11

10.

"Yes, mam, I've worked for some mighty fine people. The
Athens construction concern that built the silk mill in Elberton
paid me a dollar an hour in addition to my room and board while we
were working on that building, and when that job was finished that
same contractor put me to work here in Athens on a building he was
putting up on Clayton Street. That building caved in, killing two
workmen. I was bruised a little, but not serious. Understand me
now, that cave-in was not the fault of the contractor. His work
never gave way till the ground way down under the building caved in,
and that was what caused the destruction. The contractor couldn't
help it.

"Those days and times, I averaged about four hundred
dollars a year. The last bit of work that I was on that was enough
to be called a job paid me $4 for an 8-hour day. The bricklayers on
those PWA jobs are getting $10 a day now, I finished up my last
job last Monday, and, as I told you when you first got here, I've
got an appointment at 4 o'clock to see a man about work. I sure
hope to get it.

"I never made a regular practice of taking my family with
me when I was going from place to place to work for the reason they
were better off at home than moving about so much. And then too,
you know a man can live where he wouldn't have his wife and daughter
go sometimes. I made it a rule to send at least $40 a week home to
my wife every week I was away, and she saved what she didn't have to
spend on herself and the children. Before I got hurt, we had quite
a nice little sum of money saved up, but it ain't that way any more.

1868