The Higgins are a regular mountain family for the 1950s…6 young uns and a ma and pa. Their house is a wooden 2 story with two fireplaces. The kitchen and living room and the parents’ rooms are downstairs and the kids all sleep upstairs. It is a fairly big house for the mountains, but their daddy had a good coal mining job for about 20 years. There was no electricity or running water, except when someone used the pump at the kitchen sink. It was a hand pump. They always left a cup of water beside the sink just in case they needed to prime the pump.
The day after the big disaster, John Joseph took his gun and went huntin for deer. Their family needed meat and they wanted to take some food to Donna Ann and her young uns. They would be needin help with her husband gone. That is the way of the mountain folk. They take care of their own, their neighbors.
Timmy John brought up the cream from the springhouse where it had kept cold from the cold water stream. The stream ran right under the spring house. It was a cute little house about five feet by five feet. He also brought up the butter churn. A butter churn is a container with a tight fitting lid and a pole through the middle of the lid. It stands about two and a half feet high. Karen Lynn sat down on her stool and as soon as Timmy John poured the cream into the container and replaced the lid, Karen Lynn began gently plunging the pole up and down, over and over. Once it started getting more difficult to plunge, Karen knew it wouldn’t be long before the butter was ready.
Meanwhile, Carl Ray was filling up the two big cauldrons with water and then built a fire under them to make hot water for washing the laundry. Their mama and Hattie Mae gathered everybodies laundry and started sorting it and taking it outside. Cora Sue who was the oldest girl at 13 had made breakfast and was now cleaning the dishes.
Earl Alfred said to his wife, “Honey, I need to go looking fer a new hidey hole to make my likker. I’d like to take Timmy John and Hattie Mae. Can you spare them fer a spell?”
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“I reckon I can spare them, but should you be drivin with your leg all banged up like that?”
Lucy replied.
“Oh, I reckon I’ll be fine and it’s pretty important to get some shine started so we have some cash income comin in!” Earl said. “I got a couple of idees of places to get started. I reckon the corn will be ready in about two weeks. Where is Hattie Mae?”
Just then the door to the outhouse opened and little Hattie Mae came out. The outhouse was set out about 20 feet from the front porch and stood about 7 feet tall and was all made of unpainted wood. It had a quarter moon cut into the door of it and had a plank laid from one side of the building to the other and two big holes cut into it where two people could do their business. There was a Sears Roebuck catalog sitting between the two seats. That was their toilet paper. They would tear out a page and rub it against itself until it was soft. It was a mite softer than using a corn cob, which was used when they ran out of catalog pages. Hattie Mae went over to the wash bowl set on a little side table by the front door. “ We got black widers makin a home in the outhouse,” little Hattie Mae told her pa.
Earl grabbed his spray and limped over to the outhouse, opened the door, pinpointed the spider and sprayed it. “Spiders are great fur catchin bugs, but those black widers are nothin to play around with. Nobody wants to git bit by them!” Earl said. “ Hattie Mae, go fetch yore brother, Timmy John and jump in the truck. We’re goin fur a ride.”
To tell the truth, Earl was pretty excited about his change in career. It would be good to say good-bye to the mines, being cooped up underground. Sure he knew the risks of makin moonshine: the still could blow up, killin a man or revenooers could bust up an operation, spillin the likker, or he could go to prison. He also had to be careful not to step on anyone’s toes, gettin his customers. The code of the mountains said that you don’t take another man’s shine customers.