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1952 Impression
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Millett, South Carolina By Connie Black, 1952 (Age 15, high school sophomore, New York City. English class assignment: to write a ‘place study’)
Millett – a small town known only to its residents and a few visitors. One could hardly call it a town but there is no such word for a place of such small inhabitancy. As you drive along the highways in South Carolina – Route 301 in particular – there are very few houses along the road. When the road runs along the railroad for a few miles, every mile or so a small railroad depot stands lonely and deserted waiting for the C&WC (Charleston & Western Carolina) that comes along twice a day to deliver mail and, two or three times a week, a passenger. Millett isn’t on the highway but the railroad passes down the center of this rural intersection. With a population of about fifty – cows included – Millett is a tiny place. The men, when they aren’t driving around the countryside, sit on the porch of the little general store surveying the surroundings and talk of what is happening in Allendale – the nearest town of size, sixteen miles away.
Dogs run about everywhere – thin, bony hounds, nourished mostly on chicken and fish bones. Little boys, clad in torn, dirty dungarees run shouting and laughing up and down the roads. There are only two roads in Millett – one on either side of the tracks. Both are sandy, and it takes a skillful driver, or a slow one, to maneuver a car in and out of the deep beds of sand. The little boys – and sometimes girls – are dirty from head to toe. An old thin hound gazes wisely, and then strolls across the tracks to see if anything interesting is going on over there. Very little of interest happens in Millett; but recently the Savannah River Plant for the Hydrogen Bomb has taken over some two-hundred and fifty-thousand acres of land, the boundary of which is five miles from Millett. It has made quite a bit of excitement around the neighborhood and people from all over the United States – people working for the government – have been seeking rooms for rent in Millett. Soon many new houses will be built and Millett will thrive.
The people of Millett aren’t highly educated, but most have gone through high school and know as much as any. My Aunt Leize was a school teacher and her Aunt Kate was too. All the children had good examples and encouragement in education.
Walking along the path that my grandfather trod many times a day for many, many years, I wondered what it would be like to have lived with Granddaddy. A tumble bug – more commonly known as the scarab – suddenly startled me as I walked along, crushing the soft, dry pine needles with my bare feet. The tumble bug was doing his daily task of pushing a little ball of manure down Granddaddy’s path. Carefully avoiding crushing him, I went down the path, crossed the road and went to Uncle Jack’s store. The men stopped their meditation, their conversation, their card game and their ‘drinkin’ dope’ (Coca Cola) and started teasing me mildly about being a city slicker. I took it good naturedly and when they had had enough and couldn’t think of anything more to say, I went and played in the hay on the station platform with the section manager’s children. They were always nice to me but I felt different from them and envied their living in the country. At night when I got home I usually found three or four ticks on my shirt, and Mom made me scrub myself as if I had been wallowing in the mud all day.
As I walked down the sandy road to Aunt Leize’s driveway, my bare feet made little patterns in the hot sand. The driveway, shaded by giant, flowing magnolia trees, was cool and still. A warm, dusty odor filled the air no matter where I was – except by the creek a few miles away. When Daddy woke up from his afternoon nap he took me, and sometimes the section manager’s kids, to the creek. The water was icy cold and the old rotted cabin that everyone dressed in held the sweet smell of cold water on a hot afternoon. The floor in the cabin was made of a few boards, placed so that if you didn’t watch your step you would be standing in a yellow jackets’ nest. Dirt-daubers buzzed around within inches of my head whenever I went in. I could never stay in the water very long, for it took all my strength to keep from being carried downstream and I was usually shivering by the time I came out anyway. Once when I swam across the creek and hopped out of the water onto the bank, I suddenly saw an enormous copperhead with a tadpole’s tail sticking out of its mouth. I quickly jumped back into the water and swam to the other side. Various animals are seen in and around the creek. It was shortly after the copperhead incident that we smelled a most indescribable odor – something obviously dead. After a bit of searching Daddy found a dead alligator stuck on a log downstream a few yards. Some fishermen had shot it and on its journey downstream, it had been caught on the log. For several days no one swam in the creek because of the smell and after the ‘gator had loosed itself signs of life began appearing around the creek once more.
On the way home Dad often stopped at Jimmy’s watermelon field and cut eight or nine melons off the vine. We took them home in the trunk of the car and when we got home we busted them on the ground, ate out the hearts, and gave the rest to Aunt Leize’s hogs.
Three or four time a year someone in Millett gives a barbecue. All the friends, aunts, uncles, cousins, and so-forth, gather together in the back yard around the long table and help themselves to browned crisp meat that some poor unfortunate hog has had to give his life for. The preparation for a barbecue is something that takes about a week. A pit is dug, then the hog selected. Then some man without a job is found to shoot the hog, clean it, and attend to the cooking. The hog is shot between the eyes and slit down the middle to be cleaned. Gallons of water are thrown at the hog after he has been strung up, to wash off the excess blood. It’s not a pleasant sight to watch if you have a weak stomach, but it is very interesting.
I remember once spending hours in the yard, asking old Albert questions about what happened next. And at the barbecue the next day I got a piece of that savory meat, doused in vinegar and lemon. The women chattered away about the usual things – the prices, their families, and at that time, the war. I wasn’t a woman then, so I went off with old Albert’s kids and played with Aunt Leize’s calf, and ate most of the figs off her tree.
Little George brought his horse over the next day and with me riding behind the saddle we took off to the river, down to the landing, Little Hell. On the way down we stopped at Uncle Peter’s – the old colored man – and I watched him make cane syrup in a huge pot in the yard. Peter showed me around his house that my Grandmama used to live in, the room she died in, the stove she used to cook over. The people in Millett love the memories of their distinguished ancestors, and Peter, knowing how Daddy loves to talk of his family, assumed that I would too.
I wandered around the old house, which was bare of paint. The high ceilings gave the house an empty look, and Peter’s scant belongings barely filled two of the four large rooms.
At the river we tied Sam, the horse, and George took up his bamboo pole and prepared to catch nothing. I waded along the banks of the Savannah River, squeezing the mud from the red clay between my toes. Across the span of red water a lonely billy goat wandered among the trees on the other side. That part of the river isn’t used any more except for fishermen who try to make a living from the ill-profiting river. The old river boats had once gone gliding around the hairpin curve, and many of them had got stuck on the underwater shoals. So a straight piece had been dug through on the Georgia side, leaving the small island in the center for the little billy goat to wander peacefully at his leisure.
Several times I played hide and seek in the cotton fields behind the section manager’s tiny house. A lonely tree stood in the middle of the field – we always used that for home base – and we would stay out there for hours running after each other. Then Lillie Mae’s and John Henry’s mother would call and I would have to go home.
At night, after dinner, my parents, my aunt and I sat out on the porch listening to the still night. Far away, to the left a hound howled and then far away to the right a hound answered. One night while we were getting drowsy on the porch but managing to stay awake by slapping mosquitoes, beautiful music, hymns as if from heaven, floated over the treetops and added to the lullaby tones of the night. The colored church was having a service and such singing can never be equaled. Nothing is as beautiful, convincing, or sincere as a black man with his heart in his voice, singing to God. The spirituals are so moving. Even one who doesn’t care for music, could stay, paying no heed to the mosquitoes, listening to the clear tones of those voices. They need no accompaniment. Their voices carry all.
This is Millett, a little rural crossroad of friendship and tranquility. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fifty year postscript....
With the wisdom of a 15 year old, the perspective of a city kid -- and probably some degree of snobbery -- I was wrong to have said that the people of Millett were 'not highly educated!' My Aunt Leize Black and her Aunt Kate Kirkland both taught at the country schoolhouse in Millett. Both were patient task masters! After elementary classes with these teachers, children attended high school in Allendale about 17 miles away. Most managed to get a higher education, even during the Depression years, and went on to careers elsewhere. Education was an acknowledged, important element toward future success. Millett was where I read "Anna Karenina" from my Aunt Cornelia's bookshelf!
Earlier generations had lived with relatives in larger towns for high school. My father attended Emory Academy in Oxford, Ga., for a short time to prepare for entrance to the University of South Carolina, then went to New York to teach biology at New York University. Finding university life too cut-throat, he worked his way through NYU Law School to prepare for a career "where you're supposed to act like that!" He taught himself stenography and worked for the NY Central Railroad while studying law. (Which is how I became the Yankee cousin!)
While the Savannah River Plant caused a period of increase in activity and population, this development turned out to be a huge boondoggle and cut off Millett from mainstream traffic and activity with the closing of the highway to Augusta, Ga., the closest large commercial center. Enormous corporations now grow trees on much of the surrounding area for paper production; few live in Millett.
Now we gather to pay respects to our forebears and an occasional funeral in the cemetery at Speedwell Methodist Church; we dine at a local Allendale or Barnwell eatery or picnic on the grounds at the annual 'Five Family Reunion' at Mizpah Methodist Church in Olar, SC. All have roots in the Millett area.
Going to Millett still feels a bit like a travel in time!
For a great picture of rural southern life in the 1920s, read "Run with the Horsemen", by Ferrol Sams, (Peachtree Publishers, 1982; Penguin, 1984). Family members who grew up in the area say this book describes quite accurately their childhoods in Millett with great warmth and humor.
Connie Black Engle, 2004
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