The Hayseeder's Lament

Written by W. T. Daffron, my grandfather, of Millport Alabama, probably in 1932. It was the height of the Great Depression. 


The Hayseeder’s Lament

What do you think
About the gink
And all this high-brow clan
Who congregate
And advocate
Bankhead’s reduction plan

We raise our cotton
For markets rotten
We freely will admit
But it’s a fact
This Bankhead Act
Don’t help a doggon bit

We plant the seed
And tend the weed
Side dress with guano
We plow and hoe
Keep on the go
No rest so help us Hannah

We work and sweat
Just fume and fret
And worry every day
Haul it to town
And with a frown
Give half the stuff away

We have to sign
On dotted line
At every turn we make
Then buy permits
And send remits
With that we can rake

We pay the ginner
The real winner
In this old game of chance
His biz is brisk
He takes no risk
Your see that at a glance

We count our dough
And hope to go
Right out and buy a shirt
Some calico
And thread you know
To make the wife a skirt

We heave a sigh
And almost cry
To find we’re in a pickle
A note past due
For 10-2-2
Don’t leave a blessed nickel

No shoes, no socks
No calico frocks
Nor just an old straw lid
Not even a hope
To buy a dope
Or candy for the kid

Can’t sell a cow
A pig or sow
A turkey, goose or guinea
Everyone broke
Their stuff in soak
Nobody’s got a penny

No money to spend
No one to lend
A penny on our note
All of us busted
No one trusted
To lead a billy goat

Everybody knows
We have no clothes
Our children unerfed
So tell us quick
What stunt or trick

We’ll pull to get some bread
_______
"Dope" was Daffron's term for medicine. Bankhead alludes to one of the New Deal's programs. It paid farmers to not plant some acreage in an effort to raise commodity prices.

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  Speech Written by Daughter of Tenant Farmer Let's begin here. Spring 1927. The young woman is a junior, probably rising senior. Her subject:  Her speech. I invite you to read the photographs of the written remarks. I am including some paraphrasing mostly as a way of getting the student's intent recognised publicly. I think that is what she would want. It is a privilege I speak to you on a subject of universal concern I am certain that everybody is in favor of good education Our system has made progress but education is still feeble because of inadequate funding. Alabama is a wealthy state. It can afford to better support education. Education is a state responsibility because we are a democracy and in a democracy the people should be educated Our writer notes that Alabama is ahead of other states in terms of laws and regulations regarding public education. But other states are far ahead in terms of financing education.  More to follow....
Read more

Tenant Farming

Image
Tenant Farming I was reminded of my mother's family's background this weekend when we visited the Southern Tenant Farmers Union Museum in Tyronza Arkansas. They, the family of Will and Jessie Daffron, moved about central and northern Alabama farming lands as they went. They had no union. They often struggled and they moved regularly.  I wish they had had a union. They had the close-knit family, but I mean something more than that. Such as  My Granddaddy Daffron wrote all his life. Here is something that has come down to me in typescript (one of the daughters began typing up Granddaddy's "poems" years later and unless somebody else in the family has the original handwritten copy then I am afraid it has disappeared.)  I will date it to 1934 because of the reference to the Bankhead law.  And by the way, "dope" was a term that Granddaddy used for "medicine".   The Hayseeder’s Lament By Will Daffron, Millport Alabama What do you think  About the gin
Read more

THIS IS WHAT MY FATHER SAID OF DYING

  My father, Julius Page Allen, was a man of few words. Maybe as a consequence, I remember many of the things that he said.  He said to me one day, "I just want to wake up dead."  That is a marvelous attitude, thinking on arrival at that moment without thinking about suffering or guilt or any of the other things that often accompany dying.  He had watched many people die. He knew. He knew that dying could come as the conclusion of a long days of suffering and insufferable visits from relatives who check in on you to see if you are dead yet.  As it happens, he woke up on the day of his death. He had a nice breakfast. I think he did a reasonably good job of running a Norelco around his chin. "I'm ready for a nap." He liked a good nap and took one as often as he could.  At any rate, he lay down. I hope he went to sleep. He did not get up. 
Read more