This section examines some of the families who live on Little Hobart Street with the Walls family. First, there are many children there, and Maureen finally has a lot of friends. One of the older girls, Cindy Thompson, makes a special effort to befriend Jeannette, but her efforts are only expended so as to pull Jeannette into the KKK.
Most of the people on the street grudgingly accept some form of public aid, but the Walls family refuses to take any kind of charity. In fact, when things are at their worst, Mom always reminds the kids of how others on Little Hobart Street have it even tougher than they do. First, there is the Grady family which consists of twelve children and no father. Their mother spends her time in bed suffering from migraines, and the boys run wild. The oldest brother has actually shot his pump-action shotgun at Brian and Jeannette. Then, there are the Hall children. All six of them are mentally retarded, and one of them, 42 year old Kenny, has a powerful crush on Jeannette. The kids in the neighborhood get him to strip naked by promising him a date with Jeannette. Then, she has to explain that the other kids have played a trick on him, and that besides, she has a policy about dating older men. The family which has it the hardest is the Pastors. That's because Ginnie Sue Pastor, the mother, is the town whore. She is thirty-three years old and has eight daughters and one son. Because none of them look alike, it's assumed in Welch that they all have different fathers, too. What's most fascinating about Ginnie Sue is that she doesn't look like any of the whores Jeannette knew in Phoenix and California. She looks just like any other Mom.
The oldest daughter, Kathy, is a total pariah at school; not only for her mother's profession, but also for the head lice she seems to carry with her always. She keeps trying to befriend Jeannette, and when she discovers that Jeannette has lived in California, she wants her to come to her house and tell her mother all about it. So, Jeannette agrees, because she wants to see if she can find the answers to some of her questions about being a whore. When they arrive at Ginnie Sue's house, all the little girls are running around happily through the house. Jeannette notices they have all different shades of hair color and skin color. The youngest is the little boy named Sweet Man. Ginnie Sue is sitting at the kitchen table and asks Jeannette for help with a chicken she wants to make into chicken rolls. She wonders if Jeannette knows how to pick a chicken clean, and the girl promptly shows her by picking it so clean that she finds meat that most people miss. Ginnie Sue has never seen anyone do it as well. Jeannette then tells both Ginnie Sue and Kathy all about California, including San Francisco, and even about Las Vegas. Ginnie Sue is impressed with Jeannette's story and tells her, You're the kind of girl who's one day going to be eating roast chicken and those on-fire desserts as much as you want.
On the way home, Jeannette realizes that she hadn't gotten answers she
was seeking. While talking to Ginnie Sue, she had even forgotten she was
a whore. One thing about whoring: it put a chicken on the table.
The people who live on Jeannette's streets are all families who seem
to be completely at the lower end of the social strata, and given the
poor kind of town Welch is, their social circumstances are really quite
low. Ironically, one of the poorest families - Jeannette's family - never
accepts charity no matter how difficult their circumstances and the family
that is the greatest pariah - the Pastors, whose mother is the town whore
- is the one that eats the best, because whoring pays well.
This section is all about fighting and how it's an integral part of life in Welch - perhaps because there is so little to do there or because life there is hard or because of the violent unionizing activities or finally because they work such a difficult job in the mines and come home angry. Whatever the reason, everyone in Welch likes to fight. There are all kinds of brawls in town but the worst are the grudges and feuds that have gone on for years. Mom says it's the fightingest town she's ever seen.
Jeannette and her siblings have always fought back, usually as a team.
One of their most spectacular fights is the Battle of Little Hobart Street.
This fight is audacious and extremely tactical and is prompted by the
behavior of Ernie Goad and his friends. He is a pug-nosed, thick-necked
kid with eyes on the sides of his head like a whale's, and he decides
that it is his sworn mission to drive the Walls family out of Welch. It
begins one day when Jeannette is playing on a tank beside the local armory.
Ernie begins throwing rocks at her and yelling that she and her family
should leave Welch, because they are stinking it up so badly. Jeannette
throws a few rocks back, but with the insults, the idea of the Walls family
living in garbage becomes paramount, and Jeannette has no answer for that.
The Saturday after this skirmish, Ernie and his friends ride their bikes
by the Walls house and throw rocks through the windows. They yell that
the Wall live in garbage and are garbage. Jeannette and Brian chase after
them, but since they are riding bikes, Ernie and his friends can ride
swiftly away. However, Brian comes up with a plan of retaliation: they
quickly build, using an old mattress, a kind of catapult and decide they
want to kill Ernie Goad and his friends. The plan works. When Ernie returns,
he and his friends all have rocks. They are also riding in single file
so as to be able to attack one right after the other. Then, Brian lets
go of the catapult, and Ernie is hit with a thudding sound of many rocks
on his body and on his bike. Brian and Jeannette charge the kids, throwing
handfuls of their own rocks. Ernie and his friends manage to ride away,
but Brian and Jeannette do a victory dance on the rock-strewn street.
This section about fighting is metaphorical to the Walls family - they stick together, they have pride in themselves, and they stand against their enemies.
Clapsaddle, Diane. "TheBestNotes on A Long Way Gone".
TheBestNotes.com.
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