CENSUS TAKER

CENSUS TAKER

SUNDAY AFTERNOON ROCKING

The census taker just got home and is talking to his wife;

“ I sure am glad to be home, that I am, what a day. Another day like today and I am jst going to sit here at the kitchen table and fill out these forms from last years memories and be done with it.

Put these socks next to the stove to dry out, please.

Went yonder this morrning and everyone from house 451 to 486 was gone. A big shindig

down that away, I guess. The folks in house 441 were helpful and told me who they all is.

Do you reckon you could go over the writin on this here page. It got a litt;e smeared in the raim. The folks down in the holler was suspicious of a census, and they had a point. What is the

difference who we is and where we is, are the Washington people going to come visit us? They

finally gave me their last name and first initial and I think they was playing with me about the

other people of the household. Saw a lot of winkin going on.

Next I went up the river and tried to get done afore it came on a downpour, but the ole man Jenkins cur dog run me off. Luckly a man down the road knew Jenkins was nigh on sixty and was livin there with his woman with five youngens of his first wife and a passel from the second. We gave them all good Christian names.

I tell you, I ruther fight the British than mess with that feller on the ridge, he got his shot gun as sone as he seen me acomin, so I went t'other direction. Had Jones tell me about him but he don't know his first name, they call him “Squirrel” , and nobody around here claims him as any relationship.

Then I got to Smiths. Hoss was in a fit, his wife was havin a baby right there in the kitchen and he could not tell me how many kids he had, but, Miz Hart helped me straightten that household out.

He had had a young un every year for the past ten, so we are close.

Next census time I an nowhere to be found, farmin is easier, and there are others here that can

cipher this mess.

Pass me another tater, will you? “

SOURCE: Sunday Afternoon Rocking; Jean Dalrymple, rootsweb.com : abstract : iinniblogspot.com