\ Achievement \ TJtC HicJtTHOtld PldflCt \ Features \
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-- - ~ " ~ ' ' Pictures in the Illustrated Feature Section weer posed, BEN DAMS. Jr.,
W B. Ziff Co.. €08 S. Dearborn St.. Chicago, TUJTSTRATED FEATURE SECTION-Jlllv 26. 1930 and do not depict principals unless so captioned. Featnre Editor
\dverti>ing Represeniaiivcs ____ ^ __ _ SZ-~~r---- -- -
PAY-DAY IS PLAYDAY AT THIS
COLORFUL TURPENTINE CAMP
Once a Month at Bear Creek Camp, Jazz and
Moonshine Reign Supreme
“Brown-skln.” the pretty belle of Bear Creek Camp.
By EYE G. BILLINGS
LUCY Price, Slim Price’s lady friend, hummed a wan
ton tune at her house. In some mysterious manner
such unrestrained tunes spread from house to house
at a turpentine camp though no two persons sing the same
words.
“Dees Slim Price lose all las
money playing skin? Then I'm
roamin' with Ginger Linn." chanted
Lucy.
It was early in the morning of
pay day at Bear Creek camp. The
women - folks bad all washed the
family clothing the day befo.. at
the public washing stand and ev
erything was s 't for the big monthly
-iOWOUt.
Pay day comes but once a menta
—the first Saturday of the month,
the usual vurpentine camp pay day,
ant! as there is no money between
times it is anticipated with much
eagerness. No one person has much
money di-e on this joyous day, but
from nine tc- twelve hundred dol
lars will be released at Bear Creek
' camp which works abet t 200 men.
Nine, ten, eleven or twel/e hun
dred dollars will be quite effective
, ward jazzing up the celebration
for a day or two, ior this is as long
as it lasts. It is a sort cl commun
ity-interest day, as everybody falls
into the jazz spell, the moonshine
parties, elaborate repasts, and
heartily enjoys the general picnic.
Bear Creek camp, likt all other
turpentine towns, has a commissary
operated by the owner of the still,
and the laborers, all of whom are
colored except the main boss and
the foreman, are given trade checks
or. the commisary. This camp store
handles groceries, overalls, shirts,
and other vital necessities and the
tickets are punched as things are
bought. On pay day the balance
due is paid in cash. Goods are not
cheap at the commissary—not :n
your old-fashioned tintype—and a
man and woman with several chil
dren have to shave under the hide
if they have any coin due on pay
day.
Naturally not very much cash can
be expected, as the wages of ordi
nary labor is is $1.25 a day, or once
in a while during extra-good times,
$1.50. This is the price paid gum
chippers, tree tappers and other
common labor. Experienced still
helpers and teamsters sometimes
draw two and a half or three dollars
a day. Their number is limited.
It is no wonder, therefore, that
pay day is the bright spot of the
month—the family pot and frying
pan are 1.0'; even helped by a gar
den. The land of the pine woods
is sterile, white sand from the top
of the ground to the strata of lime
stone rock underneath—that is why
i
In a place where women chew tobacco and chant. “Bring me a drink
of red hot shine out of the bottle of dat ole man o’ mine," anything is
liable to happen. And anything does happen in this graphic account
of a monthly pleasure-mad festival.
Below is a true and vivid pic
ture of conditions in a typical
Southern turpentine camp.
The workmen in these camps
have their own unique and in
teresting code of life. This
article was prepared exclus
ively for the Illustrated Fea
ture Section.
It was never cleared into farms.
There are no gardens at Bear
Creek camp.
Bear Creek and other turpentine
camps are not collections of mts
as might be inferred—the living
quarters are dilapidated, ramshackle
box houses furnished by the owner
of the camp.
* • •
The last wages were paid about 1
o’clock in the afternoon. While it
was going on white sick-and-acci
dent insurance agents, and other
small-time installment collectors,
hung around with the tenacity of
fleas in sheepskins so they would
not miss their doles. A brown-skin
ned girl who sold cosmetics—stuff
for straightening hair, lipsticks,
rouge, cold creams and perfumes
was on the job. She had been visit
ing the camp on pay day for some
time. The men folks called her
“Brownskin.”
In the afternoon parties of men
and women, boys and girls, went to
town in trucks in use at the camp
and those who owned automobiles,
which were old and rattly, drove
themselves to town. All returned by
dark.
When the crowd came back, pow
erful “shine" came back with it.
It was made from either corn or
joint-canc syrup, or joint-cane
syrup skimmings, and had a kick
like a Missouri mule charged with
lightning. Everybody took a healthy
drink. There might have been an
?—n-- '
Murderous “Skin” and Crisscross Love Affairs
Play Havoc with Community Morals.
ither clamors could be heard all
round. The women were dressed in
their best clothes and rushed proud
ly from house to house to exhibit
them. All painted and powdered
and lipsticked. Even the old women
had their faces covered with rouge,
and frolicked around like 16-year
olds, trying to vamp the men in
order to wheedle ‘thawi out of some
of their pay day money.
Lucy Trice flirted openly with
Ginger Linn while Slim Price flirt
ed, though not quite so openly, with
“l 'rownskin.” Slim feared his
wife’s keen-cutting butcher knife.
Other men and women baited each
other in the same manner. Old
man Trouble stayed away, too. at
least in the early part of the even
ing.
Bear Creek camp has no jook
house—dance hall and gambling
dive—but the crowd always finds a
floo where it can dance to the
tunes made by Henry Robinson’s
fiddle and Sam Markham’s banjo.
The evening was brightened -till
more by a wedding—Buck Middle
ton, the boss of the camp, married
Bud Phillips and Sookie Keen by
reading a few paragraphs from the
Saturday Evening Post. No license
was necessary. The crowd wnooped
and laughed, but gave no special in
dications that anything unusual in
the wedding ceremony was noticed.
“Skin”
The big feature of pay day at
Bear Creek, as at other camps, for
the men is “skin,” a game of cards
eminently suited to men who be
lieve in jo-mo men and other forms
of voodoo manifestation. There is
Slim Price, a favorite with the
ladies, and a master of the
strange game of “skin.”
-r~i
Cleanin’ op for the monthly pay-day frolic.
exception or two but it is doubtful
no enumerator would have worn out
the point of his fountain pen tally
ng the number.
By 8 o’cloc!-, therefore, everybody
was in the seventh heaven of de
light—they were at least as high as
the tpet-tops and were eagles in
stea^oi mud-puddle ducks.
Whooping, shouting, singing and
no science in the game whatever,
except that it affords card sharps a
first-class chance to “skin” the other
players.
The game of “skin" stopped the
dance and the women drifted to
gether in groups to laugh, talk and
chew tobacco. The game was start
ed by Ginger Linn issuing a chal
lenge, “Who faces me in a game of
skin?” Slim Price answered, **I
take you up!”
Ginger had only been at the camp
for two or three weeks and had
several dollars won “skinning” at
another camp before coming to Bear
Creek and S im had money won in
th-. same way at a nearby town a
few nights before. Lucy was en«
Continued on Pate Seven