Did you hear any of the women complaining about prices at the company store? Do you think they were fair?
I never did hear anything said about the prices. The thing is, they just didn't hardly have any money to buy it with. They'd go to the store, and if their husband that day had loaded some cars, some coal, and they'd been weighed, then he'd have some credit in the store. They'd send that word down. They'd come in. They had what you called scrip, you know, company money. And they'd go up to the window. 'Could I get two dollars?' 'I'll let you have one dollar, maybe.'
Are you saying a woman would go to the store, to buy bacon for instance, or coffee. To buy coffee. They couldn't just figure on getting coffee. They'd have to check to see that very day how much --
See if there was any credit in the store that day.
That seems so ... I would hate to go to Kroger's store, and before I start shopping, ask somebody how much my husband worked that day to see if I could get two boxes of Cheerios or one box of Cheerios.
Well, that's what you did at the company store.
Day by day.
They'd go to the scrip office, and find out if they -- there's plenty of times they wouldn't be able to get a thing to eat. "There's no credit. He's not got any coal left." And so on. "There's no credit here." Lots of times, many times, plenty of times [inaudible] draw any money. They'd call -- what they call overdraft. They'd maybe leave owing the company something. They'd take out insurance, and what they call smithing. That's to sharpen their picks and augers, whether they need them sharpened that month or not, they'd still take the money out for it. [Inaudible]. You had to have your coal and everything, your Monabell, your shooting stuff, you bought --
What was that?
Monabell, they call it. That's what you shoot coal with. That was the old mining.
Like little bits of dynamite?
Like dynamite, same thing, except little.
Could you spell it? Monabell?
I found one of those old coins, that says 'Monabell' coins. I think I can find it for you in a few minutes. I'll get it for you. I'll give it to you, if you want. That's what you got to give to get the Monabell with. Sold you the sticks. Of course, a little later on, after I went to work, they didn't do so much of the hand loading. Some sections did, but then they were mostly starting with the machinery and mechanical loading.
But you're saying that half a shift's gone -- say it's noon. Half a shift's gone, and the check layman has picked a few checks off of coal cars. Say your coal car -- or say your dad's coal car. Somehow he'd report that down to the story at one o'clock, and your mom could go down there at one thirty, and she could only get the four hours worth, or the four loads of coal worth of groceries?
Well, whatever amount it added up to. Maybe not even get that much out of coal. Maybe those four car loads of coal -- [inaudible] might be but two or three dollars clear, maybe a couple dollars clear. You know, maybe not even that. Maybe he already owed for it, when you take out for all the different overheads, you know, you might say.
So a smithy overhead, even though a person's auger tools might not need it done?
Might not need sharpening that ...
Couldn't a miner sharpen his own tools anyway?
Yep. You still had to pay for it. They'd treat you just the same. My dad did do that. We had a blacksmith's shop, my dad sharpened his own tools.
[Recording interrupted]
You're saying your dad had a blacksmith's shop, and would sharpen tools for other people. Would he charge other people?
No, he didn't charge them. He would do a good job. In other words, he could sharpen these augers [inaudible] the coal with them. Seemed like the [mine's] blacksmiths really didn't care or wasn't very good at it. It'd be hard -- they wouldn't sharpen them with the right turn, they wouldn't cut the coal real good.
You mean the company one, blacksmiths?
Uh-huh. He'd sharpen a lot of fella's augers just as friendship. Out of friendship for them. He was good at it, he could make them good.
Now he's a miner, living in a town, but he has hogs on the hill and --
No, we had the hogs on out of the corporation now. We couldn't have them inside the corporation.
Oh.
But the corporation reached right down here, the town did. We had a cousin. My cousin lived on down there, so we could raise hogs down on his property. But we did have cattle. We had cows.
In the corporation land?
Uh-huh.
And the blacksmith place -- I know it wasn't a shop, it couldn't be a big shop.
A little room in a barn. [Inaudible] He had the tools and so forth.
Now that's a favor, sharpening somebody's augers and stuff. Did anybody in town do any kind of favor for him in turn?
Not that I ever remember.
But if somebody mining a lot of coal, and not well off, but maybe comfortable, would he maybe take a little money to sharpen their auger?
I never did know him charging any money to sharpen his auger. I never did.
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