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Features and Information:
First-Person Historical Narratives
Where My Footsteps
Wandered,
by Ralph M. Bell,
Ralyn Press/Heritage Quest Press,
Orting, Washington, 1997.
***
From Chapter Fourteen:
"My Friend Pompy"
(Excerpted and printed through the kind permission
of Jay Bell, son of Ralph M. Bell)
One morning while I was exploring The Store by way of the alley behind it, an entirely different daily activity appeared, one I had overlooked. I discovered a new person, Pomp. Although I had seen him around, and I knew he worked for The Store, we two just never met under the right circumstances to get acquainted. His job was to do the things that had to be done with a wagon and a team of Percherons.
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Bell's
Store, c. 1900,
corner of 13th and Pine Street, Paso Robles
(Photo courtesy of Jay Bell.) |
There were two very large barrels in which trash was accumulated. These stood in the alley behind the grocery. Originally they had crated dishes which were shipped in huge barrels filled with straw. These dishes were dug out of this straw, put on counters or tables, inventoried, cleaned, and then stacked on shelves or displays. The barrels were taller than I was, and four or five feet wide. The ones now being used had their tops open, but their bottoms still were securely in place. Mostly the refuse was rather light material, and so they weren't as heavy as they looked. Still, they were big, and it took a strong man to handle them. Pomp was the man who did it. I came by just as he had tipped one of them slightly and started to roll it on its bottom rim toward his wagon. A mouse ran out from under it, and I made a quick effort to catch it. It got away. naturally, Pomp and I got to talking.
"Would you want to ride along with me to the City Dump?" he asked.
"Oh, yes." I could hardly say it quickly enough. I'd heard of it, but never had seen that part of town. So, after he had gotten both barrels onto the bed of the wagon, I climbed into the high seat beside him, and the horses moved forward in their usual pattern. First, they took up the slack in the harness, then both leaned forward with their chests until the wagon barely moved; next, they took a step together and we started down the alley. The massive steel-rimmed wheels rolled noisily. The wagon was rough riding, while it got started, tossing the seat from side to side as it crossed rocks and irregularities in the road. I grabbed the edge of the seat and Pomp, too.
"Jus' swing with it," he said, "it's like a hammock and always comes back to the middle."
But, the quick way he took my arm as I reached for him, and the way he really paid no attention to my momentary fright, gave me a good feeling for him. The dappled gray draft horses, once they got the wagon rolling, dragged it along with no visible effort. Nor were they the least bit anxious to increase the easy gait they established.
The wagon itself was little more than a bottom and sides of fairly heavy timber. Its back was open, although there was a gate that could be used if sacks, or bulk materials, needed to be held back. There were no springs on the wagon itself, but the seat was very flexibly supported by full elliptic springs, just like some automobiles. Our Fords had rather stiff semi-elliptic ones, and I already knew about springs. At least that much, I did.
I knew very little about Pompy, as I quickly got to call him, but soon began to learn his entire history. I felt sure that we were taking the first of many rides together. He started out by telling me that he never worked in Paso Robles for anyone else but Grandpa Bell. He used to work on a train. Looking out of a window, he liked the way the Salinas River wound along this part of the track. One day, he noticed a very pretty woman standing near her house, watching the train. She smiled, and he smiled back.
Later, on his day off, he rode the train to Paso Robles, and walked to the house of the woman who had smiled at him. A few months later, they were married. He came to Paso Robles, and lived with her family for a while.
But he no longer wanted to be gone on the train all the time. So, on another day off, he walked up the hill to Bell's Store. My Grandfather happened to be standing outside on the sidewalk talking to some people. When he got through talking, Pomp approached him and said, "I know about you, Mr. Bell, and I'd like to work for you, and live in Paso Robles."
"Well, you're a man of sound judgment," the Old Gentleman said, as Pompy related it.
"An' I been workin' here ever since. That been twelve years ago, now. We live jus' a few doors from where I first saw her smile."
I thought that was about the nicest story I ever heard. And I told him so.
He smiled and nodded his head. "It do feel good, and I'm right proud to tell it," he replied.
The city dump was just a place along the river, nobody's property, it appeared, and people used to go wherever they could and dump whatever they didn't want to keep. There was every kind of thing you could think of. Some of it looked interesting, the kinds of things I would like to have.
"Can anybody just take what's here? I asked.
"Sure, you can, but I think I dasn't do it, if I was you, 'less your Daddy says it's all right."
I gave the idea some quick thought and could see that his suggestion probably was a good one. Anyway, I could always come back with him whenever I wanted to.
Our slow plodding ride took us all along the road down by the river. There were rows of leafy trees spreading their branches over shorter willows, clumps of tall grass, all the kinds of things that make you feel happy just seeing it. I had no idea how many little houses squatted along River Road. We went right by Pompy's. It was much like the others, except that it had a picket fence, nicely painted white, and a gate in front of the path. The house itself was brown, and at its windows, had the whitest curtains I had ever seen.
On our way back to The Store, a woman stood at the doorway and waved as we were going by.
"Would you want to come see my house?"
"Oh yes, very much," I replied.
So we stopped for a few minutes, got down and went into Pompy's home. I met his wife, Elizabeth, and she was every bit as pretty as Pompy said. There was a table with a hand-made tablecloth, and there were crocheted things on the chairs, too. Elizabeth had made them all. And she was so polite, and had the happiest smile, too. We couldn't stay long, but she gave me a slice of warm bread she'd just made, and put some jam on it. And she'd never seen me before in her life.
When we left, I thanked her and told her how good the jam and bread was. I already had tasted it, and it really was. She looked pleased, and said, "I think you the finest white boy ever stepped foot in here. You come back, now, you hear? If you want."
It took nearly two hours to go to the dump and back, but before it was over, I hated to see it end. Pompy and I had had such a good time. There would be many others, of course, and I expected them to be like this first one. One of the best things of all was that when I told my mother what I had done and seen, she said, "That was very nice of her. Next time you go, I'll give you a jar of peaches to take to her. I've heard that they call Pompy the Mayor of The Flat."
As I got to know him better, he became a much admired and very interesting friend. His daily routine didn't vary much, and I learned it at once. Each morning, as soon as the SP freight office opened, Pompy would drive there and pick up the freight bills for The Store. Of course, he tended the horses, Dixie and June, which he drove. They never did anything else and were kept near the chicken pens beyond the plumbing shop.
He groomed and fed them as though they were his own children. They plodded at a slow but constant gait, were gentle and easy to handle. There was no whip on that wagon. Pompy loved them, too. He used to pat them on their necks, and they would hang their heads on his shoulders. Every day he looked at their feet, examining their shoes. When they needed it, he took them to Fred's. He and Fred had a nice visit while Fred refitted them with the best new shoes he could make.
There was freight daily, and it had to be paid for before the railroad company would let you take it. So Pompy got the bills of lading, they were called, as soon as they were ready.
"Why are they called lading?" I asked.
"'Cause that's their name," he answered.
Then we drove back to The Store and took them to the office. There, Mr. Critten, usually but sometimes my dad, would make out a check for whatever they owed. It might be a lot of money, sometimes several hundred dollars, or it could be very little. But, even when the freight bill was paid by the company that sent it, the boxes never were picked up until the bill was settled. So, Pompy took the check back to the Depot. The agent, Ray, a kind of rough character I already knew, spread the bills out, and there were many copies, all on thin paper that wrinkled easily. He'd stamp them with a big stamp, banging it down several times on some of them. I remembered that Ray was a nasty-talking person who never seemed to be happy about anything, mostly about his job and people he didn't like. He didn't like many of them. I stood back. Pompy nodded his head a lot, but didn't say much to Ray. Then Pompy would go to the dock where Bell's freight was always stacked, and pick it up. He'd back the wagon up to the loading dock. It was exactly the right height to truck the boxes on without bumping.
Most of the freight went to the grocery department, and there were many cases of all kinds of canned food. Bananas came in big burlap-lined crates. These were flimsy, just barely had enough boards to hold them together. The burlap was loosely tacked, too, so anyone could look in and take a banana if he wanted to. Most of the time, you could see where some had been pulled off. When they were all green, not many were missing. Green bananas don't taste good.
It took most of the morning to make the two round-trips to the freight office, and then the freight had to be unloaded and stored where it belonged. The elevator and back of the grocery were together, and that's where most of the cases were unloaded. Some things just had tags on them, weren't crated at all. Sacks of potatoes, beans, sugar, and sulfur often didn't have any labels. Even an occasional gasoline engine wouldn't have anything to tell whose it was, except for the freight bill. When the same kind of sacks were going to several different places, you had to look on the bill and see how many belonged to Bell's and take just the right number. The drummers [salesmen] who came to Paso Robles to sell things out of their catalogs, would go to all the merchants on the same day, and the freight would come on the same day, too. Frequently, we had to look hard to know who the bananas or the sacks of potatoes were for. Pompy was very good at figuring out these problems. Ham and bacon came in very strong boxes
lined with heavy brown wax paper. These crates were terribly heavy, and a fairly small box could weigh two hundred pounds. Pompy handled these easily. He didn't have muscles like Fred, but he was plenty strong enough. He'd pick up a sack of sulfur and pile it on top of another one, just like that.
Pompy could easily spend a whole morning getting and putting away the freight. The cases of canned goods, mostly, went onto the elevator and then into the basement. Every part of this routine was a slow one, the trips, the standing around at the depot, and the conversations that always accompanied the unloading at the back of The Store. Sometimes, things like gasoline engines, or tires, or really heavy hardware boxes, needed several people to move them. Then, everyone would help in unpacking
them and seeing what they held.
Everything about these trips was fun at the very beginning, but talking with Pompy while we were riding turned out to be the best part. It was he who first gave me a hint that all was not well at The Store. We reached an early understanding that what we said to each other was just between us men, and confidential. We didn't tell anyone else about what was said, so we didn't have to be careful when we talked. Pompy didn't talk much to the clerks, nor really, to any of the other employees. He seemed to be his own boss, or else he always knew exactly what to do. Hardly anyone ever talked about him, whether they liked him, or if they didn't. People just acted as though he wasn't there much of the time. That way, they never found out how much he knew about what went on.
One of the first shocks he gave me was when he said, "Your Grandaddy's got a store full of people stealing him blind."
That took a lot of explaining before I got the idea.
"Just you watch," he said. "Most folks is real honest, but every night, some takes packages home that they ain't bought. It's the same ones every night, too."
He paused and looked at my face, "I never bring anything 'cept my lunch box, and I never take nothin' home, 'less I go in and pay for it where somebody can see me do it."
He talked a lot about this problem. I was pretty sure that my father never suspected anything like that. I told Pompy what I thought, that my dad wouldn't believe it if someone told him.
"Your Daddy's got a idea, all right, kind of. But he don't look at the right ones. The easiest stealers is the ones closest to him. Everything's out where anybody can pick it up, an' they does. Keys to The Store is everywhere. Nobody even knows who's got one." This upset me even more, but I didn't know any way that I could help. I so much wanted to talk to my father, and tell him. But I didn't think he'd understand.
The Store was crowded with merchandise, and it was all paid for, I was sure. So, whatever was carried out must not have been too much. It couldn't possibly be quite that serious, I thought. Common gossip was that the inventory, taken annually, was growing. It was said to be a huge sum, nearly $150,000 presently, up something from last year. When I had the opportunity, I confronted Pompy with that bit of reasoning.
"You' right," he said, "It look that way, but it ain't zactly like it look."
We had a long discussion, or really, Pompy had the discussion, and I listened.
"Look at the hardware," he explained. Then he went on to say that there was no control and no supervision. People get the idea it's their store, they can do whatever they like, and they do it."
His thoughts were clear in his mind and easy to understand. He talked about things that I already knew, but had never before considered their importance. Certainly, there were all kinds of things that no one paid any attention to. Guns, ammunition, tools, nuts and bolts, and other easily movable things. Some of the guns, he said, had been there for years and never would sell. They got counted every year as though they were money. The old things that couldn't be sold remained, while the valuable items became a smaller part of the inventory each year.
I remembered that I had thought about some of these items, but, until now, had attached little importance to these facts. I had explored the hardware department extensively and knew that there were countless items that never in the world would be sold in Paso Robles. There was a surveying outfit, a great big thing with a heavy tripod, many levels and adjustments, and with a telescope that screwed onto a table. It looked very expensive and well-made, fine, perhaps, but surely not the kind of item that would sell. It had been borrowed and used many times, but no one wanted to buy it. There were knives, clocks, dishes, and cooking utensils.
Those hardware men don't know nothin' about buying dishes that women want," he argued. "Takes a woman to do that. And you take the dry goods, nobody looks at the cloth and sees the same things there every year. When I first come here, there was plenty of room on the dry goods shelves. Now, you got to push to get another new one in. The things that's put in the basement to get them out of the way, you seen it same as me."
These observations made an instant and deep impression on me. What I heard and saw were beginning to make sense. It was hard to contain my strong urge to tell someone. My father would be the right one, if I could get him to listen. Everything would have to be just right, too. A couple of times, when I felt he might be in a confiding mood and was talking about The Store, I would ask him some question that I hoped might lead to his telling me something about how a store should be managed. But at the first hint that The Store wasn't being carefully watched, and its business well managed, he swept the conversation away. He'd just talk about how smart his father was, and how much money he had made, all due only to his own efforts and how smart he was.
Within my memory, nor anyone else's that I shared, Grandpa, himself, had never actually done any work. Another handicap, I knew, too, was that my dad acted as if he was still his father's little boy.
There was no way we could talk, man to man, about the things that bothered me. I'd have to grow up, make my decisions, and take off on my own. The Store, in particular, and Paso Robles in general, weren't going to be changed much by me. These were not my life's final destinations. Sadly, I knew these things in my heart; and they hurt. I knew, too, that all this must remain there, forever unshared.
***
Chapter Fifteen:
Until I started school, if we had a good opportunity, Pompy and I met and talked. But opportunities became rare and uncomfortable.
We chose a time and place when neither of us was likely to be noticed by the general population, and always safely away from The Store. It was a doomed pursuit. We both realized this danger and accepted what pleasure it brought for the price it ultimately extracted. There could be no repetition like our discoveries of each other, our first hours
together....
It [had] happened bit by bit. About two weeks after my first ride with him to the freight station, I asked if I could go with him again. He hesitated uneasily before saying, "Well, sure, come on ahead." From the way he said it, I knew something was seriously wrong and felt certain that soon more was to come. Usually he spoke easily, and said, "Sho." Right now he was talking very carefully. When his speech became precise, that was bad. I was impatient, even if it wasn't a happy thought. I wanted to confront it, try to make it better.
We rode on in uncertain silence, Pompy looked straight ahead, and my uneasiness increased. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer, and I asked him directly, "Is something wrong? Did I do something?"
He took a quiet glance at me, then wet his lips several times before he was ready to speak. The freight depot was only about ten blocks from The Store, and the horses felt none of the urgency I did. They clopped along in their usual easy gait. After the first three blocks, we had left the main downtown; the street was relatively empty. It was at this point that Pompy got his voice.
"I got to tell you it all, direc'ly," he said, and nodding his head slightly several times, as though in private conversation with himself, he settled down again in what clearly was as agonizing a time for him as it was for me.
This time, I waited without further prodding, but with no less impatience.
Halfway to the freight office, he turned toward me and started. "When you rode with me before, I was so glad - I
thought...." His voice trailed off and he swallowed a couple of times. He shook his head and repeated the words. But this time he went on, "I felt right proud to have you sittin' besides me. Last night when I got home, Elizabeth, she told me right off that a man, well, one of our colored
neighbors--I might as well say it, our Pastor, come over to her and jus' told her right out, not never again to invite that
white...." He found it impossible to go on.
"Could we do this some other time?" he asked. "This ain't the right day for me."
By now, I was beginning to get an idea, not one I liked, but still I was sure that it had been on account of me that he now suffered. This wasn't the right day for me, either....
***
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Where My Footsteps Wandered.
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