"Anyhow, after I got that pushcart, then I begun to work harder, but more cheerfully. You know, cheerfulness is something altogether different from crabbiness. They are to one another what a sharp knife is to a dull one when it comes to whittlin'. The people around Birmingham were very pleased with me after that. There was not a one of them landowners what didn't tell me that if I needed free range eggs, go ahead and take it from their property, but they didn't want me to damage their crops none and then, of course, I remembered their womenfolk and how fast they go through them eggs."
"And my husband kept his word, which pleased them wives greatly. In the bad times there weren't no money to spend on eggs. Their men were supposed to gather them, but everyone knows how that goes, seeing how most men are over and over again too lazy to chop wood, let alone hunt for eggs."
"Many a day I would wait of word of some lazy man and how their wives were short of eggs, so that the family's peace was seriously threatened, then there I would be with my eggs before they realized it and it happened but rarely that a wife had to remind me when they was about runnin' low."
"But you got to remember, that my husband's eggs were good, real good, altogether different from what their own men normally gathered, which was cracked or old and such. Mr. Jefferson would give inferior eggs to those needy in the county. This was not just because he got the eggs for nothin' or next to nothin', but rather because of the trades which he would get in return. He got bread, milk and all sorts of things, which a wife has on hand and doesn't keep a exact account of. It was seldom that butter was churned somewhere and he wasn't told," her voice altered, "Jeremias, we'll be churning butter tomorrow. If you bring a pail, you can have some whey."
"We had more fruit than we needed and scarcely ever had to buy bread. And I was very careful with the coins I did take in."
"Ha! If he spent four nickels on days when he went into town, that was quite a lot." She held up four fingers to emphasize the correct count.
"In the morning my mother saw to it that I had a good breakfast and then I usually took something along with me. Here and there I was given something in a kitchen where I was well known, but that was rare. Finally, I come to realize that I didn't have to eat right away whenever he felt like it. Being hungry don't mean nothin' as long as I knew I'd be eatin' pretty soon."
"He used to say that being hungry just made the food taste all the better."
She looked at him as, I assumed, images of her young strong husband were recalled. I snapped a close-up of her expression.
"But to be hungry and not know when or where you were goin' to eat next, now that is painful. But I knew all too well that as soon as I got back home, I could eat as much as I wanted; my Momma seen to that. A person who knows that he will find something to eat at home don't fret much about his stomach durin' the day, but brings home an empty stomach instead, and as he fills it he enjoys the relief of being at home. Those what find nothing at home will fill up somewheres else, which cost money."
"Or bring home a head full of liquor, and don't do nothin' at home but whine and carp. I would rather have a miserly man than a drunkard," said Esther.
Her husband slowly rotated his neck so that he had a full view of his wife.
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