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Soil Pipe Workers

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"That is about right," remarked the son-in-law, Mr. Williams. "Papa, you might explain to her about the wages and the nature of your work." Then he remarked to me, "Papa is a moulder."

"That is right," said Mr. Smith. "Every moulder has a helper, and the helper doesn't make as much as the moulder. They pay six, seven, eight, nine, and ten dollars a day, and we get from three to four days a week. The shop has not run regular in about nine years. We used to get six days a week. In them days they urged you to work every day, six days a week, but now they don't care if you don't work. They got more men than they can work anyway. We made about five dollars a day in them days. I have made as high as four hundred dollars a month in my lifetime, but I have had to work hard for it. I have got up at two o'clock many a time and gone to work for my family. But they was worth it.

"I met this lady here, " he proudly indicated his wife, "in Cherokee County. We been married close onto fifty years. Will be fifty years in a few months now. That's a long time to live with one bad woman," he laughed. "But I'll tell you what, if she was ever to die, I wouldn't marry any more. I don't believe in no second marriages. The Lord didn't intend you to marry but once."

"Oh go on, Bill, " said his wife, slightly embarrassed.

"Well, I mean it, " he said. "We had eleven children and five of them died. We had a hard time with all those children. But they have all turned out well.

"I now have four girls and two boys, and your girls sure will do more for you than your boys. One of my boys works here at Wikle's Drug Company, and the other one is a mechanic at the CCC Camp near here. I have a daughter who is in Austin, Texas. Her husband is manager of a big creamery there"

"He is going to get a new job; did you know Papa?" Mrs. Smith said.

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