The Years of Lyndon Johnson ~ 1982 by Robert Caro The Hill Country farm wife had to haul water, and she had to haul wood. Because there was no electricity, Hill Country stoves were wood stoves. The spread of cedar brakes had given the area a plentiful supply of wood, but cedar seared bone-dry by the Hill Country sun burned so fast that the stoves seemed to devour it. A farmer would try to keep a supply of wood in the house, or, if he had sons old enough, would assign the task to them. . . They would cut down the trees, and chop them into four-foot lengths that could be stacked in cords. When wood was needed in the house, they would cut it into shorter lengths and split the pieces so they could fit into the stoves. But as with the water, these chores often fell to the women. The necessity of hauling the wood was not, however, the principal reason so many farm wives hated their wood stoves. In part, they hated these stoves because they were so hard to start up. The damper that opened into the firebox created only a small draft even on a breezy day, and on a windless day, there was no draft--because there was no electricity, of course, there was no fan to move the air in the kitchen--and a fire would flicker out time after time. With an electric stove, you just turn on a switch and you have heat, says Lucille ODonnell, but with a wood stove, a woman might have to stuff kindling and wood into the firebox over and over again. And even after the fire was lit, the stove didnt heat up in a minute, you know, Lucille ODonnell says--it might in fact take an hour. In part, farm wives hated wood stoves because they were so dirty, because the smoke from the wood blackened walls and ceilings, and ashes were always escaping through the grating, and the ash box had to be emptied twice a day--a dirty job and dirtier if, while the ashes were being carried outside, a gust of wind scattered them around inside the house. They hated the stoves because they could not be left unattended. Without devices to regulate the heat and keep the temperature steady, when the stove was being used for baking or some other cooking in which an even temperature was important, a woman would have to keep a constant watch on the fire, thrusting logs--or corncobs, which ignited quickly--into the fire box every time the heat slackened. Most of all, they hated them because they were so hot. When the big iron stove was lit, logs blazing in the firebox, flames licking at the gratings that held the pots, the whole huge mass of metal so hot that it was almost glowing, the air in the kitchen shimmered with the heat pouring out of it. In the Winter the heat was welcome, and in Spring and Fall it was bearable, but in the Hill Country, Summer would often last five months. Some time in June the temperature might climb to near ninety degrees, and would stay there, day after day, week after week, through the end of September. Day after day, week after week, the sky would be mostly empty, without a cloud as a shield from the blazing sun that beat down on the Hill Country, and on the sheet-iron or corrugated tin roofs of the box-like kitchens in the little dog-run homes that dotted its hills and valleys. No matter how hot the day, the stove had to be lit much of the time, because it had to be lit not only for meals but for baking; Hill Country wives, unable to afford store-bought bread, baked their own, an all-day task. (As Mrs. ODonnell points out, We didnt have refrigerators, you know, and without refrigeration, you just about have to start every meal from scratch.) In the Hill Country, moreover, Summer was harvest time, when a farm wife would have to cook not just for her family but for a harvesting crew--twenty or thirty men, who, working from sun to sun, expected three meals a day.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 16:01:31 +0000
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