Pills, Petticoats And Plows - pocketboek

PILLS, PETTICOATS AND PLOWS CONTENTS CHAPITER PAGE I. The Country Store 19 II. Behind Battered Faces 34 III. Stove or Shady Porch 54 IV. The Walls Grow Long Paper Tails 76 V. Social Correspondents 90 VI. Ten Gross June Bugs, Assorted 109 VII. A Little Bit of Santa Glaus 124 VIII. Under the Sign of the Stud Horse 142 IX. Big Hogs Grew in Iowa 155 X. Mr. McGuffey at the Crossroads 173 XL Admiral Dewey Corsets and Bonton Petticoats . 190 XII. Gentle Jackson in a Devil of a Fix 204 XIII. The Halt, the Lame and the Bilious 222 XIV. The Farmer and His Almanac 247 XV. Death Always Came at Night 260 XVI. Heavy Goods in the Corner 275 XVII. Money Catchers 297 XVIII. An Oughts an Ought 313 Bibliography 339 Index 355 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS At the Stoveside Frontispiece FACING PAGE A Typical Country Store 40 PuUiam and Connellys Store 40 Appalachian Highland Store 41 An Aristocrat of South Carolina 41 Typical Country Store Interior 82 Country Store Post Office 82 A Little Bit of Everything 83 The Shoe Counter in a Mississippi Country Store 83 Uncle Will 118 Two Wagon Pictures 119 Ledger Sheet 160 Earles DaybookTwo December Pages 161 Two Typical Invoices Showing Wholesale Prices 198 Long Paper Tails 199 Black Draught-Wine of Cardui Calendar and Almanac ... 240 Patent Medicine Advertisements 241 A Lien Note 280 A Fertilizer Note . 281 The Author with a Part of His Source Material 318 An Oughts an Ought ... 319 PREFACE THIS is A HISTORY of the country store in the South from 1865 to 1915. It is an account of an institution which played a major role in the lives of the rural people of the region. The store was more than a place where merchandise was sold, it was, in fact, a community clearinghouse. Inthe records of the stores there is a vast amount of evidence of the part which they played in the affairs of churches, schools, lodges, banking, politics and farming. Crossroad stores frequently marked the beginnings of towns. They stood at important points on highways and railroads, and by a process of accretion villages and towns grew up about them. Sometimes these were named after the original store keepers, or were given names after larger towns in other sec tions, or the strange names which only humorous rural minds could devise. In many instances stores remained isolated with their hitching grounds worn deep by fifty years of scouring by wagon wheels, scuffling feet of mules and horses and by erosion. The old-time buildings have grown mellow with age and their peculiar smells. Today they are exciting museums of antiquated goods and merchandising methods, but in a world of haste and bustle some of them have remained placid islands of community life. Their stovesides are still forums where do mestic affairs and gossip are discussed daily, even where both merchants and their stock have undergone changes. First base ball and prize fighting rivaled politics and religion as topics of discussion later it was football and basketball. Every football team in the region has been made a championship team by ii 12 PREFACE these stovesides on Friday evenings before they went down to inglorious defeat on the playing fields on Saturday afternoon. Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini have been pounded into igno minious oblivion. Troops have been landed on the coast of France a thousand times by the strategist of the porch and stove, and long before the diplomats have finished with the peace treaty itwill be a settled matter at the crossroads. A country store does not of necessity have to be in the coun try. No southern town serving an agricultural trade is without its big general stores. Located at the busiest spots on Main Street or on The Square, they still sell nearly everything needed on a farm-They have remained interested in the busi ness of selling dry goods, guano, farm implements and food stuff, and of buying chickens, eggs, cotton, hides, furs and everything else which could be sold for a profit...