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Peddlin’ at the mill villages In the late 1940s and 1950s, we took veggies, milk, butter, buttermilk and live chickens to mill villages. My grandfather went, “peddlin’” two times a week. He was not well so I would go along and carry what he told me to take to certain homes in the mill villages. Granddaddy drove a T-model Ford. On the back he had a chicken coop fastened on the bumper. The patrons would come out and pick out a live chicken, and Granddaddy would take it out of the coop and put its head under its wing, and he would shake it to sleep, so he could weigh it on his scales. They were sold by the pound. On Saturdays it took all day to make our rounds. By the time we got home we were tired and hungry. Grandmother would have a big supper ready for us: fried apple pies, chicken and dumplin’s, green beans and hot biscuits with lots of homemade butter which she had washed and spanked and pressed into a butter mold with a design on top. Homemade molasses stirred up with butter topped off the meal. Carolyn Robinson Kiser | Crouse |
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