Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
Person Interviewed: Mose Evans
Home: 451 Walnut
Aged: 76
Radios from half a dozen houses blared out on the afternoon air. Ben[TR:?] Winslow was popular but ran a poor second to jazz bands in which moaning trombones predominated.
At one or two houses a knock or jangling bell had roused nobody. "They's all off at work," a neighbor usually volunteered. But in this block of comfortable cottages fronting on the paved section of Walnut evidently there were a goodly number of stay-at-homes. A mild prosperity seemed to pervade everything. The Walnut section is in the "old part of town". Some of the houses had evidently been built during the 90s; but they were well kept up and painted.
There was evidence here and there of former dependence on wells for water. One or two had been simply boarded over. One, a front yard affair had been ingeniously converted into a huge flower pot. The well had been filled in, its circular brick walls covered with a thick layer of cement. Into this, while still damp, had been pressed crystals. Even in January the vessel bore evidence of summer blooming.
"PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD" admonished the electrified box sign attatched to the front porch of one dwelling. Its border was of black wood. The sign itself was of white frosted glass. Letters of the slogan were in scarlet.
Next doer was another religious reminder. It was a modest pasteboard window card and announced Bible Study at 2: P.M. daily.
Three blocks up Walnut the pavement ends. Beyond that sidewalks too, listlessly peter out. A young, but enthusiastically growing ditch is beginning to separate path from street. Houses begin to take on a more dilapidated appearance. They lean uncertainly.
A colored woman stops to stare at the white one, plants herself directly in the stranger's path and demands, "Is you the investigator? No? Well who is you looking for? Oh, Mose, he's at his son's. Good thing I stopped you. Cause you would have gone too far. He's at his son's. His grandson just done had his tonsils out. He's over there."