isa-normaladvance-1909-00241

Description: THE NORMAL ADVANCE241looking, with sandy beard, answered to thename Daniel. Daniel was crippled, one ofhis hands having been terribly mutilated by thesaw in a saw-mill. We spoke feelingly abouthis misfortune and he immediately became verytalkative and told us all about the dump and itsI dont give a goldern if you do take my picture.inhabitants, which was about as follows:Yes, I got careless in off-bearing some slabsat the saw-mill, and this is what I got, and heshowed us his torn hand. Got that in Januaryand haint been able to do nothin much since.Yes, been on the dump since I got well. Cantdo much else. How much can you make aweek here, anyway? we asked. Oh, thewomen folks can make about three to three anda half dollars a week, but us men folks can onlymake about two and two and a half. You see,us men folks wont crowd the women out
wealters let them have the best in the dump. Inever would crowd a woman. Neither wouldI, said Dutch, as he squirted a quart of tobacco juice at one of the red tongues of fire.Well, how do you make that much? Oh, wepick up old broken white glass and sell it overto town for ten cents a hundred, and then wegather up the rags, paper, bottles and suchthings as is dumped. What do you do withthose vegetables? we asked. This was a prettystrong question, but he sidestepped it with thereply: The women just gather up the speckedpotatoes so they kin sell em over to town. Butthe lately photographed woman came over withthe desired answer, in a rebuke to him, Ohyou dern fool, you know we eat em. Why, weget lots o good stuff out this dump. Daniellaughed sickly, and then admitted that they dideat the best potatoes. The girl looked at us,grinned, and said: Didnt you see me eat thatcelery? Its good. We said we guessed thatthere was nothing wrong in living that way,and turned our questions in another direction.What rent do you people have to pay for yourhouses here in Taylorville? Here Dutchspoke up: We poor people of the dump generally pay about seven to eight dollars a monthfor a house. Thats cheaper than you can getone for in the city. After asking a few morequestions we bade them adieu and passed further into the dump seeking new adventures, butas we left, Daniel called after us: You boyswant to come over here about three oclock Saturday afternoon and take some pictures. Theresabout thirty women on the dump then. Wesaid maybe we would.Up High and Dry.As we walked along the dump remarkingabout the stench which was beginning to becomenoticeable with the warmer days of spring, wecame to a place where two little boys, agedabout eight and ten years, were busy picking
Source: http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/34271
Collection: Indiana State University Archives

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