The Outhouse

BY BILLY SNEAD

I am a fiscal conservative born in 1935 in the middle of the Great Depression. Of course I never knew what a depression was then, but I knew it wasn't good because my folks talked about it all the time in tones of utter despair.

"Eat all on your plate," my Momma would say to me. "People are starving in Armenia."

Now I didn't know what or where Armenia was either, but it must have been a long way away because I didn't see a lot of skinny people in my neighborhood.

But my folks did know what a depression was, and they lived their lives like another one was coming, and sometimes, it seemed to me, were almost disappointed that one didn't.

My daddy was a bricklayer and he brought home from the job every piece of discarded construction trash that he could get in his car.

"They were just going to throw this away," he would say.

I just wanted to ask, "What, those brickbats and broken 2x4s?" But I didn't.

My Momma, to this day, will turn an empty milk carton upside down in a glass and let every last drop drain overnight.

"It's enough for my coffee in the morning," she says, conservatively.

Well, I lived in this type of conservative atmosphere long enough for me to learn and adopt, through some sort of economic osmosis, its principles.

Which leads me to the story of a certain unpleasant event that occurred when I was a boy.

My father's father, Pop, had a farm off of West Broad Street just behind what is now The Boy's Home. My Daddy and his brothers were raised there. We all referred to it as "the country," and most warm Sundays after church we would jump in Daddy's '39 Chrysler and head for the country.

Pop lived in one half of the farm house during the summer months and lived with us at Stafford-On-Alley during the winter.

He rented the other half of the farm house and the cleared farm land to a tenant truck farmer and his family. I loved that family, and indeed, the farm itself.

Pop's side of the house was only one story while the other bigger side had an upstairs attic bedroom. The house had no electricity and no running water, only a well in the yard with a cast iron pump.

The tenant family consisted of the old German father, his much younger wife, and two boys and two girls, all close in age to me. I learned the ways of farm life from them, most of the time, the hard way.

Now out the back doors of the farm house there was a yard about 20 yards wide, and then, from the left, a two bay wagon shed and tool house, a canning house, and a hen house. Behind the shed stood the outhouse.

It was years later (probably 50) before I heard the term, "free-range chicken." It refers to chickens raised on a farm and allowed to roam anywhere they please all day before retiring on their own, to the hen house at dusk. Their free range restricted human range, as we tried to avoid the droppings, but invariably would find ourselves looking for a grassy spot to wipe it away from our toes from which it always seemed to ooze.

But back to the outhouse. How many times have you seen comic drawings of outhouses, most of them with crescent or half moons cut into the doors?

I do not know the derivation or meaning of the moons unless they were there for ventilation which believe me, they all needed.

Our outhouse had an old horseshoe on the door. I don't know that meaning either, unless it was for good luck.

I have never seen an outhouse built, but I have seen one moved.

First, you pick up the house and move it a few feet away. Then, you simply dig a deep square hole slightly smaller than the perimeter of the structure, filling the remainder of the old hole with the dug dirt. And then, you move the house over the new hole. When the new hole gets full, the above procedure is repeated.

This outhouse was rather square with a simple bench in back and an ample hole cut into the bench. The roof was tar paper over wood and slanted towards the rear. None of it was painted.

It was easy to see where the outhouse had formerly sat by the lush patch of beanstalk height weeds. The outhouse was used by males for sitting only.

Anything we could do standing, was done behind a tree or shrub or just about anywhere if no one was around.

Females were excepted and had both options.

About once a week, they would throw lime down the hole. I don't understand the chemistry that took place, but it did seem to help with the smell. It was like a dry flush. And that was the way of the farm.

In the summer of 1944 about a month after D-day, I was invited to spend a week on the farm living with the tenants. I was as excited as I could be.

Momma packed a small suitcase and bade me to take notice of two brand new pair of fruit-of-the-loom underpants that she had put inside, admonishing me to make sure that I "wiped good."

It was Sunday and we took off for the country.

That week, or at least part of it, was one of the happiest times of my life.

When we arrived, the farm mother took my suitcase and placed it under her bed telling me to get clean clothes whenever I needed them and put my dirty clothes on the bottom.

Since Sunday was not a farm work day, the four children and I took off for the creek to play. The oldest boy, Sonny, crawled from the edge of the woods to the watermelon patch and plucked a nice ripe one, and laid it in the creek to cool. It became a later feast.

Monday morning started the work week and it was right in the middle of the tomato harvest. We all picked all day and after dinner, we would flop into bed. There wasn't much time for play, but we managed that little time well, throwing rotted tomatoes or dirt clods at each other when the adults weren't looking.

Wednesday morning came and I was told to change my clothes, as the ones I had worn all week were filthy.

That morning we were digging potatoes. There was a sleigh-like cart that was called a drag, which was hitched to "Fly Mule," (a name he inherited for the big black flies that always lighted on his back) and we would carry the potatoes to the drag.

When it was filled, the old man would prompt Fly Mule to haul his load to the packing shed.

Sometime before lunch, my stomach started to rumble, and I felt consumed with gas. Now, since I was eating at the old man's table, all this work I was doing was only paying the rent.

I was expected to work just like that rest of the clan and that didn't include many breaks; so since it was close to lunch, I thought I could last.

But the rumbles and the gas got worse and I knew I had to go and with some dispatch.

I stood without speaking and started on a deliberate pace in the direction of the outhouse. Now my pace quickened as I walked two steps and trotted two steps and walked two steps and trotted five steps on past the fields.

Now I was approaching the backyard in a dead run and hoping that the horseshoe on the outhouse door meant what I had guessed, luck. I needed it.

I was in the yard, but now I had stopped running and was just walking real fast with my right hand pressing firmly on my butt like that would really matter. As I passed the well, I exploded and pulled to a stop. Further hurry was no longer necessary. I then waddled the remaining distance to the outhouse with my legs stiff and spread far apart.

When I got inside the outhouse, I stood still for a while pondering my predicament. Then I just started sobbing. Flies and several bees were buzzing and flitting inside the outhouse and I guess that distracted me for a while, but I soon came to realize (maybe it was the stench) that something had to be done and I had to do it. Who else?

And so, I started, carefully taking off my shorts. They were still clean. Then, even more carefully, I took off my underwear. And as I was working them slowly down my legs, I saw that unmistakable label – Fruit-of-the-Loom.

I wanted to rip that horseshoe off the door and fling it into the woods.

I then cleaned myself off and picked up the underwear from the floor. They were a mess and I had no sink or hose to turn to. I tried wiping them out with paper, but that proved futile. You eat a lot of greens when you live on a farm.

Then, I stepped outside and found a stick. That worked better, and I went out again for more sticks. After several swipes, they were looking a little better, and then I thought of the well. I dashed out of the outhouse and ran to the well, pumped the handle up and down until water spouted out and stuck my pants under the stream.

I glanced back at the fields just in time to see the farm mother headed to the house to prepare lunch. I was out of time.

I waited until she had passed behind the corn crib and then ran into the house, into the bedroom, pulled out the suitcase, pulled up my clothes and stuck the soiled and now, soggy underwear in the bottom, rearranged my clothes on top, closed the suitcase, put it back under the bed, ran out the back door and around the other side of the house.

With heart pounding, I peeked around the corner just as she was going in the back door. Then I ran on to the outhouse, slammed the door hard and casually walked back to the house and back into the kitchen.

"You alright? Looked like you had to go real bad," she said.

"I'm alright," I said, trying to conceal my heaving chest.

And I did feel all right, in fact, I felt downright good about how I had diffused a potentially embarrassing situation.

Yeah, I felt good and not just a little bit proud, and at the age of nine!

By Saturday, I had completely forgotten about the event. We were playing in the yard around the well, when the mother came to the door and called me.

She said that my folks would be here soon to pick me up so I needed to take a bath and get dressed.

"Come on in, and I'll pick out a nice outfit for you to wear home," she said.

I was a little apprehensive at this suggestion but then I thought my clean clothes are on the top in the suitcase. She certainly won't go rummaging all the way to the bottom.

I walked into the house and followed her into the bedroom with all four of the children behind me. She reached down and pulled out my suitcase and placed it on top of the bed. She then, with her thumbs, pushed on the latches and they sprang open. I held my breath and as it turned out, it was the smart thing to do. She lifted up the top, and five sets of knees buckled!

The stench, which I had not considered, had baked up in the July heat and it was just plain awful!

She then started rummaging through my clothes until she discovered the source, which she plucked out with two fingers, holding up my underpants as far away from her nose as possible.

She said in a stern voice, "Who did this?"

She was blaming her boys! They were lying on the floor, holding their noses in riotous laughter. The girls were too!

“All of you get upstairs right now and don't get down ‘til I tell you!" she scolded.

They scurried up the stairs but it took them a while. They would laugh up two steps and down one. I can still see them.

Now, she took a closer look and I could almost hear her thoughts. "These pants don't belong to my boys and surely, they wouldn't steal his pants and do in them on purpose what he must have done in them by accident."

She knew, and she turned away from me, and I could see her retching in muted laughter. There was nothing I could do or say and so I didn't.

She walked into the kitchen and placed the pants in two paper bags and tightly rolled down the tops and then picked out an outfit for me to wear and told me to go to the well and draw my bath. With my head hanging, I went to the well and pumped the galvanized tub half full.

A few minutes later, she came out and poured a kettle of boiling water in to warm the tub up.
She handed me a towel and bar of soap and when she turned and walked back, I could see that she was still slightly retching. The window in the upstairs bedroom faced the front of the house, but I could still hear the children's laughter all the way to the well in back.

"Y’all better shut up, up there," she yelled. If I were up there, I know I would have been laughing.

My folks arrived soon after. The farm mother handed daddy my suitcase and my Momma the bag.

She spoke to them in low tones, as if I didn't know what she was telling them. The ride home was quiet except for the few times my Daddy would get to laughing so much that he would have to slow down and pull over. Momma looked straight ahead not wanting me to see her frozen grin.

Now, I didn't have to and probably shouldn't have, but I've told this story many times in the past and listeners would always snap back with, "Why didn't you just throw your underpants down the hole in the outhouse?" Well, sure. I considered that route, but that would have been wasteful and my conservatism simply would not allow that to happen.

Conservatism is why I did what I did. Those pants would last another two or three years. A man sometimes pays a terrible price for standing up for his principles.

I do wish that I had thought of the paper bags, though.