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Another version of "The Piano Salesman," entitled "Just a Traveling, Rambling Man That Settled Down in Athens Town," can be found on pages 13535-13547.
Names and places as they appear in "The Piano Salesman"
his employers Boswell sisters Mary college plantations in Alabama Susan James Brewer "moved out to the west side of Texas somewhere" Uncle Reuben west Texas one of mother's nieces a noted criminal lawyer my cousin Abe Solomon Miss Mary Smith John Johnson the miller Solomon's millpond Matthew Marfa the proprietor partners "I met the girl I married"
"moved their home office to another city" one of the other men the same employers
Names and Places as they appear in "Just a Traveling, Rambling Man That Settled Down in Athens Town
Flanigan and Flanigan Stillwell sisters Virginia Alabama State College Freedonia, Alabama Sallie John Christian
Gilmer, Texas Uncle Putty Gilmer, Texas Mrs. J.W. Cranford Mr. J.W. Cranford cousin John Sol Ward Miss Corrie Griffin Ben Tillman Frank Hagood Ward's Mill Marcus Coleman Will Griffin Flanigan and Flanigan "The met the girl I married in Auburn"
Winder, Georgia Mr. J.W. Foster Flanigan and Flanigan
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Interesting but mostly anecdotal W C " E.C.
January 4, 1939 Fred Trammell (white) 279 Yonah Avenue Athens, Georgia Salesman (Musical Instruments) C.F.
THE PIANO SALESMAN
Frank Hamilton and his wife were sitting in their cozy living room when I walked in. He was, as usual, smoking a cigar. Mrs. Hamilton says that he is never without a cigar, that it's between his teeth all day except when he is eating. She declares that he invariably puts a cigar in his mouth before he dons his trousers every morning.
The man of this house is an expert at the art of relaxation. He leans back in his comfortable chair and apparently becomes lost in dreams as the clouds of fragrant smoke envelop him. His wife's days are spent in employment downtown, and when evening comes, cooking, housework, sewing, and all the chores of the homemaker consume her time. When she sits down her fingers are apt to be busily employed at sewing of some kind.
As is often the case with persons who can concentrate successfully on relaxing, Mr. Hamilton puts as much concentration on industry, when he is working. He is a piano salesman and collects the weekly and monthly payments on pianos and other musical instruments sold by his employers in this territory. Much of his spare time is taken up with work on musical instruments and practicing
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on them, and when he has the time to be around the house it is amazing how much he finds to do to lighten his wife's housework.
"Where's the Chinese checker board?" my host inquired. We have played together so much that the couple associated my appearance with a desire to play checkers. This time I surprised them. Handing him a cigar - a sure method of gaining his interest - I informed Mr. Hamilton that I had left the game board at home because this visit was for the express purpose of hearing him talk.
"My very especial and favorite hobby is talking," he smilingly declared, "and what more interesting subject can you give a man than himself?
"I'll bet I can tell you something different from anything you've picked up yet. My father and two of his brothers married three of the Boswell sisters. Mother's name was Mary, and when she graduated from college her father's gift to her was an $1,800 Mathushek piano. Sister Emma has that piano now in Columbia, S.C. Didn't you see it when you were up there? It's nearly a hundred years old and those old ivory keys are yellow as gold now. Of course it had been in use more than 50 years when grandfather gave it to mother, but it was one grand instrument and still is.
"Grandfather and his brothers bought adjoining plantations in Alabama. They had ever so many slaves, but they were freed by the war Between the States, and that meant a great money loss to our family, for they had such heavy investments in slaves.
"One of my mother's brothers was a lieutenant on the southern
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side and was killed at the Battle of New Orleans. Mother's sister, Susan, married James Brewer and moved out to the west side of Texas somewhere. About the time the war was over one of our uncles took his slaves, 30 of them, and 8 yoke of oxen and went to Dangerfield, Texas, where he captured the local Mexicans and settled that Place. He named it right. Those were dangerous days.
"Grandfather had twenty grandchildren and for twenty years there was not a death in the family, but when they commenced dying they died out as fast as pigs with the cholera.
"In my childhood my family still had lots of cattle. There was a deaf mute negro boy about six years older than I was that helped me tend those cows. We had to turn them out to pasture every day. Every herd had one bell cow, and listening to the tinkle of the bell made it easer to keep up with the cows. One day after me and the Negro turned out the cattle, we were having lots of fun killing lizards, and that crazy deaf mute got mad and knocked me in the head with a big rock. I thought he was going to kill me. I didn't know then, and I don't to this day know what he was mad about, but I fought manfully for my life. Fighting was not allowed on our place and dad settled with me plenty, and he did the same for that Negro and then brought the cattle home himself that day.
"Another time me and that same deaf mute Negro were thumping watermelons in Uncle Reuben's patch, trying our best to find a big ripe one. That was as fine a watermelon patch as anyone ever did see, and it had a tempting looking grape arbor right in the middle that
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made a good place for uncle to hide when he suspected that his melons were being stolen. While we were in the midst of our search for a good melon I heard a gun go off, and it was entirely too close for my peace of mind. You should have seen me run across that field. The Negro couldn't hear and uncle came out where he was, laughing about my franctic running. He gave that Negro a whole load of watermelons.
"When we cut the sugarcane and made up the syrup, two barrels of the thickest-cooked syrup were put away to turn to sugar. That's how we got our brown sugar, and for a good many years folks in our section didn't have much sugar except this home-made brown variety.
"I grew up wanting to go west, so soon as I was big enough to be trusted to leave home I visited our kinfolks at Dangerfield and in west Texas. While I was out there I was invited to a fish fry on the river near Dangerfield. Stores didn't keep bathing suits for sale then. Each girl in a party had to make a suit for one boy. I jumped off a rock into the river and was trying to swim across to the other side of the river. I did not realize the danger, for I didn't know that the river was very swift at this place, particularly so on this day for there had just been some heavy rains further up the river. I was carried on down the river by the swift current. I held on to some willows that I grabbed when the rushing water took me near the shore, and soon the boys threw me a rope and pulled me out.
"When I left home I had strict instructions not to come back from Texas without visiting one of mother's nieces who had married a
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