn't down there.

HELFAND: Um, did - Now, in your mill - and you worked in the East-

MAURINE RAINWATER: East Newnan Mill. That's where we worked.

HELFAND: Did people talk about the walkout and strike, inside?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, yeah. They talked about, you know, they was wanting them to join the union, but, uh, they was a lot of people that was afraid to join the union and they wouldn't join.

MILDRED RAINWATER: They wasn't afraid to join. We was afraid to lose our job. (laughs)

MAURINE RAINWATER: And so - well, most of 'em, that did join 'em, did lose their jobs. But we nev-

GEORGE STONEY: Were they put out of their houses?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Uh, yeah. They make 'em move.

MILDRED RAINWATER: And move off the village, because they own that - uh, the village and all those houses.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Even the mills on the village and the houses. And they'd make 'em move. If they lost a job, they had to move out.

HELFAND: Did you see people get evicted from their homes?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, they'd, uh, have to vacate, you know-

MILDRED RAINWATER: If they didn't vacate, they would make 'em anyway - they'd go - you know - move 'em out.

JAMIE STONEY: Would they call the sheriff or would they just send in a couple people from-

MILDRED RAINWATER: I've heard of that, you know, they'd call a sheriff out there to move 'em out.

MAURINE RAINWATER: But Mr. Ward, he was the superintendent of the plant, and-

MILDRED RAINWATER: [D.M. Ward?]

MAURINE RAINWATER: So he'd carry everything out just right, he thought, you know?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, he needed a job.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Nobody'd listen to him - what he's saying.

HELFAND: Now, I wonder, you know, you seeing all those young girls there in Fort McPherson, and you were about the same age, you chose not to strike. What do you think about those girls that were put into the camp?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, I don't - I don't think I would have done that myself. I didn't do it, but I don't know why they - I guess they were just wanting the union.

MILDRED RAINWATER: So they'd make more money, I guess it felt like.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Make more money, I guess. So...

GEORGE STONEY: Was there any other reason, other than making more money, that you think they wanted the union?

MILDRED RAINWATER: They wanted control, I guess, over the plant.

GEORGE STONEY: I mean, did - did, uh, women have trouble with-

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh.

GEORGE STONEY: -foremen, or assignments, or anything like that?

MAURINE RAINWATER: No, I don't - I never did hear of it. No way.

HELFAND: You know-

MAURINE RAINWATER: I guess they thought they'd just make more money than what we were making if they joined the union. That's what I would think about it, but we never did join, so I don't-

GEORGE STONEY: Well, now, since then, uh, you people have been holding reunions with the people in Hogansville.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yes.

GEORGE STONEY: So, I gather there's not much ill-feeling now.

MILDRED RAINWATER: No, there's no ill-feeling.

MAURINE RAINWATER: No, there weren't.

MILDRED RAINWATER: There's no ill-feelings at all.

GEORGE STONEY: But was there ill-feeling then?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Back then, uh, well, not really with me, you know? I didn't feel bad with them. I just - wasn't long, I guess - trying to keep down trouble.

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, yeah, so, the question.

(break in video)

GEORGE STONEY: Come on in. Come on in.

MAURINE RAINWATER: ...you know the war.

(laughter)

GEORGE STONEY: Come on in, come on in.

M1: (inaudible)

MILDRED RAINWATER: You like you gonna go to war. Well, um, you go into the, uh 00:15:00(inaudible) where you go from here. Well, hope you don't have any bad-

M1: Oh, we won't.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Let us hear from you.

M1: I will. Bye, Grandma.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Bye, honey.

M1: Love you.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Love you, too.

M1: Bye, [nanny?]

MAURINE RAINWATER: Bye, honey.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Bye.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Love you.

M1: Love you, too.

GEORGE STONEY: That's a sad business, isn't it? Huh?

MAURINE RAINWATER: He's in the National Guards and he's having to leave.

GEORGE STONEY: Another kind of, uh, side note for that.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Mm-hmm.

GEORGE STONEY: Well, we've heard people talk about, uh, people being - being ashamed to be "lint-heads." Could you talk about that?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Uh, you mean, being ashamed of - well, I guess they were ashamed - a lot 'em that joined the union, you know. I thought they were 00:16:00going a little bit too far. Trying to make somebody do something. But we never did join the union, so we just...

JAIME STONEY: Fix the door.

GEORGE STONEY: You want the door...

JAMIE STONEY: No, that's all right.

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, well, we've heard the - the phrase "lint-head" used for - a - to describe, uh, cotton mill workers. How does it make you feel when you hear that word?

MADDIE RAINWATER: Well, back years ago, they was so ashamed, or something.

MILDRED RAINWATER: What, uh - what word?

GEORGE STONEY: "Lint-head."

MILDRED RAINWATER: That. Oh, lint-head. Lint in the hair. Well, I guess we didn't wanna be called that.

MADDIE RAINWATER: That's the reason we'd like to run (inaudible) 'cause that was a little bit nicer.

MILDRED RAINWATER: But lint - I've heard people call 'em lint-heads, you 00:17:00know. But it didn't sound too nice to me.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, we did - it was cotton work - that we worked with, you know-

MILDRED RAINWATER: Lint would get in your hair.

MAURINE RAINWATER: And it was all in the plant, you know? It'd fly around.

MILDRED RAINWATER: It got in your hair, too. (laughs)

MAURINE RAINWATER: Yeah, it'd get in your hair, on your clothes, and - but...

MILDRED RAINWATER: We didn't wanna be called that.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, when you went downtown, you went East Newnan and then you went down to Newnan. Was there any difference - did you feel any difference on the street, or anything like that?

MILDRED RAINWATER: I don't think so.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Yeah, you did.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I didn't have a feel different. You talking about the feel like we were lower class people?

MAURINE RAINWATER: So lower.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I didn't. Well, when we went into town, we dressed up like we was going to church. You know, we wore our hats and things like that. I can remember doing that. And Momma wouldn't let us dare go anywhere without we 00:18:00dressed up. You know?

MAURINE RAINWATER: She wanna make us a little bit better than what we was.

(laughter)

MILDRED RAINWATER: No, she didn't. We were good people. We were respectful people. But, uh, we always changed our clothes and looked nice before we went out anywhere.

GEORGE STONEY: I noticed on, uh, on the tape here that all those women were - seemed to be having nice dresses on and all that.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yes. They mostly were handmade dresses, you know? People used to make their own clothes more than they do now. I know my mother made everything we had. It was five girls and she made all of our clothes.

MAURINE RAINWATER: And if we ever went anywhere, we usually all went together.

GEORGE STONEY: All five?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yeah, we went together.

MAURINE RAINWATER: There's five us girls and we'd go together.

GEORGE STONEY: How'd you dress?

MADDIE RAINWATER: How did we go?

GEORGE STONEY: How did you dress?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Oh.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Oh.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We had on hats. We went town - after we got up old - you know - some age. Like 16 to 20, we always wore hats to town.

JAMIE STONEY: That must've been a sight.

(laughter)

MILDRED RAINWATER: We'd have gloves on, and high heels. We wanted spiked heels.

HELFAND: What'd you say?

MILDRED RAINWATER: And sometimes the dresses would be long, down to our ankles, and then finally changed and got a little shorter, but we wore long dresses, all right.

HELFAND: What did you say about wearing a hat?

MADDIE RAINWATER: Well, we wore a hat.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We felt good about it.

MADDIE RAINWATER: It covered up them lint-heads and we'd think that. No, didn't call us lint-heads, 'cause we covered 'em up.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We didn't have-

MADDIE RAINWATER: We didn't have lint in our hair, but we's afraid they'd call us that.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, that was the style them days. We wore hats.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We were very stylish girls, when we were growing up. Everybody kinda envied us, because we had nice clothes.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Momma made most of our clothes.

MILDRED RAINWATER: And, uh, they - you know - a lot of the girls thought that we felt superior to them, you know, because we had nicer things. Some of the girls did think that, but we didn't feel that way, but - toward them - but they would feel that way with us.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you talk about your education?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, I finished the eighth grade. (laughs) That's all I 00:21:00had. What did you - and I had to walk from the East Newnan. The last year in school I walked from the East Newnan to the Newnan High School, where the park is on, uh, uh, the street that comes in to Newnan. I can't think of that name right now. Comes into Atlanta, you know? (inaudible) What is that street? Jackson.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Jackson Street.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Jackson Street. Uh, we - the school was right there on the corner of Jackson and [Temple?] Ave. and, uh, I walked from East Newnan to, uh - that was about two and a half miles. Walked there and back.

MADDIE RAINWATER: No matter what kinda weather it was, we had to walk.

GEORGE STONEY: That was the only high school, was it?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Yes.

GEORGE STONEY: Mm-hmm. What about your education?

MADDIE RAINWATER: I finished the sixth grade. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: How did you feel about getting out of school and going to work?

MADDIE RAINWATER: Well, I had to. 'Cause there had to be some help. You know, money made where we could live.

GEORGE STONEY: And you?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, I finished the sixth grade, but I wanted to go to work, 'cause all the other girls was going to work, so, my daddy went with me for the principal, and he let me read, and he said, well, you read pretty good, and you can go to work if your parents don't care, so, they let me go to work. And, so, that's why I went to work. It's just because I - the rest of the girls was working and wanted to work, too. I wanted to have a little spending money.

GEORGE STONEY: What happened to your checks?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, Momma take my check.

MADDIE RAINWATER: We didn't get a check. We got a, um-

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, we got money, but she take my, uh, the bills, and she'd give us a little change, you know. But, she, uh - Momma controlled the house, and she bought all the clothes, and-

MILDRED RAINWATER: Made 'em.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Made 'em. And she saw that we had plenty of food. She stayed at home. She didn't work. She stayed at home and made the home for us.

GEORGE STONEY: Well, now, one thing that I haven't been able to figure out is that so many of them women that worked in the mills, also had smaller children. How did they handle that?

MADDIE RAINWATER: Well, the Grand-Momma had to keep 'em, or either they'd hire a stay-at-home woman.

MILDRED RAINWATER: They'd hire, you know, black people to come in. And they'd work for 50 cents a day, you know, keeping those children. They worked real cheap.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Momma work - you know - she didn't work. She stayed at home, but a lot of the other people, they had colored folks come in, and, uh, take care of the children and cook for 'em, and they just practically raised the children.

MILDRED RAINWATER: They didn't have to pay 'em very much.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, I was talking with a woman the other day, who said she started working - she's a bit older than you people - she said she started working in the mills at the age of seven, but then when I got to questioning her, she said, "No, I went down there to take my baby brother to be nursed by my mother, and I used to clean off the looms and so forth."

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yeah, they had to carry the babies down there to nurse.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you describe that if you saw it?

MADDIE RAINWATER: I can't describe it, 'cause I never had any children, but, uh, I know - I can remember they'd come down there and they'd bring 'em.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Yeah, they'd go up to the, uh - they'd bring 'em - the colored people would bring the smaller children down there and they'd take 'em to the bathroom and let 'em nurse and the maid would wait for 'em, and then she'd carry him back home. So, I guess they brought 'em by twice a day. (pause)

HELFAND: Um, Maddie, tell me about training Mildred. Tell me about what it was like to train your little sister.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Train me to work at the mill.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Well, I had to teach her the right way to work. She had to work. She couldn't fool around.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I didn't know - know how to use a machine on a - the thing 00:26:00I had to wear on my hand, and she-

MADDIE RAINWATER: It - it had a knotter and you can get to three and pull it up tight and let it run on there and get started and...

MILDRED RAINWATER: We tied knots with the knotter. It - we wore 'em on our hands, and you just put the thread over and then use your thumb to mash it down and tie the knot and then we'd let it turn the winder on - the machine on, and it started running onto the cone of whatever.

HELFAND: Was she a good student?

MADDIE RAINWATER: Hmm?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Did I learn real well?

MADDIE RAINWATER: Oh, yes.

(laughter)

MILDRED RAINWATER: Lis- she can't hear ya.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Yeah, she-

MILDRED RAINWATER: It didn't take me long to learn to run the launders.

MADDIE RAINWATER: It didn't take us long them days to do anything. I learned to drive a car - didn't even learn. I just got in it and rode - drove. 00:27:00(laughter) Daddy bought us a 25-mile Ford, and you didn't have to be taught nothing. You just get in there, and pull somethin' here, and there it goes.

MADDIE RAINWATER: There you go.

JAMIE STONEY: And remember the middle pedal is for reverse.

MADDIE RAINWATER: If you could jerk - if you could jerk, you'd do all right.

MILDRED RAINWATER: You had to learn yourself, didn't you?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Just taught yourself how to do it.

HELFAND: Could you describe a typical day for me? You worked a lot of hours, but when you started working, you worked a long day. Could you describe it for me, from the morning to night?

MADDIE RAINWATER: We had some hours off?

MILDRED RAINWATER: No, the hours we worked.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Oh.

GEORGE STONEY: When you first went in the mills.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Oh. Eleven hours.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We went to work at six o'clock in the morning, and worked till twelve, and then we'd have a hour for lunch, and then come back and work 00:28:00until six o'clock that night. That was how many - that's how we worked. To start with.

HELFAND: With all these young girls around, did you have a good time?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, yeah.

HELFAND: Tell me about that.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Had good times.

HELFAND: Yeah.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, sure. We'd have a good time at work even, you know? We enjoyed working because they wasn't not too strict on us. We could even get out and go to the store and buy something, you know, and bring it back, and all of us have something to eat and drink, and they didn't care if you was going to the store. We'd go down the railroad track to the store, 'cause it wasn't very far down, get a bunch of stuff and bring it back. All of us eat. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: But later on, you couldn't do that, I gather?

MILDRED RAINWATER: No. No. We couldn't dare leave the plant then.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, they finally put drink boxes in the plant.

MILDRED RAINWATER: But we wasn't allowed to go out, no.

MADDIE RAINWATER: They finally put the toilet paper in there. (laughs)

HELFAND: Tell me that story.

MADDIE RAINWATER: And you had to be-

MILDRED RAINWATER: Hey, yeah. You got the story about that.

MADDIE RAINWATER: You know, not waste the toilet paper. You had to be saving with it. They told us if we wasted it, and they caught us wasting the paper, they was gonna f- lay is off. So, I thought it wouldn't be smart for us to get a cob, carry it down there and put it in the bathroom.

(laughter)

MILDRED RAINWATER: That'd be funny.

MADDIE RAINWATER: My daddy always had corn, you know? And he'd - we'd shell the corn off and, um, put it - you know - be a cob laying around. Well, in fact, we used that at home sometimes.

MILDRED RAINWATER: (laughs) I didn't.

MADDIE RAINWATER: But we carried it down there, and I - I put it in there to use. Hung it up with a string.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Wrote a note.

MADDIE RAINWATER: Right behind the commode. Said, loo- "Use this cob, and save your job."

HELFAND: (laughs)

MADDIE RAINWATER: And the boss said, if you ever - if he ever found out who did that, he was gonna fire 'em. And I was scared to death. Afraid Daddy'd find it out, and he'd- if they had to move on account of me putting a cob out there, that'd be awful.

HELFAND: (laughs)

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, if they heard of anything that you did, then-

MADDIE RAINWATER: It wasn't right. It wasn't right.

MILDRED RAINWATER: They'd made you leave in a little while.

GEORGE: Would they report you to your parents?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, yes. I know-